design research as the fourth estate

The Adaptive Path blog recently had a fantastic post about design research as the fourth estate. They’ve taken the nine elements of journalism from The Elements of Journalism and applied them to design research, and came up with the following:

1. Design research’s first obligation is to the truth.
2. Its first loyalty is to the citizens.
3. Its essence is discipline of verification.
4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.
5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power.
6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.
7. It must strive to make the significant interesting, and relevant.
8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.
9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience.

We’re in high research season here in MacBU, so this is particularly relevant for me right now. I’m doing lots of research right now. Reading over their article, it’s ringing quite true for me. I’d like to think on it and figure out if there are better ways to ensure that I’m meeting these tenets in my research.