Someone stop me if you ever hear me say that I’ve seen the worst TV health news piece. The bottom keeps dropping.
This piece is a contender for bottom-dweller.
(Note: before you can actually enjoy the piece, you’ll have to watch a CBS promo in this clip for all the awards they’ve won. And you’ll see at the end their tagline, “Very Good News.” This piece, I warn you, will not win an award and was NOT very good news.)
Let’s recap:
A young woman whom the anchorman calls “healthy…gorgeous” but who wants to rid herself of a tiny fat pouch in her belly gets lunchtime liposuction. The surgeon comes on the set with her to chat with the anchorman. But in more than 5 minutes (an eternity in TV news!), they fail to discuss:
evidence
how widely the costs vary from the $3,000 the promoting-surgeon cited
whether insurance pays for it.
Viewers should ask themselves: if this “healthy, gorgeous” young woman wanted to have a little fat pouch removed and if she were in your insurance pool and if insurance covered it, would you want your premiums to go up as a result?
Why don’t we have news stories about that?
That would be journalism. This was free advertising: 5 minutes worth!
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
A lot of interesting workshops are happening now at the #NBCCSummit! @garyschwitzer, the publisher of @HealthNewsRevu, is discussing new cancer research news. #BeBold
Comments
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Quinn Eastman
February 23, 2009 at 5:34 pmIsn’t cosmetic surgery generally NOT covered by insurance?
At least they didn’t plug the company that makes the pencil-sized fat sucker.
Okinawa
February 26, 2009 at 2:49 pmWhat is our nation becoming? One day we will have to really take a look at what we’ve become…I put part of the blame on our “celebrity culture”.
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like