Journalist compares U.K. science writers, American health reporters
When the Association of British Science Writers announced the nominees for their 2011 Science Writers’ Awards, Guardian science blogger Martin Robbins noted a familiar pattern.
Of the 12 places on the shortlists for science writing, 6 went to New Scientist, 1 each to Nature and the BMJ, and 1 each to the Guardian and the Independent The final two places went to a freelancer and the website SciDev.Net. That means that newspapers combined took just two spots, while specialist science publications took eight. Meanwhile, the TV shortlist was occupied by BBC 3, BBC 4, and BBC 2, while the radio shortlist featured BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 4 again, and, yes, BBC Radio 4.
A lists of nominees from earlier in the decade reveals a similar pattern of “Near-dominance of broadcast science by the BBC, while specialist publications competing with a dwindling group of broadsheet newspapers for the literary prizes,” Robbins writes. To better understand this apparent one-sidedness, Robbins talked to ABSW chair Connie St. Louis, who suggested that U.K. newspapers have succumbed to a form of churnalism and “communication,” because they simply don’t have the resources for in-depth work like that which occurs at the BBC or the specialty outlets. Here’s St. Louis:
I have this thesis which is… science journalists have forgotten how to be journalists. They’re actually science communicators, and they go into the job and… the job was to tell you what science was doing and help you understand science, and I think that’s an incredibly important function, but don’t call yourself a science journalist if that’s what you’re doing, call yourself a science blogger, call yourself a science communicator, but if you’re going to call yourself a journalist then behave like a journalist, dig for stories, ask questions of science, ask questions of scientists, look at numbers, look at figures, and do what journalism does.
St. Louis then goes on to compare U.K. science journalism (somewhat unfavorably) to the relatively higher level of scrutiny faced by American health journalists, scrutiny brought about thanks in part to a few key thought leaders.
We’re always explaining new cures, explaining new science, but where are the guys who are really digging down, where are our Ivan Oranskys, where are our Gary Schweitzers [sic], we don’t have them. It’s all very much “here’s a new cancer drug”, and I’m not knocking that, it’s really important, but actually we’re in a very deficit model of journalism at the moment.
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Pushback against Medtronic’s Infuse hits boiling point
Filed under: Conflicts of interest, Health journalism, Hot Health Headline, Pharmaceuticals, Public records, Studies
Medtronic’s ongoing woes with its blockbuster spine fusion product Infuse have been a staple of Covering Health for as long as we can remember, but things have reached a crescendo this week.
The first blow came with the publication of John Fauber’s in-depth report (read it at the Journal Sentinel or in MedPage Today) on the conflicts of interest and regulatory weak points that kept Infuse going strong despite serious questions about medical outcomes.
The next day, The Spine Journal made the unprecedented move of dedicating an entire issue to repudiating the failures of science and medical journal publication that made Infuse what it is today. For the record, both those links point straight to journal press releases. If you’re looking for more context, you’ll find it in Fauber’s followup to The Spine Journal’s Infuse issue. HealthNewsReview editor and publisher Gary Schwitzer also blogged his take on the releases.
Fauber’s Medtronic coverage is a joint project between the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and MedPage Today.
FCC report on journalism reveals failures, unique potential of the health beat
Filed under: Government, Health journalism, Health policy, Studies
An FCC working group led by Steven Waldman (formerly of U.S. News & World Report and Beliefnet.com, among other things) has unleashed its behemoth report on American journalism, titled “The Information Needs of Communities: The changing media landscape in a broadband age.”
The full report runs 365 pages (475 if you count footnotes) and addresses the current failures and future path of journalism in these United States. If you don’t have a few hundred hours to spare, you can get the highlights from the executive summary.
While the authors do refer to health journalism throughout the work, they specifically address the beat on pages 49 and 50, where they quote from the 2009 Kaiser Family Foundation report “The State of Health Journalism in the U.S., ” (PDF) which was partially based on a survey of AHCJ members.
