Every five to seven years, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conducts a comprehensive assessment of the state of the climate worldwide. The reports resulting from this assessment contain data and insights reflecting “years, if not decades, of work carried out by some of the brightest minds in the world,” says Martina Igini, the editor-in-chief of Earth.Org. “The importance they carry cannot be overstated.” Naturally, reporters flock to cover the main findings of each report—some stopping there, and others combing through its pages to gather myriad story ideas.
Governing bodies and scientific organizations produce deeply researched reports to give a sweeping view of a particular field, such as climate change, health equity, and artificial intelligence. Reports of this scale might inform policy decisions, guide international agreements, or influence scientific research priorities. Despite their usefulness, these documents can be intimidating and difficult for journalists to parse, particularly because of their overwhelming amount of information. The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report published in 2023, for example, weighed in at a whopping 7,705 pages.
“The sheer size of these reports can make them a little daunting to pick up,” says Amanda Heidt, a freelance journalist who covers health for Nature and other publications. “You do need to put in a bit more effort.” Comprehensive reports can also be steeped in dry, technical, and specialized language that might take time to decipher.
But the extra effort is worth it, reporters say: These documents can be powerful tools in the hands of journalists, providing a trove of data and telling figures, a comprehensive analysis of the research in a field, and personal anecdotes than can propel a story’s narrative. “They are ‘one-stop shopping’ with so much contained,” says Usha Lee McFarling, a reporter at STAT.
I brought together a group of reporters to ask what advice they have for tackling major reports in their respective beats. The journalists shared their insights on what to look for in the sea of graphs, figures, and text and how to build a compelling story around what they learn. (This roundtable discussion has been edited here for length and clarity.) Its participants include:
- Nicolás Bustamante Hernández, freelance reporter covering environmental science
- Amanda Heidt, freelance reporter covering health and academia
- Martina Igini, editor-in-chief of Earth.Org
- Nicola Jones, freelance reporter covering advances in tech
- Usha Lee McFarling, staff reporter at STAT covering inequities in health care
Claudia: What role has covering reports played in your work? How are they different from other science coverage that you’ve done, in terms of what they might add to a story and what challenges they pose?
Nicola: Reports play a large role in my work, both as sources for news stories and as context for larger features. I write a lot of “everything you ever wanted to know about (something)”-type features for Yale Environment 360 on large topics like coral reef health. For my reporting on [artificial intelligence], I lean a lot on the Stanford AI Index Report as an extensive “Wikipedia entry” of what’s known, unknown, hot, emerging [in the field]. Sometimes it’s hard to get in touch with the authors of such reports, and those authors are very careful in how they speak because these reports often have a mandate to be non-prescriptive or policy-neutral for sensitive subjects. And you need to go beyond the report to find any kind of “story”; the info can be quite dry.
Amanda: If you do a lot of writing about DEI in academia, as I do, you’ll regularly come across this resistance to change rooted in the idea that there’s no data to support what everyone’s lived experience will tell you is true. [Comprehensive DEI] reports are a crucial first step in building the foundational knowledge needed to support further action, and they often provide a roadmap for how to get started. I also like that they’re based on interviews, and so even if the final report is very dry, there is lived experience underlying it all.
Usha: I often cover very complex topics, whether it be climate change impact or, now, health disparities. I sometimes cover reports as daily stories if they are newsy enough, but I find the most value in using them to learn about a particular topic. Often, they include massive amounts of information and citations back to the most important papers, so I don’t have to search through the literature myself.
Nicolás: Reports are a fundamental resource for covering scientific and environmental issues, as they are usually produced by prestigious institutions and organizations that present the results of their research. Furthermore, as these reports are periodically produced, they enable journalistic follow-ups, allowing for the tracking of the evolution of social and scientific phenomena.
Claudia: How do you sift through long reports to find useful information or concrete story ideas? When do you have to roll up your sleeves and read the whole thing and when might that not be the case? How do your approaches differ when you’re on deadline vs. have all the time you need to go through a report?
