Dr. Rachel Lovell was recently featured in a Journalist’s Resource webinar advocating for reporter-researcher collaborations. Dr. Lovell, assistant professor of criminology and director of the Criminology Research Center, noted that reporters and researchers often have the same types of questions about an issue or problem because researchers often have already started trying to answer those questions, and they can help journalists track down data and other information.

“Especially for these big policy-type [projects], you really need a researcher to help you understand,” she said. “Talking to the individuals who are also asking similar questions I think is an important way to contribute to this, to the conversation. And [researchers] often use data but in different ways. Researchers tend to be able to know where to find the data to answer those questions or have done their own stuff and/or can help point a reporter toward where to start looking for or where data might exist to answer some of the questions that they’re interested in.”

The Journalist’s Resource is a project of Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy and the Carnegie-Knight Initiative, which curates, summarizes, and contextualizes high-quality research on newsy public policy topics.

A recording of the webinar and five key takeaways from the discussion can be found here.