The report dwells on the health care stories that go unreported due to lack of resources, though it does cite one bright spot, namely Kaiser Health News and all the local health-focused nonprofit outlets that have sprung up in recent years.
As regular readers might expect and Gary Schwitzer, author of the 2009 report, addresses in depth on his blog, local television health news was singled out for special criticism, both for its lack of focus on truly local stories and the increasing reliance on pay-for-play or similarly fishy arrangements with local medical outlets, like when “a hospital in Ohio paid local TV stations $100,000 or more to air ‘medical breakthrough’ segments that benefited the hospital.”
Pay-for-play arrangements with the health care industry have prompted an outcry from journalists in the field. The Association of Health Care Journalists and the Society for Professional Journalists issued a joint statement urging local broadcast stations to avoid arrangements that improperly influence health coverage. The statement said that even if such deals are disclosed, handing over editorial decision making to hospitals violates the principles of ethical journalism and betrays the public trust.
At the same time, health news remains important to advertisers. As the report’s authors write, “Certain topics are so attractive to advertisers that websites that focus on them can fetch even higher rates. This is especially true for health and financial content, which is why a disproportionate number of the successful content websites have been in those sectors (e.g., WebMD, Everyday Health, CBS MarketWatch, the Motley Fool).”
Other random health-related tidbits:
- A shout-out to Florida’s Healthy State Collaborative Local Journalism Center, which “recently launched a website to promote its mission of “super serv[ing] the residents of [the] region with an intense journalistic commitment to the unifying topic of health care.”
- A survey found that, when it comes to use of shared library computers, health information (37 percent) trailed only education (42 percent) and employment (40 percent). It’s an odd factoid, but health information consumption patterns always intrigue me.
- Speaking of which, “In a Pew Internet Project survey of residents of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Macon, Georgia; and San Jose, California, 62 percent said that they were very confident that they could find local information about medical and health problems. But only 24 percent said they were very confident that they could find information to ‘assess [whether] local politicians were doing their jobs.’”
The report also offers a more general take on the possible future of journalism in this country, one which doesn’t leave much room for the public sector. According to CJR’s Joel Meares, when it comes to correcting the issues facing the industry, “the theme seems to be to hold a steady course, loosen up the system, put a lot of information online, and hope foundations are willing to do some hard work.” Alongside that assessment, Meares also offers a functional summary of the concrete ideas contained in the report. He also offers a reaction roundup, as well as a quick sidebar on public broadcasting.
Over at ReportingOnHealth.org, Barbara Feder Ostrov gives a personal testament to the trend of laying off health reporters and not replacing them. As she says, “the health beat is simply added to the daily responsibilities of other reporters who may be covering education, science, the environment or local government.”
Sponsored segments, hospital partnerships creep into news outlets
Filed under: Conflicts of interest, Health journalism
In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Blythe Bernhard takes a look at the fruits of the slow, steady advances hospitals and health providers have made into local television and print news. In recent years, sponsored segments and partnered content have insinuated themselves into broadcasts, columns and news-esque advertising spaces.
According to Stacey Woelfel, news director at KOMU-Columbia, Mo., partnership offers are more likely to come from medical institutions than from other sectors. There’s no denying that cash-strapped media outlets have welcomed the extra revenue, and the numbers show that providers have come out ahead as well.
Photo by purple_onion via Flickr
Hospitals that promote their services during news broadcasts say the exposure is more effective than pure advertising. The Mayo Clinic in Minnesota launched its own news department a decade ago to distribute its “Medical Edge” stories to media outlets nationwide. A Mayo survey showed patients’ stated preference for the hospital increased about 60 percent within three years of the news service’s launch. Hospital executives said the business value of “Medical Edge” was more than 10 times the cost of producing it, according to the Columbia Journalism Review.
