For decades, scholars have known that much of journalistic practice is motivated by habits that lie beyond the conscious reflection of journalists. Yet, when studying news production, scholars often rely on methods, like interviewing, which elicit consciously articulated self-reports from journalists. Doing so leaves unexplored the comparatively vast terrain of news production driven by pre-reflective motivations. Borrowing from the dual-processing theory of human cognition, this article explores what methods like interviewing can and cannot explain about news production. It also discusses alternative methods specifically designed to investigate the role of ‘practical consciousness’ in behavior. The benefits of this exercise are several, including greater clarity about the sorts of claims that can be made on the basis of self-reported data, better alignment between theories and methods in the study of news production, and consideration of alternative methods for accessing the parts of journalistic practice that work in implicit and unconscious ways.
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