When one reader saw my posting about CNN’s declaration that a pediatric surgeon was a “god” doing “miracles,” he referred me to a similar story in the Onion, entitled “Amazing New Hyperbolic Chamber Greatest Invention In the History of Mankind Ever.” Read it. It may remind you of something you’ve seen in TV health news.
4/28/2005Excerpt from the Paula Zahn Now program on CNN from last Wednesday, April 20: “Reporter” Sharon Collins had the “People in the News” profile of a pediatric heart surgeon. Zahn’s intro said the surgeon “performs small miracles for desperate parents.” Collins, early in the piece said, “That man is Mohan Reddy or as many parents […]
2 4/25/2005This story appeared in my local paper today: “The first attempt at gene therapy for Alzheimer’s patients appeared to significantly delay worsening of the disease in a few people who have tested it so far. Scientists took skin cells from eight patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and modified the genes to secrete a […]
4/22/2005At a panel I organized and moderated entitled “Creeping Commercialism in TV News” at the Broadcast Education Association conference in Las Vegas yesterday, WFLA-TV Tampa news director Forrest Carr called for FCC regulations requiring stations to disclose any commercial source of guest interviews, video, or on-air information. He said what the FCC recently stated regarding […]
4/18/2005The Post-Standard of Syracuse profiles a local TV station that used a Medicare video news release in February. How did it happen? The general manager says since they got it from the CNN Newsource news feed, they thought it was legitimate news. CNN’s Newsource transmits not only news but news releases to subscribers around the […]
3/17/2005The New York Times and at least one television network newscast profiled a first-of-its-kind aortic valve implant done through a catheter feeding the device through a vein in the patient’s leg rather than by open heart surgery. Why such hype? As the Times reports, the operation was the first of “at least 150 that federal […]
3/2/2005Please see my article on the Poynter Institute website today. It touches on cheerleading in coverage of health news, on commercialism in health news coverage, on widespread conflicts of interest in the dissemination of health news, on the power of words in health news, and on some of the good things being done to improve […]
1/5/2005Journalists should scrutinize their state legislatures’ handling of Medicaid in 2005. Feeling squeezed by the feds, states are caught in a bind. Minnesota Public Radio quoted the state finance commissioner: “Health and human services is growing 20 percent from one biennium to the next. We don’t have revenues growing at that rate. And that’s a […]
12/21/2004Stories like today’s about naproxen causing “a 50 percent greater risk of heart attacks and stroke than placebo” can be meaningless if they don’t provide the ABSOLUTE risk. The 50% figure is the relative risk — naproxen’s rate relative to placebo. But we’re not told the ABSOLUTE rate: how many people actually had heart attacks […]
12/6/2004See my review article in this week’s British Medical Journal. http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7478/1352
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.
Tips & Resources for Analyzing Health Care Claims