But media critics, including AHCJ member Gary Schwitzer, say that providing all that valuable exposure may involve ethical compromises on the part of news organizations. After all, they’re ceding some control over the content they air.
“It looks prestigious, it looks clean, it looks expert, but this is information that is coming from and being bought by one medical center source,” said Gary Schwitzer, publisher of Health News Review. “Who has vetted that to say that is the best information, and when are we going to hear from other players in town?”
And, by forming these partnerships, news organizations are allowing hospitals to become the gatekeepers for medical news, and thus indirectly allowing financial concerns to dictate what is considered newsworthy. To illustrate the quandry, Bernhard mentions a 10-month cancer prevention series that was created through a partnership between a St. Louis local hospital and a TV news station. It includes weekly news segments, regular two-minute paid ads during commercial breaks and even monthly phone banks and online chats. Cancer prevention is certainly news, but AHCJ’s president told Bernhard there may be other reasons why it’s driving this particular news and advertising blitz.
Cancer is big business for hospitals competing in a “medical arms race” to attract patients with insurance to fund hospital investments in MRI scanners and robotic surgical instruments, said Charles Ornstein, president of the Association of Health Care Journalists and senior reporter at ProPublica, a non-profit investigative newsroom based in New York.
“There’s a reason they chose cancer instead of diabetes care for the uninsured population,” he said.
Even a medical topic as seemingly straightforward as cancer prevention generates differing viewpoints and requires health reporters to reach out to multiple sources, Ornstein said.
For disclosures of the Post-Dispatch’s own partnerships, see the final subheading, “Popular topic.”
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Being precise about screening vs. diagnostic tests
Gary Schwitzer, AHCJ member and HealthNewsReview.org publisher, calls for more precise language when describing medical tests and to make a bit of an example of Prevention magazine on his blog. The March issue of the magazine leads with a story titled “4 Screening Tests Women Fear.” The problem? The story’s about mammograms, colonoscopies, endoscopies and MRIs. And two of those things, Schwitzer writes, are not like the others. Emphasis mine.
…Only 2 of the 4 tests discussed are screening tests.
Yes, mammograms and colonoscopies are screening tests - used in an apparently healthy population looking for signs of trouble.
Endoscopies and MRI scans — as discussed by Prevention in this case — are not screening tests but diagnostic tests used to help diagnose what is the problem in people with signs or symptoms of something wrong. Screening tests are for people believed to be healthy. Diagnostic tests are for people believed to have a problem.
Schwitzer’s not just splitting hairs here. As he explains, getting these distinctions right can have real-world health impact.
The semantics are important. Lumping diagnostic tests like endoscopy and MRI in with screening tests like mammograms and colonoscopies can give readers the impression that everyone should consider all of them. And, no, not everyone needs to be worried about when to have their next endoscopy or MRI scan…
Schwitzer on the future of health journalism
When HealthNewsReview.org publisher Gary Schwitzer writes on the future of health journalism, his words carry the weight of a database loaded with more than 1,000 reviewed stories. Like Charles Darwin’s long study of barnacles, Schwitzer’s micro-level scrutiny of the industry has left him uniquely equipped to tackle the big picture stuff as well. Which is why, when he draws a line in the sand, as he did in an essay published in a German public health journal, we should probably listen.
Schwitzer uses three examples: the hyper-expensive radiation treatments, comparative effectiveness research and good-old-fashioned disease mongering. In each, he asks reporters to be skeptical, and to push past the claims of vested interests. It’s easy to see where he stands, and he doesn’t pull any punches, as you can probably infer from this final sentence:
The future of health journalism will be determined by which roles journalists choose for themselves: cheerleader or watchdog, fear-mongerer or evidence-based reporter, part of the solution, or part of the problem.
