David Henry and colleagues review Australian news stories over a five-year period to assess whether quality is associated with who wrote the story: a specialist health journalist or a non-specialist

A Cassels

A Larsson

A Wilson

Alison Jones

Amanda Wilson

B Bonevski

D Hodgetts

David Henry

DE Smith

DF Ransohoff

G Schwitzer

I Kovic

Jane Robertson

K Viswanath

M Simmons

Patrick McElduff

S Chapman

T Fitzgerald

Y Tian

English

PubMed

Does it matter who writes medical news stories? The news media have a crucial role in supporting health literacy, and multiple surveys have shown the extent to which the public relies on them for information about medical advances [1,2]. However, the mainstream media are undergoing rapid and unprecedented change, with a shift from the traditional outlets (broadsheet newspapers and flagship current affairs programs) to online news services and blogs that are available free of charge. These online sources, and the more recent Web 2.0 activities (e.g., FaceBook and Twitter), still rely on the quality of the news coverage by the traditional media, which they frequently cite as information sources

Amanda J. Wilson

Patrick Mcelduff

Alison L. Jones

CiteSeerX

Does it matter who writes medical news stories? PLOSmedicine

Wilson Amanda

Robertson Jane

McElduff Patrick

Jones Alison

Henry David

Public Library of Science (PLOS)

Does It Matter Who Writes Medical News Stories?

The news media have a crucial role in supporting health literacy, and multiple surveys have shown the extent to which the public relies on them for information about medical advances [1,2]. However, the mainstream media are undergoing rapid and unprecedented change, with a shift from the traditional outlets (broadsheet newspapers and flagship current affairs programs) to online news services and blogs that are available free of charge. These online sources, and the more recent Web 2.0 activities (e.g., FaceBook and Twitter), still rely on the quality of the news coverage by the traditional media, which they frequently cite as information sources

Wilson, Amanda J

Robertson, Jane

McElduff, Patrick

Jones, Alison L

Henry, David

Research Online

Does it matter who writes medical news stories?

Crossref

Wilson, A

Robertson, J

McElduff, P

Jones, A

Henry, D

University of Melbourne Institutional Repository

PLoS Medicine

Directory of Open Access Journals

The media can influence health literacy and health seeking behaviours, but few studies have looked at the quality of news stories. We examined whether experienced specialist health reporters write better stories than other categories of journalists. We compared the quality of stories written by specialist and non-specialist journalists, and those sourced from major news organisations, in Australia from 2004–08. We found that it does matter who writes news stories that cover the benefits and harms of health care interventions. Stories written by specialist health journalists working for a single media outlet scored more highly than those written by less experienced writers. Our findings are important because this source of health literacy is currently under pressure as falling revenues threaten the future of the traditional media

Wilson, Amanda

Jones, Alison

University of Newcastle's Digital Repository

http://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/11343/246782/1/PMC2939027.pdf

Does It Matter Who Writes Medical News Stories?

Abstract

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CiteSeerX

Public Library of Science (PLOS)

Research Online

Crossref

University of Melbourne Institutional Repository

Directory of Open Access Journals

Public Library of Science (PLOS)

University of Newcastle's Digital Repository