Not long ago I wrote a piece for a parenting magazine about music and the good things it can do for infants. It wasn’t about the Mozart effect or about building a smarter baby. But without going back to check, I am nearly certain that piece includes the phrase “research suggests.” Probably within the first few paragraphs and maybe more than once. 

Like most platforms for service journalism, parenting magazines rely on research to help them respond – with authority and credibility – to the anxieties and interests of their readers. In my journalism, I work hard to be responsible with that phrase, “research suggests,” to avoid causing undue alarm and to resist prescribing easy answers to complicated questions. I read the research I cite and, as much as possible, I check my understanding with the individuals who produce it.

Nonetheless, I know that I am presenting their work in big, broad strokes, without a expert’s precision and subtlety. Part of that owes to the nature of journalism. But another part owes to the nature of research. It seems necessary, at least to some extent, to repackage and distill academic research for non- academic audiences. If research cannot speak to the people with the most at stake in applying it, then what is its value ultimately? And who is responsible for leading that conversation.That’s something I wonder about, especially given how much easier it is to trust a conclusion that “research suggests” is true.