Nicola: I usually find reports easier to read than most scientific papers: Although they can be long, they are usually written in plain English and contain more context. I rarely read the whole thing; it’s more a matter of skimming. The main points are almost always well highlighted by executive summaries and press materials. There are often gems in the data tables or graphs that aren’t necessarily spelled out in writing. Sometimes there’s a story in what’s not in a report. Several Comment pieces I have edited for Nature made the point that some concept that deserves attention didn’t even get a mention in an important report). [In one, for example, researchers argued that disaster risk-reduction reports often overlook the potential usefulness of AI.]
Amanda: Most of my experience has been covering the reports themselves as the news, rather than using them to generate story ideas. If there’s a particular topic within the report [that] I want more detail on, then I might read more deeply into a particular section. I don’t deviate much from that based on deadline.
Usha: When I am just looking for story ideas, I simply read. I look for things that are curious, that are interesting to me, that don’t make sense, or for anecdotes. When I was preparing to create a new beat on covering health equity for STAT, I decided to read Unequal Treatment, a 780-page [National Academies] report that was nearly 20 years old but many people in the field kept referring to. I realized all of the issues health equity researchers were laying out in 2021 were many of the same issues that the report had laid out almost two decades ago. That realization became a story I wrote about why so little had changed. That one I read all the way through and I actually still refer to it.
Nicolás: Everything depends on the timing and the situation. A useful and efficient way to work with reports is to request them in advance from the responsible organization. It is rare to have the opportunity to read an entire report. One of the few times when there is enough time to extensively work on a report is when it is not newsworthy or tied to a current event but rather comes into our hands because we intend to write an independent article about it.
Claudia: What are the most useful pieces of a big report? Is it the data, the analysis, the narratives, or some other aspect?
Amanda: At least for the National Academies reports, I do appreciate that they include a lot of (anonymized) personal interviews. Data is all well and good, but I’m particularly interested in the human elements of STEM and academia. Not just “here’s some science,” but “what does it mean to be a scientist?”
Usha: I would say it is all of the pieces and how they contribute to the results [and findings] of the report, which are the most important aspect if I am covering the report as a news story. The data is critical to back up those findings and often reports have clearly laid [them] out in beautiful charts and links to actual data which we can use to make our own visualizations. I read the narrative sections but they are often written by committee and have a very dry, institutional tone that can sometimes undermine the importance of the message. That is why it’s important to not write stories directly from reports but follow up by interviewing some of the authors, so you can get better quotes and more energy in your narrative.
Martina: I agree with my colleagues—every part can be useful, depending on what you’re looking for and on the type of report you’re dealing with. I cover climate reports, so for me, data is probably the first aspect I look at. Every other part of the report typically provides much-needed context and elaboration on that data so it’s equally important for me to take that into consideration.
Nicolás: Personally, I find analyses to be a fundamental part of reports, as they provide discussion of both the results and the authors’ opinions, offering deeper and more human insights into the subject at hand.
Claudia: How do you find appropriate outside sources since these reports often have many contributors, and how do you make the best use of their time to help you process the report?
Amanda: I’m usually looking for personal stories to flesh out the data highlighted in the report. When I was writing about a National Academies report highlighting racial bias [for Nature], there were all these statistics demonstrating the ways in which Black students have been disadvantaged in academia. I was interested in hearing about the opposite scenario—what it would feel like to walk into a space after experiencing overt discrimination and be able to take it for granted that you’re accepted. So, I ended up seeking out people who work for or have attended HBCUs and asked them what it meant to find community in those spaces.
Nicola: I’m more commonly using a report as background context to support a feature I’m already writing, so the other sources are not usually being asked to interpret a report, rather simply to add their own perspective or specific expertise. I do always ask everyone, “I’m referring a lot to the data [and] context in Report X, is that a sensible thing to do?” For example, in a piece I wrote about nuclear energy for Knowable Magazine, I used a lot of information from a Union of Concerned Scientists’ report called “Advanced” Isn’t Always Better, but acknowledged from my source that this report was “criticized by some for being ideologically antinuclear.”
Martina: I have managed to build a good network of experts on different topics I can reach out to if I need a comment on a report. I would never ask them to help me interpret the report but rather more specific questions. However, I do sometimes ask for their take on the report and always get insightful responses.
