Making medical journalism healthier

Abstract

Another explanation for incompleteness comes from Dartmouth Medical School researchers Lisa Schwartz and Steve Woloshin, who have established that preliminary research findings presented as conference abstracts often receive prominent media coverage.8 They also found that press releases about research in medical journals often presented results in exaggerated formats and failed to mention study limitations or funding sources.9 Overly rosy coverage of drugs may also result from the direct and indirect relations between journalists and drug companies. Some medical reporters undertake work outside their media outlets that is paid for by drug companies,10 some receive all-expenses-paid international trips from drug companies, and some accept generous medical-media awards sponsored by drug companies—in some cases with company representatives sitting as judges.11 Ending these more egregious ties between journalists and drug companies, decreasing reliance on company-sponsored materials, and improving the quality of medical-journal press releases may certainly help produce more sober and less misleading coverage. [...]the results of necessarily reductionist academic methods of measuring story quality should not be overstated, and prescriptions for stories to become a checklist of key facts should be avoided.