[milesvp]

I’m not sure it is. What verb does someone do when they collect and collate data about products at consumer reports, tom’s hardware, or even the low bar of linus tech tips?

I’d say while the primary role may be journalist at most of these types of orgs, there is definitely a role for people who focus on the research side of things, and if you’re actively running experiments and benchmarks, you are definitely moving out of the realm of simple observation. I certainly would like to benefit from the data of which phone is cheapest to repair. iFixit already does the research to grade repairability of devices.

[als0]

What you describe sounds like the role of an analyst e.g. like the famous Patrick Moorhead

[shadilay]

I think the role of an analyst is to draw conclusions from an existing dataset whereas research is the act of creating a new dataset.