My favourite interaction with an academic took place years ago, after a big-name education-research conference. One of the research papers included an interesting finding, so I’d written it up as a news story.
As soon as the article was published, the academic rang up to complain. The news article lacked the nuance of the full academic study, she said: it focused on one finding at the expense of everything else.
I explained that I’d been asked to write a 300-word news story – space for nuance was unfortunately limited.
“Well,” the academic harrumphed, “perhaps you need to rethink your priorities.”
With a couple of decades’ hindsight, I can (almost) see her point. Yes, it was somewhat risible that she would expect the rest of the news agenda to take a backseat to her research findings. But, on the other hand, she had poured blood, sweat and grant money into that research. It was extremely important to her, and she didn’t want it reduced to a snapshot.
So how can academics, researchers and policy influencers attract media coverage without feeling that their work has been undermined or misrepresented?
1. Embrace dumbing down
There are a number of disparaging terms – such as “dumbing down” and “sexing up” – used to describe reducing a detailed policy report or academic study to a single news line.
In reality, neither is an accurate reflection of what a press release and any subsequent news stories achieve.
Let's think about dumbing down first. When CBBC screens a half-hour children’s version of A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, it isn’t dumbing down Shakespeare. The original play still exists to be read and appreciated. But the children’s version makes it accessible to a new audience – and may eventually encourage them to seek out the original.
And then there's sexing up. When a film is released, the trailer condenses all the highlights into two minutes. The aim is not to reproduce the film – it's to grab your attention and make you want to see the full film. Or, at the very least, to make you aware that the film exists.
A press release works in the same way. It doesn’t replace the report itself: it raises awareness and makes it accessible to a new and wider audience.
Tip: You can link to the original report or research in the first few paragraphs of your press release – and journalists will often reproduce that link in the newspaper article.
2. Find the story
A lot of academic and policy writing is discursive: findings must first be placed into context. Writing for the media works the other way round: the new finding is what matters most, so it must come first.
Where there is more than one new finding, weigh up which one will affect, shock or surprise people more – or which will add a new dimension to an existing news story. That finding goes in your first paragraph; any additional findings can then be mentioned in paragraphs two or three.
Readers of news stories, particularly online, have minimal patience. A million other things are competing for their attention, so all the most important information must be included in the first two or three paragraphs. Context can be included – but should usually be limited to one or two sentences midway through the release, with more detail in the notes for editors.
The exception would be if the context creates the story. For example, imagine you have just conducted a piece of research demonstrating that giant pandas enjoy thrash metal music. This on its own would be your top line – the first paragraph of your news story. But your second paragraph could provide the context that makes readers care: “Giant pandas are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity, and specialists long believed that playing smooth jazz would encourage mating. These new findings, however, reveal that zookeepers may have more success if they opt for Megadeth instead.”
Tip: Write your key point as a single, active sentence. If you need more than one sentence, then you haven’t yet identified the nub of your story.
3. Make your readers care
When you’ve been immersed in conducting a piece of research and then writing it up, its worth can feel self-evident. As the writer of the report, you understand the context into which its findings fit – and therefore why it’s exciting.
Your readers, however, most likely will not. So use your press release to explain why they should care. Often, this is about how you choose to present your key finding.
For example, in Agenda’s work with the Society of Radiographers, our press releases are often aiming to draw attention to the chronic shortage of radiographers in hospitals. To most readers, however, a 15 per cent shortage of radiographers won’t mean anything. So we show them why they should care by framing it in a way they can relate to: “Cancer patients are waiting months for treatment, because of a shortage of radiographers to conduct diagnostic scans and delivery radiotherapy.”
Tip: Think about the person you want to reach. Then think about what matters to them – their hopes, their fears. How can you frame your report or research findings in a way that will make them care?
4. Relate it to real people
In many cases, the most effective way to show why a report is important is to humanise it: to show what it means not at a broader policy level, but to individual people.
For example, compare: “Ensuring that children have access to age-appropriate, curated reading material is vital for the educational and economic wellbeing of society,” with: “In some areas with no public libraries, teachers are reporting that children are starting secondary school still unable to read fluently. By Year 9, teachers say, these children are often persistently truant.”
The second version translates the argument into real terms for the reader, and could spur them into action.
Tip: Be real, and think about the ‘So what?’ element of the story for people’s everyday lives.
5. Mind your language
A teacher will talk about PPA and ECTs; a healthcare worker will talk about CDCs and AHPs. An academic might talk about intersectionality or political praxis. All fields have their jargon – and when you work in an area and hear those terms all the time, your ear becomes accustomed to them, and you forget that they're jargon.
For example, we recently wrote a press release for the Society of Radiographers, pointing out that the lack of registration for sonographers means that some high-street baby-scan clinics have misdiagnosed foetuses as malformed. Practising sonographers do not use the term “malformed”. Instead, they would use the less alarming – but also much vaguer – “has physical conditions”.
Academics, researchers and policy influencers work in nuance; journalists are not nuanced. Journalists also receive around 100 emails a day. If the meaning of your press release is ambiguous or they don’t grasp its significance immediately, they won’t do some assiduous Googling to work out its importance – they’ll just hit “delete”.
So the first rule is to remove all jargon and phrase your findings in a way that is meaningful to a layperson.
Tip: Journalists use the language of their readers. If you have five seconds to catch their attention and stop them hitting the delete key, then use language that will mean something to them immediately.
6. Don’t invalidate your own research
Academics are trained to consider their own shortcomings: to reflect on the ways in which their research falls short. And they know better than to make sweeping statements about topics for which there is no concrete evidence.
As we’ve already established, however, the media does not deal in nuance. The media prefers certainties: either your research demonstrates something or it does not. If you list the ways in which your work falls short, you risk journalists assuming it’s invalid.
Equally, journalists want to report that something will definitely happen – if they think there’s a chance it won’t, then they will drop the story. For example, “Meteorologists say it will snow in July” is a story; “Meteorologists say it could snow in July” is not.
That said, most journalists will accept a judicious “may” or “possibly” to cover an academic’s back. For example, while your research may demonstrate that giant pandas enjoy thrash metal, it doesn’t actually look at their specific band preferences. So it would be fine to quote the author of the study saying, “This means that if you pass the panda enclosure on a Saturday night, you may hear them banging their heads to Metallica,” rather than “You will hear them banging their heads to Metallica.”
Tip: Be honest, be judicious, but don’t add to many caveats.
7. Start early
It’s never too early to think about who you’re trying to reach and what they care about. If media coverage is important to you, consider your potential audience at the point when you’re generating any survey or research questions. Can you add a question that might give you a stronger news line for a press release? Is there a way to phrase that question that appeals directly to your ideal audience?
This is Agenda’s area of expertise: we are experienced at thinking about how to frame policy issues for a wider, non-specialist audience. And we are adept at interpreting complex information in a way that stays true to the authors’ intentions, building trust and confidence in your expertise – while also generating coverage that speaks to readers’ hearts and minds.
Tip: Invite experts to support your media ambitions. You bring the insight and research and we’ll weave the stories.
