Holding Science to Account: A Qualitative Study of Practices and Challenges of Watchdog Science Journalism

This study examines how journalists act as “watchdogs” of science through 21 semi-structured interviews with journalists who have reported on research integrity issues. It illuminates the time- and labor-intensive nature of this form of journalism, which often requires multiple interviews and extensive document research to reach a sufficient threshold of evidence. As a result, the feasibility of potential stories sometimes plays a bigger role in whether they are reported than their public importance, especially in resource-poor newsrooms. The findings underscore the precarity of a form of journalism which has arguably never been more important, but also never more under threat.