The ShopTalk newsletter today describes the ugly TV news “shoving match” in Orlando over “the first report that a case of the swine flu was confirmed in Orlando.” ShopTalk writes:
“Pity the poor viewers, who have to sort through all the hype and hysteria to find the facts.”
Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawick writes:
“Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the CNN and CBS medical correspondent, was reporting from outside a hospital in Mexico City using such terms as “ground zero” and “chaos” to describe the situation.
Tuesday morning, on NBC’s top-rated Today show, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, the show’s health expert, was reporting “a couple of unconfirmed cases in New Jersey.” …
I can’t imagine why Snyderman and Today were reporting unconfirmed cases. That seems to me one of the worst things a journalistic enterprise — and Today is produced by NBC News — should be doing. Wait for confirmation when reporting such data. …
Even though Gupta is primarily known as the lead medical correspondent on CNN, he also works for CBS News, and I saw him Monday night on The CBS News with Katie Couric standing in front of a Mexico City hospital. He had his own mask — down about his throat. Overly dramatic? Maybe.
I hated Gupta describing his location as “sort of ground zero” and reporting what he described as a lack of basic supplies for medical workers at the Mexican hospital as “sort of the chaos here,” but he was the reporter on the ground. I just wish the language he used would have been prudent and less sensational.”
Kudos to the Wall Street Journal, for including some perspective I’ve not seen anyone give quite this way:
“Many people assume a pandemic is a deadly scourge, but two of three flu pandemics that circled the globe in the 20th century were relatively mild. “Pandemics can range from being relatively mild to being extremely severe,” said Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organization’s acting assistant director for health security and environment. “My own sense right now is it too early to make a call.”
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/
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.
Mark Houston
April 29, 2009 at 12:48 pmYou know- it is going to sound horrible, but America has bigger problems to worry about besides the swine flu epidemic in Meixco….
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