RELAY: Communicating Research

RELAY has piloted, adapted, and consolidated an approach that emphasises building the capacity of editors, journalists, and researchers. The package of tools, techniques, and activities RELAY has developed include:

• Publications for journalists and researchers to support them to communicate research. For example, "Getting into the Kitchen: Media Strategies for Researchers" is a publication for researchers to communicate their findings to the media. All of these resources can be accessed at the Panos/RELAY website.
• Media scans and stakeholder mappings of research issues in target countries.
• Multi-stakeholder forums to bring together editors, journalists, researchers, and civil society actors to discuss constraints and opportunities for improved reporting on research.
• Fellowships for journalists, including editorial mentoring to report research. The fellows will produce content for print and electronic media.
• A series of methodologies delivered in workshop format to train journalists and researchers and to build relationships between them.

In order to share the programme's learning and knowledge, RELAY is producing case studies and reports, including:

• "Reporting Tax Research: Connecting Researchers and Journalists for Improved Media Coverage and Debate in Kenya", which describes some of the methods and activities developed by Relay and how they were applied in Kenya to the issue of tax and governance and the results of these interventions.
• "Research Makes the News: Strengthening Media Engagement with Research to Influence Policy", which emphasises the need for skills, knowledge, and relationship-building among researchers and journalists to improve reporting of research. It also shows that civil society organisations are key actors in getting research into the news.

Relay is exploring new ways to work more closely with civil society organisations. Further case study material and reports will be published throughout 2011.

Communication for Development.

In its five years of operation, RELAY has developed both an understanding of the constraints to communicating research through the media, and methods to address these constraints. These constraints differ to some degree according to the country context, but can be broadly summarised in the following way:

• Journalists lack confidence to report on new and potentially complex subjects, and often have limited knowledge of development issues and how they affect people's lives.
• Researchers often have limited understanding of how to communicate their findings clearly to non-specialist audiences such as journalists.
• Editors often do not see the value of reporting on research and are unsure that it can be commercially viable.
• Journalists and researchers often find it hard to work together. Professional misunderstandings can arise between the two groups in terms of the value and distinct professional skills they each bring to improve the reporting of research through the media.

Allan Odianmbo, a journalist at the Business Daily in Nairobi, Kenya, said: "The Relay programme has been quite helpful in honing my writing skills. Today, my articles are filled with input widely sourced from various researchers and think tanks. My editors appreciate this very much because it also enhances the element of objectivity."

As a result of a RELAY workshop held in Zambia, researchers told Panos RELAY staff how their attitudes had changed. Ginny Bond, an anthropologist, said, "I think we haven't been engaging enough with the media and recognising the potential for that." A Zambian researcher, Musonda Simwinga, added, "We [researchers and journalists] have actually a similar - a common - goal and that is to inform the public."