Ben Goldacre drew our attention to what he calls a “miniature crowd-sourced version of the meatier HealthNewsReview.org project.”
It’s a new site run by biostatisticians and it’s called the Health News Rater.
This is an interesting “low-threshold” citizen-science website approach. Here’s a screenshot from the site:
We welcome any new players in this field of trying to improve not only health care journalism – but the impact of that journalism on citizens/consumers/patients.
Our reviews are conducted by journalism peers and by medical evidence experts. But we love the “wisdom of the crowds” input as well.
Of course, readers can now comment on any of our reviews and add their own “grades” in a comment field appearing at the end of any of our story reviews. (It looks just like the comment field below this post.)
We also email the reporter or someone from each news organization that published a story we review – an automatic feedback mechanism that is our best attempt to foster quality improvement. It would be useful if the new project provided such feedback directly to the sources as well.
———————————————————————————————-
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
Following a shift in journalism’s business model, a diverse ecosystem of publications, many covering science, has sprung up online. This has made it more difficult to sort out what qualifies as journalism, what doesn’t, and whether the public even cares.
https://t.co/qO2a27FiSe
Researchers and journalists do the public a grave disservice when they spin health study results to make them appear safer or more effective than warranted, says @HealthNewsRevu founder @garyschwitzer https://t.co/QIKsRbP6Ed
Comments (4)
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Jeff Leek
January 12, 2012 at 11:46 amWe over at Simply Stats love the work that healthnewsreview.org is doing. Our project is designed to compliment the more substantive approach that expert review this site can give. We are amateurs when it comes to web development so our project is still in its infancy. But we do think that crowd-based rating can be a nice compliment to expert review, especially in reporting of the very basic information we ask of users.
We are also looking for help in development of our site, we want to stay simple, but make the slight less amateur if there are any web developers who are interested.
Jeff Leek
January 12, 2012 at 12:06 pmWe have added a link to HealthNewsReview on our help page!
Jeff Leek
January 12, 2012 at 11:46 amWe over at Simply Stats love the work that healthnewsreview.org is doing. Our project is designed to compliment the more substantive approach that expert review this site can give. We are amateurs when it comes to web development so our project is still in its infancy. But we do think that crowd-based rating can be a nice compliment to expert review, especially in reporting of the very basic information we ask of users.
We are also looking for help in development of our site, we want to stay simple, but make the slight less amateur if there are any web developers who are interested.
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