In part 4 of this weeklong series of video clips (taped with me at the recent NIH Medicine in the Media workshop at Dartmouth College), I try to reframe stories about “new stuff” in health care – new treatments, tests, products, procedures – as health policy stories, even though they’re usually not framed that way.
And I submit that when 70% of more than 1,500 stories reviewed on HealthNewsReview.org so far fail to adequately discuss costs or to quantify benefits and harms, that the American public is being sold a bill of goods many days in many stories.
In the final segment tomorrow, I’ll give some advice to readers and viewers who are upset about biased, imbalanced, incomplete news coverage that they see or hear.
Some consumers don’t need that advice: the online response – on this blog (see the comments) – and on Twitter – to yesterday’s blog post about a CBS medical correspondent wearing the logo of an organization while interviewing the founder of that organization – a terrible lapse in journalism ethics and judgment – received much comment from troubled breast cancer survivors and others concerned about breast cancer news and information.
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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