Comparing Local TV News with National TV News in Cancer Coverage: An Exploratory Content Analysis

Abstract

We compared local TV news with national TV news in terms of cancer coverage using a nationally representative sample of local nightly TV and national network TV (i.e., ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN) cancer news stories that aired during 2002 and 2003. Compared to national TV news, local TV cancer stories were (a) much shorter in length, (b) less likely to report on cancer prevention (i.e., preventive behaviors and screening tests), and (c) less likely to reference national organizations (i.e., NCI, ACS, NIH, CDC, FDA) that have made clear recommendations about ways to prevent cancer. The implications of these findings for health communication research and cancer education were discussed.

Cancer In The News: Bias And Quality In Media Reporting Of Cancer Research

“…We found a majority of online news articles reporting on peer-reviewed papers, however this may be partly explained by our exclusion of more general news articles that did not report on a specified study. Previous studies have highlighted inconsistent quality and accuracy of science news reporting practices at multiple levels, ranging from institutional press releases to news pieces [16,17,21], and found that study types with poorer methodology gain more media coverage than research based on stronger evidence [33][34][35]. Our analysis of reporting quality and study type distribution in online news is consistent with previous evidence of poor quality reporting by broadsheet news sources [19,20,23] and a bias towards primary research [6,9,46,47].…”

“…However, there is limited literature on content bias in science news reporting. Quality and style have been shown to vary across news outlets [16,17], but even the largest newspapers with the best overall standards tend to cover more studies with poorer methodology and observational studies over RCTs or systematic reviews [33][34][35].…”

“…These distortions, potentially driven by personalisation bias (e.g., celebrity profiles) were also reflected in risk perception and discrepancies in funding for cancer research [13][14][15]. Others have also documented variation in quality, topic coverage and style of cancer research reporting in print media [16][17][18]. Previous research investigating the quality of translation from research papers and press releases to news stories highlights widespread problems with inadequate referencing and distorted reporting [19][20][21][22][23][24].…”

Television News Coverage of Public Health Issues and Implications for Public Health Policy and Practice

“…As noted above, local TV news devotes substantial attention to cancer. Compared with national TV news, local TV cancer coverage is shorter, less likely to report on preventive measures, and less likely to reference national organizations that make clear recommendations on prevention (71). Relative to newspapers, local TV is more likely to discuss new cancer research findings and less likely to provide details that would allow viewers to follow up and obtain more information (92).…”

Cancer in the news: Bias and quality in media reporting of cancer research

“…Similar trends have been observed in basic medical research, where only a small fraction of the most encouraging early findings end up in clinical use [ 17 ]. Quality and style have been shown to vary across news outlets [ 18 , 19 ], but even the largest newspapers with the best overall standards tend to cover more studies with poorer methodology and observational studies over RCTs or systematic reviews [ 20 – 22 ]. In our cohort, 92.5% of reports (74/80) were based on primary research studies ( Fig 1A ).…”