Catch up with the latest AHCJ member news
KMSP-Minneapolis investigative reporter Jeff Baillon earned two Upper Midwest Regional Emmy awards. “Where’s the Money,” a series looking at the financial collapse of a company owned by a former U.S. senator, won for investigative reporting. “Car Trouble,” a piece about a man imprisoned for killing three people in a car crash involving a Toyota Camry, also won. The story uncovered evidence which supported the driver’s claim that the accident was the result of “unintended acceleration.” The man has since been freed from prison.
Theresa Brown’s new book, Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between, was published by Harper Collins in June.
Heather Chambers left the San Diego Business Journal for the California Healthcare Institute in June. She is serving as their writer – technically “communications specialist.”
Columbus Business First reporter Carrie Ghose’s health care beat coverage in 2009 won second place for business reporting among papers with less than 100,000 circulation in the 2010 Ohio Society of Professional Journalists Awards.
Carol Goldsmith, an anchor at WYFF-Greenvile, S.C., won a Peabody award for “Chronicle: Paul’s Gift,” an hour-long documentary on organ donation that goes from the hospital bed, to surgery for organ recovery, to the transplant recipients, and the meeting months later between the donor’s widow and the recipients. She was the co-anchor and co-producer for the project.
On Aug. 30th, Christine Gorman started work as the health/med/bio features editor at Scientific American, with a mandate to beef up its health and medicine reporting. She works in the print, online and mobile spaces. You can find her first health column in the October 2010 issue.
Terri Hansen won first place in the 2010 Native American Journalists Association’s Media Awards for “Best Environmental News Story.”
Andrew Holtz’s third book, House M.D. vs. Reality, will be published in early 2011 by Berkley/Penguin in the United States. He also has deals for Brazilian and Czech editions with other proposed editions pending. The bad news is that www.MDiTV.com, where Holtz was anchor & senior news editor, has suspended production of video news reports. Holtz continues to do reviews for www.HealthNewsReview.org and, along with Bill Heisel, occasionally fills in for Gary Schwitzer to coordinate the reviews.
Lisa Jaffe Hubbell has become a regular blogger at GE’s healthymagination.com health blog and is contributing to Today’s Hospitalist.
Chicago Tribune health care reporter Bruce Japsen has a new column answering readers questions specifically about the implementation of health reform.
Sandra Jordan is a winner of the American Cancer Society High Plains Division 2010 Media Awards competition in the Newspaper - Weekly Feature category for her story, “The New Age of Prostate Cancer.” Jordan is also a 2010 National Press Foundation fellow for the “Cancer Issues” seminar in Washington, D.C. in October. Chris King (managing editor) and Jordan (health reporter) shared honors with the rest of St. Louis American staff when it was recognized as best non-daily paper in North America (circ. greater than 37,500) of 2010 by Suburban Newspapers of America.
P. Mona Khanna, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.P., is the recipient of the American Medical Writers Association’s Walter C. Alvarez Award. The award honors excellence in communicating health care developments and concepts to the public.
Euna Lhee is now a multimedia health reporter for Florida Public Radio, as a part of the Healthy State Collaborative project. Based at WMFE in Orlando, Lhee reports on health care issues, biotechnology and medical research.
The Salt Lake Tribune’s Heather May was awarded a fellowship this summer through the USC Annenberg/The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowship program. She will be writing about minority health disparities in Utah.
Maryn McKenna became one of the seven launch bloggers on Wired.com’s new invitation-only science-blog network.
Marilyn Nelson took part in the International Center for Journalists’ personal finance class, for which she completed a story project about American Indians and personal finance.
Tom Paulson curates a niche news site for KPLU as part of NPR’s new Argo project. His focus, based in Seattle, is on global health and development.
Peggy Pico has returned to her hometown of San Diego as the science and technology reporter at KPBS, where she does daily radio and weekly TV reports on the biotech industry.
Lisa A. Price, chief editorial adviser at Sound Integrated Health News, was featured in the Journal for Minority Medical Students (Vol. 22 No. 2), NCCAM Researcher Profile, Special Report for research on medicinal mushrooms and cancer.
