A special tip of the hat to ABC News for last night’s one-hour special, “Peter Jennings Reporting: Breakdown — America’s Health Insurance Crisis.” It was the last report Jennings worked on before he died.
“Over the course of Peter’s long career at ABC News he made more than 60 prime-time documentaries, many of them covering public health issues. He had planned for this broadcast to be the first of a series confronting the problems in the American health-care system — a subject he believed was critical to all Americans,” said Tom Yellin, executive producer of Peter Jennings Reporting.
With an estimated 45-million Americans without health insurance, it should not be unusual to see such primetime coverage of an embarrassing national issue — but it is unusual.
While the report was not perfect (it lacked continuity, appeared to be glued together somewhat hastily after Jennings’ death, and relied too much on too few interviewees), it was still television worth watching. Especially since the other networks at that time were airing “The Apprentice,” and “Without a Trace.”
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Pharma & device companies love to see more stories about health issues they sell treatments for. https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1197599541698211842
Important story about #healthjournalism here; don’t do it. Do not compromise your integrity by taking #BigPharma money for a sunny junket. https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1197599541698211842
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