Action research at the BBC: Interrogating artificial intelligence with journalists to generate actionable insights for the newsroom

In this paper, we provide reflections from an embedded action research project undertaken at the UK's largest public service broadcaster, the BBC, over a three-year period. It was aimed at eliciting research insights about the role and understanding of AI in news production and also intervening to engender change in the newsroom. We surface the messy realities of conducting this work, including the challenges to funding such long-term and resource-intensive research and the difficulties of measuring impacts. We include practical guidance to demystify the process of action-oriented research that strives for targeted change in news contexts, highlighting the need for researchers to cost in time for translational work and the importance of having 'critical friends' to hold them to account. Ultimately, we emphasise the value of action research in journalism studies and particularly at the nexus of news and technology. We argue for approaches that retain a critical perspective whilst closing the gap between theory, critique, and practice.