tip-sheets

Before she was a journalist, Elizabeth Arnold spent several seasons fishing salmon commercially in her home state of Alaska. In 1985, she began reporting for Juneau’s NPR member station KTOO, covering local environmental and political stories. From 1991 to 2006, she served as a political correspondent out of NPR’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., where she covered campaigns, Congress and the White House

Reporting on academic research can push journalists out of the comfortable realm of words and into the less-familiar territory of numbers. Like it or not, though, statistics often comprise a key element of scientific studies, so it’s helpful to have some familiarity with the basics.

“Follow the money,” the editor bellowed at the cub reporter. That’s something you hear a lot in newsrooms. And top reporters follow that advice.