After systematically reviewing 122 PR news releases in the past year, our reviewers have only graded 5 PR releases with a top 5-star score. And one came this week – for a news release from Washington University in Saint Louis, “To Prevent Infection After C-Section, Chlorhexidine Better Than Iodine.” Our reviewers noted: “Like another release we recently reviewed on chocolate for preventing preeclampsia, this one focused on a study presented at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine’s annual meeting. This quality of this well-crafted release is a nice contrast to the previous one that was graded 0 stars.”
At the other end of the spectrum, it’s good to see others weighing in on the problems that we’ve documented in our year-long (and more) review of health care news releases. Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus wrote on their STAT News column, “Press releases stink. Here’s why that matters.” They noted some of our recent reviews and added some examples.
At least one other STAT News piece this week was especially noteworthy – Sharon Begley’s explainer, “Are we facing an Alzheimer’s armageddon?”
It’s encouraging to see even blips of extra investigative effort on the network TV screen, and so the CBS News piece online and on the air, “In modern-day gold rush of genetic testing, profit placed above proof,” is worth a look.
And, in a head-to-head comparison, a Reuters Health story on research to find a therapy for jet lag earned a 5-star score from our reviewers, better, in their eyes, than a CNN.com story (3 stars).
And, in case you missed it, last week our reviewers thought that a New York Times piece by Sandra Blakeslee, “Using a Mother’s Microbes to Protect Cesarean Babies,” deserved a 5-star rating as well.
We love it when we can shine a light on excellence in health care journalism. We can’t see everything, and we undoubtedly missed a number of gems, but these were some whose sparkle caught our eyes.
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
@HealthNewsRevu @mcjaklevic HealthNewsReview once again revealing hype that far outstrips reality. I suspect that one day, AI will meaningfully contribute to good patient care. Whether that's in 10 years or 100, I couldn't say. What is clear is that we ain't there yet.
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