Which types of research are newsworthy? UK newspapers 2006-2015 citing Web of Science journals

This paper introduces a citation-based method to obtain updated and extended information about news coverage of research. ProQuest was used to search for citations to 9,639 Science and 3,412 Social Science journals from eight UK daily newspapers during 2006-2015. Most Science (95%) and Social Science (94%) journals were never cited by these newspapers. Half of the cited Science journals covered medical or health-related topics, whereas 43% of the Social Sciences journals were related to psychiatry or psychology. There was no general trend for news coverage to increase or decrease over time. A content analysis of the citing news stories found that 94% mentioned journals to report research findings. From these, 60% described research extensively and 53% used more than one source. There were variations in the extent to which newspapers reported good or bad news and most news stories had no comments about the quality of the reported research. Finally, a small number of prestigious British journals were cited particularly often. In conclusion, whilst it is challenging to attract press coverage for non-health research, it is less difficult than previously thought for the social sciences and researchers should be encouraged to promote health-related studies and those in prestigious journals. <br>