A paper in the online journal PLoS One looked at news coverage of studies on ADHD and concluded:
“Because newspapers preferentially echo initial ADHD findings appearing in prominent journals, they report on uncertain findings that are often refuted or attenuated by subsequent studies. If this media reporting bias generalizes to health sciences, it represents a major cause of distortion in health science communication.”
The authors further suggest:
“If further investigations of other health issues confirm our observations and reinforce our interpretations, it might be timely for scientists, journal editors and university media writers to define and respect ethical rules regarding health science communication. For example, press releases reporting on an initial study should include a warning statement pointing out that these findings must be confirmed by subsequent independent investigations. Indeed, the quality of press releases positively influences the quality of associated newspaper stories. The time would be also right to warn journalists about this major publication bias inherent to the scientific process.”
I’m traveling but wanted to post at least a quick notice about this.
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
We connect the dots between the murder of #GeorgeFloyd , structural racism, and #publichealth with the help of @GeorgesBenjami7 of @PublicHealth , @annapoetic of @minneapolisgov , and @sandrogalea of @BUSPH https://twitter.com/PublicHealthUMN/status/1316813156249931777
"please do not project certainty where certainty simply doesn't exist"
Golden nugget of wisdom for emerging #science + #medicine journos looking not to fall for shiny happy PR bullshit.
HT @garyschwitzer + @HealthNewsRevu
Hear the rest here
👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽🎧🎙️
https://www.patreon.com/posts/42537673
New ep of @hilarious_is with @garyschwitzer of @HealthNewsRevu - he's the Michael Corleone of myth-busting in health and medicine news!
Just
Press
Play
#podcast #journalism #FactCheck #science #medicine
https://www.patreon.com/posts/42537673
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