USA Today is pushing the envelope with its story, “Mother’s Day gift guide: 5 picks for a health & beauty-obsessed mom like Gwyneth Paltrow.” The first line of the article refers to the actress as a “(self-proclaimed) health and beauty guru.”
But the story is just crappy click-bait because there’s nothing of substance about Gwyneth Paltrow’s health and beauty tips. (Granted, that might be hard to do under any circumstances.) But using her name was just the lure to suck you in.
This might not be the best week for USA Today to take that approach, since this week Timothy Caulfield’s new book, “Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything? How the Famous Sell Us Elixirs of Health, Beauty & Happiness,” was released.
While the heading on the USA Today web page where this appeared is ENTERTAIN THIS with a subhead of Fashion, we found it through a health search, as shown in the image at left.
The piece offers “some ideas about how you can treat the health and beauty-obsessed mom in your life — without dropping, like, $500 on a Goop-endorsed tank top.”
Here are a couple of the gems it promotes, without questioning any of the evidence for any of these – just outright “journalistic” promotion:
Or, you could get Mom a copy of Caulfield’s book.
On Vox.com, Julia Belluz wrote, “This professor put Gwyneth Paltrow’s health advice to the test. The truth is even worse than you’d think.”
But, nice try, USA Today. At least you spelled her name correctly.
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.
Comments are closed.
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