Some good things are happening in health news coverage.
Of the first 12 stories reviewed in 2009 on HealthNewsReview.org, five have received the top five-star score.
In the three years of the project, there have never been so many highly-rated stories in such a sport span. In fact, only 13% of all 712 stories reviewed so far have received five-star scores.
Next week in a talk at the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making’s Policy & Research Forum in Washington, DC, I’ll also be presenting some new data that shows small – but I think significant – improvement on some of our criteria on which journalists have traditionally done most poorly.
This is especially significant, in my view, given the terrible times in newsrooms these days.
bottom line pressure hurting the quality of health news.
lack of training
impact of layoffs and cutbacks
shrinking news hole for health care news overall
weakened newsrooms more vulnerable to PR and ad pressures
Many people continue to work hard every day to report health news in depth, emphasizing evidence, context and integrity. We applaud them.
At the same time, network television health news pieces continue to disappoint. Look at the thumbnail below of two recent ABC Good Morning America segments. One got zero stars, the other two.
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
We’ve written about the hype of liquid biopsies for years (see link in comment below). And now this…. https://www.statnews.com/2022/01/12/medicare-shouldnt-cover-liquid-biopsies-early-cancer-detection/
Case counts still matter. “(There) are stories that may not be told adequately if only hospitalizations and deaths are emphasized.” @garyschwitzer interviewed by @dbauder of @AP. https://apnews.com/article/omicron-changing-news-outlets-covid-data-da9272f7c4c8a109c3bfb56bed9e9c76
My friend Gary @garyschwitzer wrote to his city council representative in a Minnesota town about a Viva Las Vegas event scheduled for January.
The response he got seems to perfectly capture where we are now.
https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2021/12/2021-ends-with-covid-craziness-in-sports-and-politics/
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