A WebMD news release last week announced that “WebMD is the First Choice for Consumers and Physicians Seeking Information on the Top Health and Wellness Topics.” The release went on to state that:
WebMD attracted the most visitors of any health information site in September and is again number one in page views in the health category.
That may be so, but our independent analysis of the quality of WebMD health news coverage does not put WebMD news at the top of the quality list. In fact, it’s almost at the bottom of our list. Granted, there are other types of content that WebMD delivers, and we only evaluate news stories. But the interactive chart below – available to anyone on our site – shows that WebMD is below the average of all the news sources we’ve reviewed in the past 6.5 years.
WebMD’s average score of 2.78 stars (out of a possible 5) is lower than the 6.5 year average across 1800+ stories of 3.06 stars.
Rankings for visits and page views are good to know if you’re an advertiser. It might not be a good measure of quality of news coverage. We’re not picking on WebMD. But if you’re going to make claims about rankings, you have to be ready to have those claims scrutinized.
Here is a quick update on some other average star score grades of other news organizations:
| News source | Average star score (out of possible 5) |
| Associated Press (n=247) | 3.59 |
| NPR.org (n=42) | 3.57 |
| Los Angeles Times (n=140) | 3.51 |
| New York Times (n=124) | 3.47 |
| USA Today (n=56) | 3.43 |
| Wall Street Journal (n=106) | 3.4 |
| Reuters (n=132) | 3.26 |
| Washington Post (n=43) | 3.23 |
| Chicago Tribune (n=26) | 3.08 |
| All 1,813 stories reviewed over 6.5 years | 3.06 OVERALL AVERAGE |
| CNN.com (n=42) | 2.98 |
| HealthDay (n=178) | 2.86 |
| TIME (n=27) | 2.85 |
| WebMD (n=130) | 2.78 |
| MSNBC (n=13) | 2.38 |
A few notes about these “scores” —
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 (6)
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Scott Hensley
October 23, 2012 at 1:22 pmThanks for doing this. We at NPR try to be mindful about the criteria your reviewers use, and it’s very helpful to be reminded about how we’re doing.
Mary
October 23, 2012 at 8:34 pmThis is hardly a fair comparison, as WebMD is not primarily a news outlet, although the other ranked organizations are. Medscape News may provide true news, but the rest of the sites (WebMD for consumers, Medscape Reference for clinicians) are more *information* providers, not news providers.
Gary Schwitzer
October 23, 2012 at 8:51 pmMary,
With all due respect, I disagree.
This is a news comparison, head-to-head. We didn’t compare their non-news items with other organizations’ news items. It was their news – what they labeled as news – versus what other people labeled as news. The comparison couldn’t be more fair. It’s real journalists paid real money posting real stories at WebMD.
By your argument, perhaps NPR shouldn’t be put in the mix, because much of its programming is non-news (Ask Me Another, Car Talk, Radiolab, music, special series, etc.) Yet NPR ranks second – very close to first.
We believe that if you hang out your shingle saying you’re doing news, you better be ready to be judged alongside all the other folks hanging out similar shingles.
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