Usha: Sometimes leaders of the committees [for reports] are figureheads and aren’t the best people get quotes from, so I like to talk to people who are closer to the material or may have done some of the writing even if they aren’t a big name. I may ask what they think is most important [or] if there is anything they disagree with in the report. (You’d be surprised how often this happens.) I have learned to ask if anyone left the committee [because] this person usually has an interesting viewpoint! I will be fully honest if I have only had time to skim the report and ask them if there is something, a chapter, a detail, a figure, they think I should spend time looking at and why.
Claudia: Once you’ve combed through a report, how do you get from that stage to planning a story? How do you decide what to pull into your story and what to leave out?
Nicola: The answer to this question is all about audience and situation. If the report is a huge one that everyone is covering (like an IPCC report) then it is probably best to distinguish your story by drilling down into the smaller points that will be of specific interest to your audience. For example, in a story for Nature about plastic chemicals, I chose to pull out specific points about transparency and analytical techniques that other reporters won’t have bothered with.
Martina: If I’m writing a news piece about the report’s release, I will typically not go into too much detail but just outline the main findings. (Here’s an example.) For more in-depth pieces, I may not necessarily start from the report or make the report the focus of the story. For example, I used the UN report in the [story I mentioned above] as the starting point for an opinion piece on the role of cities in sustainable development ahead of COP29. I cite the report and use some of its key findings to support my argument, though they are not the focal point of the story.
Amanda: As others have noted, it definitely depends on the audience. Most of my experience working with reports has been for outlets where the readers are academics and researchers, and the story is focused on the release of the report as the news. In those cases, I use the executive summary as a guide for structure and intersperse it with more specific examples that the audience might be interested in, usually pulled from my reporting or from sidebars in the report. In more rare instances, I have used the reports to flesh out context in other stories, in which case I’m typically pulling general statistics to highlight the scope and breadth of an issue.
Claudia: How do you turn these often dry reports into compelling narratives and stories that feel relevant and approachable?
Nicola: I often find the reports compelling. Box-outs [text boxes separate from the main text that can highlight supplementary information, such as case reports, summaries or statistics] often contain specific examples of companies, events or research that support the report’s main points. One can Google those companies, events, [and] research and find the full story. Once you find an exciting one, calling the people in question gets you the goods. More often, I find anecdotes independently and use the reports to back them up. Sometimes the opposite happens: The report suggests that the anecdotes are false.
Usha: Well, as Ann Richards said (approximately) you can only put so much lipstick on a pig. Bravo to those who do it, but I pride myself on my narrative writing and I don’t try to make a report a gripping narrative if that material is not there. I often cover reports as straightforward news—unless their existence, lack of action on them, or fights over them become the story, which can be a gripping narrative. I think some reports are dry and I feel the service I am providing readers is describing them as clearly and succinctly as I can without the jargon they contain.
Martina: Take the report’s findings and find a way to make them resonate with the reader. Use real-life examples and talk to people who are affected by the report’s findings. I’m thinking IPCC reports—if I had to cover a section on how climate change is affecting (and will continue to affect) sea level rise, for example, I would probably start by talking about small island states and talk to people who live in these areas to provide a human angle to an otherwise quite dry story, as you rightly called it.
Claudia: What’s the most challenging report you have written about and what did you learn from it?
Amanda: I honestly haven’t found them to be challenging from a technical standpoint, but they can sometimes be emotionally heavy. It’s frustrating to hear about the obstacles people have been facing for so long, and to see the solutions right there, if only people in power would prioritize them.
Usha: Without a doubt, the IPCC reports. They are so long, and cover so much ground. I learned you have [to] take a slice of it, find a story within, and not let it overwhelm you.
Martina: I have to agree with Usha—IPCC reports are challenging from both a technical and an organizational perspective. It takes time to go through the report, identify what’s worth covering, and find a way to break it down that is easy to digest and most importantly engaging. I also find them extremely insightful, so it is my pleasure to read them and cover them for my audience.
Claudia López Lloreda is a science reporter at The Transmitter covering neuroscience. She received her bachelor’s degree in cellular-molecular biology from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, and her PhD in neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania. She was the 2021 Mass Media Fellow at STAT and worked as a news intern for Science. Her work has also appeared in Wired, Undark, Scientific American, Smithsonian Magazine, and Science News. Claudia is a TON early-career fellow sponsored by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.