Global Science Journalism Report
Global Science Journalism Report
Sources used Where do people get story ideas from? Table 5 shows ranked story sources (comparing respondents who frequently and occasionally derive stories from the listed sources). Top story sources are 'personal contacts' (94%) and 'conferences' (90%). The respondents (N=454) told us that they were looking for reliability in a source (95%), relevance to the topic (93%) and originality of story (91%); additionally, they rated: recentness (89%); links/contacts (88%); the authority of the writer/journal2 (85%); local commentary and independent comment (84% each); comment from outside the country (81%); and coverage of inaccessible journals (81%).
Table 5: Q21 Main story sources Q21 Story ideas
% respondents
Total N
Q21i Personal contacts
94
571
Q21b Conference
90
827
Q21a Press release/press officers
88
832
Q21c Other media outlets
88
666
Q21k Blog by working scientist
88
541
Q21f Other science journal
85
535
Q21l Newswire/press agencies
82
547
Q21d Nature
70
789
Q21e Science
69
798
Q21x Other source
69
52
Q21g Exhibition
68
528
Q21m Alphagalileo/Eurekalert
68
523
Q21n Other blogs
68
489
Q21j Social networking
66
793
Q21w Blogs
61
237
Q21p Scidev.net
49
334
Q21h Science media centre
41
230
Note: Question was worded: Where and how often do you get story ideas from the following sources?
Science and Nature and other science journals are less frequently consulted in North and Southern Africa than elsewhere. Conferences are used less as a news source by science journalists working in Europe, Asia or Latin America
2
It is important to note that when this question was divided into two items — authority of writer and authority of journal — numbers were only fractionally lower at 78% and 77% respectively.
20
20