Sensational reporting of health news distorts facts, misleads readers

By Dr Joseph A Aluoch

The media is an important link in any public health situation. It serves as a source of correct health information and behavior. The media play a vital role as a link between health workers and the public.

It educates and informs the public about any disease outbreak or available preventive measures. The health system has often been directed towards treating disease and surgical intervention.

Disease prevention and active promotion of health is an area that has been given attention. Many people hear about medical discoveries through the media. Newspapers, magazines, television and the Internet play an increasingly crucial role in communicating information about health issues, research findings and new treatments.

Good medical journalism provides accurate, balanced reports and important contextual information that helps to set appropriate expectations on the part of consumers, informs the larger medical community and provides a vital public service.

However, poor medical journalism can exaggerate or oversimplify an issue, unnecessarily inflating expectations of patients and providers and putting increasing strain on the physician-patient relationship.

Some journalists say their primary concern is accurate and clear reporting; they are less concerned about the consequences of their story once it is published. But that approach may result in shoddy journalism and potential harm to the public. I assert that it isn’t sufficient to be accurate and clear when covering health news.

Journalists have a responsibility to mirror a society’s needs and issues, comprehensively and proportionally. Readers and viewers may make important health care decisions based on the information provided in the media stories."

Journalists face unique challenges in covering health news. Some specialised skills, knowledge and judgment are helpful. Editors, reporters, and writers need to scrutinise terminologies used in health news. Vague, sensational terms such as "cure," "miracle" and "breakthrough" may mislead readers and viewers.

Such terms should not be used because they are meaningless. Health reporting does involve ‘telling a story," but it also requires writers to take on additional responsibilities through the story cycle-finding the story, collecting information and writing it. Standard news criteria such as timeliness and impact may be used to pick stories. But in health reporting, context is crucial. Research advances to be reported need to be placed in context.

When a public health situation is involved, health writers and the media can certainly play a role in quickly delivering important messages to the public. In a sense they do serve as a component of the health providers community. And this makes it important for health writers to ensure that they get it absolutely right.

Given that most people do not interact with their doctors on regular basis, the media is possibly the most significant source of health information.

We recognise that there are different depths of journalism and that journalists face constraints, including commercial pressure and deadlines that give little time to reflect on stories. Some journalists argue that the media are the messengers and not the message, and it is up to others to interpret their reporting.

And even when they do have the time, journalists face two major challenges -understanding the clinical science and epidemiology, and dealing with powerful vested interests. Many people make the mistake of using the terms "journalists" and the media" interchangeably.

They speak, in the same breath, of the terrible failings of journalists and the media in covering health or other issues. In so doing, they fail to make a distinction between the craft or profession of journalism and the competitive industry that is the media. They fail to understand that the goals and drivers of journalism are often in conflict with those of the media industry.

The foremost goal of the media is not, surprisingly, to make profit. Many journalists are too idealistic to admit, even to themselves, that their job is to make money for their employers. Some believe they are there for the public interest. Some simply love to tell a yarn, to get the buzz that comes with uncovering a great story and breaking news.

Is no secret health news sells. The medical industry churns out volumes of information for medical reporters to quickly sift through every day. There is a lack of special training for medical journalists. Medical news is often simplified, or worse, sensationalised, because of industry pressures. Because health news sells, it can be and will be promoted- and in the process, distorted.

Like medical errors, the problems with medical journalism are system wide. At the root is a clash of cultures. Medicine tends to be very methodical, slow, and subject to change.

But the media want information that’s definitive; they want it now. Overcoming the constraints that journalists face will require efforts from journalists and healthcare professionals, as well as understanding of fundamental differences between the two cultures.

Medical reports can increase or diminish the willingness of individuals to seek medical care; may raise expectations (sometimes falsely) may dash hope, or may provoke alarm (sometimes unnecessarily).

Although the impact of health care reporting is difficult to measure, the media can influence individual health behavior, healthcare utilisation, healthcare practices and health policy. In many countries new legislation on patient’s rights include that right to make informed decisions about one’s own health care.

The ability to exercise this right effectively depends on exposure to good information. Policy makers and physicians also get medical information from the media and this can affect their work directly and indirectly. This information should be valid

Journalists have a special responsibility in covering health and medical news; in fact reporters are surpassing doctors as a source of medical information. The important role played by health journalist is reflected in the beneficial effects on patient’s health.

The writer is a consultant physician

Related Topics