Lee-Lee Prina, senior editor of GrantWatch at Health Affairs, is now managing the journal’s new GrantWatch Blog, which launched in March 2010.
Marilyn Werber Serafini has been selected as the inaugural Robin Toner Distinguished Fellow of the Kaiser Family Foundation. Serafini, who spent 19 years at National Journal, covered the U.S. Congress since 1985, writing about health care, tax, trade, welfare, pension and banking legislation. She covered the health reform debate during the Clinton Administration and the recent debate that led to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Serafini began her fellowship in August and is working closely with the editors of Kaiser Health News and KHN its partners on a series of articles on health policy and politics, as well as stories that explore the intricacies of health reform implementation.
Tampa Tribune consumer health reporter Mary Shedden won a SPJ Green Eyeshade Award, which recognizes excellence in 11 Southern states. She took first place in the category of “Public Affairs – Print – Daily.” Her entry, “Stuffy Nose? Tired? You may already have had swine flu,” included her body of work that aimed to help readers understand how to identify the flu’s symptoms and to protect themselves. Shedden also was a 2009 AHCJ-CDC Health Journalism Fellow.
Lorena Tonarelli’s new book, Caring - The Essential Guide, has been published by Need2KNow books.
Send us your latest news
Got a new job? Earned a promotion? Won an award or fellowship? Just published a book? AHCJ members are encouraged to share your news by sending it to info@healthjournalism.org. Member news items are published on Covering Health and in HealthBeat, AHCJ’s newsletter.
German HealthNewsReview to launch in November
Medien-Doktor.de, the German version of America’s HealthNewsReview.org and Australia’s pioneering Media Doctor site is set to launch in November. Gary Schwitzer, publisher of HealthNewsReview.org and longtime AHCJ member, recently visited Dortmund, Germany, to consult on what will be billed as “the German HealthNewsReview.”
Last week, (University of Dortmund Professor Holger Wormer and freelance journalist Marcus Anhäuser) brought in more than a dozen of the people who will be story reviewers for the German site. And I helped give them background on our US effort and offer some tips on how to apply our 10 standardized criteria when reviewing stories. (I remember clearly when I got this kind of help five years ago from Dr. David Henry, who helped found the Media Doctor Australia site.) They were an impressive group - all journalists - but many with advanced science or medical degrees. And they work in many different media - online, print, radio, TV, books.
Schwitzer writes that the site will include “interesting new twists,” some of which he may even adopt over at HealthNewsReview.org. Medien-Doktor.de isn’t live yet, but Schwitzer managed to snap a photo of the draft homepage.
According to Schwitzer, this is the fifth installment in the Media Doctor lineage of sites designed to hold health journalism accountable.
Cancer, journalism and skewed patient expectations
Once again, it appears that a reporter has found the cure for cancer. And that cure is the out-of-context anecdote. Gary Schwitzer spotted the latest offense, a CBS story on a pancreatic cancer vaccine, and Jessie Gruman of Prepared Patient Forum connected the dots to explain how such reporting contributes to the skewed patient view of cancer treatment success rates.
Panel: Media share blame for health-care costs
Filed under: Health care reform, Health journalism
The American Society of News Editors and the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making brought experts and editors together to discuss the media’s role in the overscreening, overprescribing and overhyping that are helping drive up health care costs in America. Richard Karpel, ASNE’s executive director, reviewed what those assembled took away from the seminar:
According to FIMDM’s presenters, the media is culpable because it reports too many stories focused on “breakthroughs” and “miracle cures,” indulges too often in light, feel-good, news-you-can-use features, and frequently publishes inaccurate, unbalanced stories that fail to ask the right questions or seek verification from independent sources.
AHCJ member Gary Schwitzer was there to share what he’s learned as a critic of health coverage, you can find a PDF of his presentation here. Presentations from the other speakers – who looked at things like disease-mongering, screenings, treatments for lower-back pain and pharmaceuticals – are available as well.
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