Building Your Content Foundation: Research and Data Foundation for Great Brand Journalism

Great brand journalism starts well before any writing happens. The research phase is the most important because it’s where stories earn their credibility and right to exist.

This guide walks through how to build a research foundation that supports newsroom-grade storytelling, grounded in journalism best practices and Stacker’s own proprietary newswire data.

(See ^^ we built the data foundation 😉)

Understand the Landscape First

Writing a story that doesn’t cover anything new isn’t news. But many stories build upon the facts reported in other stories. The goal is to figure out what’s already known, who studies it, and where the gaps are.

Know the experts and institutions

Conduct thorough research by reading stories in similar publications to the one you’re targeting and read up on what the experts are currently saying around the topic.

This foundational work helps avoid reinventing content that’s already been covered extensively. Dig into work by thought leaders and authoritative institutions: universities, think tanks, government agencies, nonprofits with their fingers on the pulse.

Look for long-term expertise, like institutions publishing recurring reports or data. These reports contain a wealth of information, show trends over time, and often surface the most important insights in executive summaries.

Find what’s missing

Review academic papers, industry white papers, and credible news coverage. Identify blind spots, unaddressed questions, or local-level angles that haven’t been explored. This step ensures your story adds value rather than repeats common knowledge.

Extra points for original angles. We know higher inflation means higher grocery prices, but can you illustrate that in a way no one has before? Some approaches:

• Tell a compelling individual story that illustrates a larger issue, making it more personal and understandable.
• Challenge the conventional narrative around a topic.
• Surface key research takeaways that are impactful but haven’t already been covered.
• Connect your perspective or original data to relevant news, also known as “newsjacking.”

When searching for original angles, make sure you’re accurately comparing data or topics. Don’t inflate correlation with causation.

Determine which voices you need

To develop original stories, you’ll often want commentary from relevant experts to support your angle and add dimension to your data.

What type of voices do you need to tell the story well and with objectivity? Subject-matter experts, policymakers, or people directly affected? All of the above?

Example: When covering housing shortages, a macro lens is important. An economist can speak to supply and demand, while renters can provide memorable insights and emotional texture by describing what it’s like to search for apartments that don’t fit their budgets.

For health stories, researchers and doctors are crucial. But policymakers and patients themselves round out the picture.

Using diverse voices across different socioeconomic, gender, and geographic backgrounds helps tell the story from multiple perspectives and adds editorial tension.

Build the Data Core

Proprietary data is some of the most valuable material an organization can bring to its editorial program. Here’s how to assess what you have and strengthen it.

Audit your internal data

Look through what your organization already has and parse what’s significant:

• List datasets: user behavior, surveys, regional breakdowns, financial trends, operational insights.
• Identify data that is exclusive, atypical, or especially representative.
• Determine which variables or timeframes might reveal meaningful trends.

If you don’t have the data already, can you partner with an organization that does? You’re likely not starting from zero. A co-produced piece of content can add a unique angle to your story and help you build a stronger foundation.

Complement with high-quality public data

While companies may have extensive data, media outlets may hesitate to republish findings without the backing of a third-party research company like McKinsey or a thorough methodology that explains how the data was collected and whether the sample size was representative.

A useful way to substantiate, add depth, or contrast your story’s findings is to use publicly available sources: Census, BLS, CDC, IRS, NOAA, Pew, or state and local data portals.

Public data strengthens credibility and enables you to multiply the impact of your story with localized angles for wider syndication.

Curious about localization? Check out how Stacker can take editorial and make it specific to the geos you’re looking to reach.

Pressure-test whether the data supports a real narrative

Even a great idea doesn’t guarantee the angle has legs. Before moving the story forward, examine what you have like an editor would.

• Check for depth (enough data points, enough time elapsed) and breadth (enough categories, enough regions).
• Identify whether the data shows patterns, changes, or anomalies worth exploring.
• Reject topics where the data is too thin, unclear, outdated, unrepresentative, or uninteresting.

Your data should be strong enough to answer an editor’s two key questions: “So what?” and “Why now?”

If it doesn’t, that doesn’t mean the story is dead. It gives you a jumping-off point to continue data accumulation or an opportunity to clearly state the limitations of your claims, which helps build trust.

Define the Editorial Angle

Once you’ve gone down a research rabbit hole, it can be difficult to clearly identify the main takeaway. This is where you sharpen everything into a focused, compelling, doable narrative plan.

Find the strongest insight

Consider these questions to get closer to the crux of your story:

• What insight is the most surprising, useful, or emotionally salient?
• Is it strong enough to anchor the entire narrative?

A good insight should cause a reaction: “I didn’t know that,” or “That explains so much.”

Define the audience and how they’re impacted

For brand editorial with the best chance of mainstream media pickup, the story should fit into the category of service journalism, meaning stories that serve real readers’ needs.

Define who cares most and why: parents, workers, students, seniors, voters.

Clarify the domino effects: audience behavior, consumer spending, public safety, purchasing decisions, and readers’ emotions.

Choose the right format

Based on your understanding of the audience, decide how readers will most likely consume the story.

Will it be an explainer? A ranking? A trend analysis?

Picture your reader encountering this story. If they’re younger and more likely to scroll, a short ranking or myth-busting piece might land. For older audiences, a service guide with straightforward, thorough, easy-to-reference content could serve them better.

Choose the format that unfolds your insight with clarity and authority. The format should also make the story easier for publishers to repurpose.

Finally, examine whether your story is doable.

Consider your access to interviewees and how easy it will be to source the right people to comment, especially considering the story is underwritten by a brand. This can be tricky territory for academics who may have conflicts of interest or take measures to avoid affiliating themselves with brands.

The reporting and data work covered here is what separates brand editorial that earns pickup from content that gets passed over. A well-researched story with a clear angle, strong data, and the right voices holds up under editorial scrutiny from newsrooms that have no obligation to publish it, which helps it earn more distribution.

Feature Image Credit: Canva