Is My Ocean Research Newsworthy?
If you work in ocean science, you probably have a sense that what you do matters. The question is whether it matters to anyone outside your field – and whether a journalist would agree.
Knowing whether your research, project, or findings are likely to attract media interest is genuinely useful. It helps you decide whether to invest time in a press release or media pitch, shapes how you frame your work for non-specialist audiences, and sets realistic expectations about what media coverage you're likely to get and where.
Here's how journalists and editors think about newsworthiness – and how to apply that thinking to your ocean science work.
Why should anyone care?
This is the first question any journalist or editor asks, and it's worth asking yourself honestly before you reach out to anyone.
Not everything that is scientifically significant is newsworthy to a general audience. A rigorous methodological advance in ocean observation may be enormously important to the field. But for the non-specialist? It doesn’t really matter. Conversely, a relatively modest finding can be highly newsworthy if it connects to something people already care about.
Stories that tend to attract media interest share at least one of the following characteristics:
There's something surprising or unexpected
There's something that directly affects people's lives – locally, nationally, or globally
There's a solution to a recognisable problem
There's conflict, tension, or a high-stakes decision
There's something that provokes an emotional response, like wonder, concern, hope, or (more often that not in today’s media) outrage
There's something quirky, strange, or counterintuitive
Ocean science is well placed on several of these. Research on plastic pollution, marine heatwaves, coral bleaching, overfishing, and biodiversity loss touches people's lives and emotions in ways that make it newsworthy. Research on species that nobody has heard of, processes that are important but invisible, or findings that are significant but heavily qualified is harder to place, though not impossible with the right framing.
The question is not just "is this important?" but "is this important in a way that a non-specialist can understand and care about?"
Global or local – who does it affect?
One of the key factors editors consider is proximity. How close is this story to the lives of the people who will read it?
Many publications favour stories with broad or global relevance. This doesn't mean your research has to span the entire ocean or involve hundreds of sites. It means the implications of your work should resonate beyond a specific location or community. Research on seagrass loss in a particular estuary becomes broadly relevant when framed around what seagrass does for coastal communities everywhere, or what its loss signals about the state of coastal ecosystems globally.
Local and regional stories are absolutely worth telling, but they tend to find homes in local and regional publications rather than national or international outlets. Knowing which type of story you have helps you target the right outlets rather than pitching to publications that won't run it.
Why now?
Timing is one of the most underappreciated factors in media interest. Editors want stories that are timely – connected to something happening now, something new, or something that has just changed.
The most obvious timing hook is a new publication. A paper just accepted or about to go live, a report being released, a project launching – these are natural news moments. If you want media coverage of your research, the best time to reach out to a journalist is before publication, not after. Give them time to read the material, ask questions, and have the story ready to go live when the paper is published and/or any embargo lifts.
But newness isn't the only timing hook. Old research or ongoing situations can become newly newsworthy when:
They connect to a story already getting media attention, like a policy debate, a climate event, or an international negotiation
There has been a significant change in status or outcome
A deadline or decision point is approaching
Something that was promised hasn't happened
If you're sitting on research that felt like old news, it's worth asking whether something in the current moment makes it newly relevant.
Is everyone already talking about it?
Counterintuitively, a topic that is getting a lot of media attention can be harder to place, not easier. If every outlet has already covered ocean plastic this week, convincing an editor to run another ocean plastic story requires a genuinely fresh angle.
This is one of the reasons early contact with journalists matters. If you can reach out before your paper is published, before the press release goes out, before everyone else is pitching stories around the same issue, you have a much better chance of securing coverage.
The exception is when a widely covered topic is being approached from only one angle and you can offer another. If coverage of a marine conservation issue is consistently missing the perspective of fishing communities, or if a policy debate is being reported without reference to the scientific evidence, for example, that gap is a story.
A note on the current media landscape
Ocean science journalism has changed significantly in recent years. Traditional print outlets have reduced their science coverage. Specialist publications have closed. The loss of Hakai Magazine, for example, was felt across the ocean community and beyond. At the same time, new platforms and formats have emerged, like newsletters, podcasts, social media channels, and smaller science and subject-specific outlets that reach engaged, knowledgeable audiences.
This means that "media coverage" for ocean researchers now means something broader than a piece in a national newspaper. A well-placed article in a specialist outlet, a newsletter that reaches policymakers in your field, or a podcast interview with an engaged ocean audience may be more valuable than a brief mention in a general publication.
Think carefully about where your audience actually gets their information, and pitch accordingly.
If you're not sure whether your research is newsworthy or how to frame it for a media audience, get in touch.
