Search Results for "local tv news ethics"
Reflections on a 45-year career and 13 years leading HealthNewsReview.org
In this, our final week of daily publishing as we wind down operations due to a loss of sufficient funding, I want to share some observations after a 45-year career in health care journalism, 13 of which were the pinnacle for me as Publisher of this website. Earlier this year, after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “surprise” primary election […]
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Kicking off 2017 HealthNewsReview.org year-ender series
This is the first of six year-ender pieces we have planned to wrap up 2017. In this first of the series we’ll provide an overview of highlights (or lowlights) of what we observed in reviewing media messages about health care every day in our 11th year. Don’t take $ from industries you report on We […]
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Another ‘breach of trust’ at STAT: patient who praised TV drug ads says pharma PR company asked her to write op-ed
[Editor’s note: In response to our reporting, STAT has updated the patient op-ed that is the subject of this post and revised its policies on authorship and conflict of interest disclosure in its opinion columns. See the addendum at the bottom of this post for details.] The author of a STAT op-ed headlined “You can […]
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Media ethics pitfalls of pay-for-play broadcast health information
This would be a good case study for the next textbook on media ethics. On radio and television in the Providence, Rhode Island area, Dr. Tad Sztykowski bought media time to reach listeners and viewers about his work at his Centers for Integrative Medicine and Healing. Now he may need to buy time to think […]
Multiple health news ethical problems with Minneapolis TV station’s Mayo Clinic story
Health care news that is spoonfed by medical centers to local TV news organizations can perhaps do as much harm as good. How? Such “news” can and does mislead readers when the TV station accepting the spoon-feeding doesn’t do any original reporting, doesn’t have anyone on staff trained in how to cover health care research […]
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New example of conflict of interest in Mayo Clinic sponsorship of Star Tribune newspaper section
When it was announced that the Mayo Clinic would sponsor the Star Tribune newspaper’s Science & Health section in 2015, I was interviewed about the announcement, and wrote about it. All I could do was speculate at that time about some of the potential pitfalls of the newly-announced arrangement, and speak generically about the problems […]
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At Seattle TV stations, health “news” increasingly consists of PR for area hospitals
In June 2016, KIRO-7, the CBS affiliate in Seattle, aired a special program hosted by the station’s morning news anchors John Knicely and Michelle Millman called “Health Evolution: Fighting Cancer from Within.” The introduction to the program states, “Some of the biggest cancer breakthroughs are happening right now in Seattle. Breakthroughs that are turning death […]
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Selling stem cell claims via sponsored TV news – “horribly wrong” health news
The segment on the WFAA-TV, Dallas, Good Morning Texas program, was headlined “The latest on the investigational use of stem cell therapy for a number of IRB approved disorders.” A more apt headline would be, “The latest on how health care entrepreneurs sell their wares to an unsuspecting, uninformed public – with the help of local TV.” […]
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Another potentially troubling “partnership” between a news org & Mayo Clinic
Journalist Paul John Scott of the Rochester Post Bulletin writes, “Mayo, Star Tribune form content partnership.” He begins: Mayo Clinic has entered into a sponsored content deal with the Star-Tribune to generate health, disease and condition treatment related info-graphics for the Twin Cities’ largest newspaper. The clinic describes the arrangement as an opportunity to distribute […]
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Questions about Mayo Clinic deal with Minneapolis TV station
The following guest blog post was submitted by Trudy Lieberman, a veteran health care journalist who, for years, has tracked the cracks in the wall between health care news and health care advertising/sponsorship arrangements. For months now, every night on the 10 pm newscast from KARE 11, the Twin Cities NBC affiliate, thousands of viewers […]
What’s wrong with local TV news? Health care news may be worst.
Former CBS and CNN journalist Deborah Potter writes on her NewsLab site: “Let’s start with the syndicated stories TV networks pump out to their affiliates, a service they’ve provided for decades. One of my first jobs in television many years ago was to log the video offerings from ABC on the cutely named DEF or […]
12/31/2012Troublesome ethical issues in TV news personality targeting high school sports for cancer fundraising
The Star Tribune is going to take a lot of criticism for its story about a local TV news personality’s cancer foundation “targeting high school sporting events,” but I think this is important and legitimate cross-town journalism about journalism ethics. The story involves longtime Minneapolis TV personality Randy Shaver who has danced back and forth […]
8/28/2012Ethics of commercial screening tests: choice should be informed by evidence, not advertising claims
An opinion piece in the Annals of Internal Medicine, “Ethics of Commercial Screening Tests,” makes a strong, clear statement about the problems with many screening test campaigns offered by commercial companies in partnerships with churches, pharmacies, shopping malls or trusted medical organizations. Excerpts: “Particular concerns about “the use of ultrasonography (for example, ultrasonography of the […]
1/10/2012Another sponsored health news issue: retired columnist gets column back – now paid by health care industry
3 months ago we blogged about a longtime Tampa Bay TV anchorman shifting – in retirement – to being a paid spokesman for a Medicare Advantage plan. Now we see that former Charleston, SC The Post and Courier columnist Ken Burger is doing promotions for a local health care provider organization, but it’s how this […]
1/6/2012Troubling TV news ethical issue – often on health news – now being reviewed by FCC
“TV newscasts are increasingly seeded with corporate advertising masquerading as news — and the federal government wants to do something about it,” reports the Washington Post. It’s an issue that may have arisen more often with health news than with any other topic. A quick (and probably incomplete) scan of this blog shows we’ve written […]
