“We do the best we can with the information we have” Science reporting referencing retracted papers in the UK and Finland

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the practical difficulties for journalists reporting scientific research that is later retracted and to examine how retracted research is framed in online news.

Design/methodology/approach

This article reports two studies involving content analysis and interviews. It integrates macro-level quantitative insights (online news article framing and content) with micro-level qualitative data (journalists’ professional constraints). The content analysis used a sample of 73 online news stories reporting on 21 high-attention retracted articles identified from the Retraction Watch database and Altmetric.com. The qualitative component involved semi-structured interviews with 10 UK and 10 Finnish journalists to explore their lived experiences and decision-making processes about the potential for research to be retracted.

Findings

While factual neutral reporting was the most prevalent frame, it was closely followed by Sensationalism in descriptors and frames reflecting distrust in science. Media narratives typically focus on individual wrongdoing and data fraud, often overlooking systemic causes of retraction. The interviews revealed a universal absence of a systematic monitoring process for retractions among journalists in both countries. This deficit is due to time pressures, a lack of financial incentives for retrospective checks and a reliance on luck or informal networks to detect retractions. Consequently, updating news stories following a retraction is rare, and when updates occur, they often fail to explain in plain language how the retraction influences the original claims.

Research limitations/implications

The reliance on Altmetric.com introduced a potential bias towards English-language sources and countries, and the inclusion of blogs in the “news media” classification may overrepresent alternative narratives. The findings reveal a critical gap between the academic community’s self-correction and the capacity for similar journalistic responsiveness, contributing to the persistent circulation of misleading scientific information.

Originality/value

This study is the first to systematically investigate the challenges of dealing with retractions from the perspective of science journalism. By comparing the UK and Finnish contexts, it shows that different structural pressures lead to the same practical outcome: a reliance on fortune to correct the public record.