Journalists and their sources of ideas and information on medicines

Vantrigt, Am; Dejongvandenberg, Ltw; Fm, Haaijer-Ruskamp; Willems, Jaap; Tromp, Tfj

doi:10.1016/0277-9536(94)90261-5

Cited by 53 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…HE news media are an important source of information about health and medical therapies, 1 and there is widespread interest in the quality of reporting. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Previous studies have identified inaccurate coverage of published scientific papers, 11,12 overstatement of adverse effects or risks, 13,14 and evidence of sensationalism. 15,16 The media can also have a positive public health role, as they did in communicating simple warnings about the connection between Reye's syndrome and the use of aspirin in children.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coverage by the News Media of the Benefits and Risks of Medications

et al. 2000

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coverage by the News Media of the Benefits and Risks of Medications

et al. 2000

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“…Journalists reported also needing to turn to sources for assistance in explaining and interpreting information [30]. Another survey of 468 local and national news reporters demonstrated that sources directly influence health reporters and news stories [32], a relationship supported by the extant literature [21,29,31,[33][34][35][36].…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 96%

Frequently cited sources in cancer news coverage: a content analysis examining the relationship between cancer news content and source citation

Moriarty

Jensen

Stryker

2009

Cancer Causes Control

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The media are a frequent and sometimes sole source of cancer information for many people. News coverage of cancer can be influential to cancer-related practices such as prevention or detection behaviors, and sources cited by journalists may be influential in shaping this coverage. A content analysis (n = 3,656 stories) revealed that the most frequently cited sources in cancer news articles-research institutions and medical journals-receive disproportionately more attention compared to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the American Cancer Society (ACS), and pharmaceutical companies. Research institutions were cited twice as frequently as medical journals, and more than three times as frequently as pharmaceutical companies. Most clinical trial stories were optimistic or neutral in tone, and tone was significantly related to citations of pharmaceutical companies and medical journals. Implications for effects of cancer coverage on behaviors, and the influence of sources such as research institutions and pharmaceutical companies, are discussed.

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“…Especially experts such as health scientists but also health professionals such as medical doctors are shown to be the chosen sources. Journalists also routinely search medical and scientific journals for story ideas and information (Len-Rios et al, 2009;Rowe et al, 2003;Van Trigt et al, 1994). Several authors find an explanation for this finding in the often complex and technical matter of health news.…”

Section: Sourcing Practices In Health News: An Old or New Story?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other important sources are politicians and government officials who are involved in health policy (Rowe et al, 2003) and, like in all news coverage and as symptom of the competitive media environment, other media are routinely monitored for story ideas (Len-Rios et al, 2009). Despite the availability of easy-to-use information subsidies, studies point out that health journalists are not keen to use corporate information subsidies, and if they do, they confront the corporate information with other sources (Len-Rios et al, 2009;Van Trigt et al, 1994). Ordinary citizens are rarely represented in health news "apart from occasional reference to add a personal dimension or to provide human interest" (Rowe et al, 2003, p.682).…”

Section: Sourcing Practices In Health News: An Old or New Story?mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘To follow or not to follow?’: How Belgian health journalists use Twitter to monitor potential sources

Leuven

Deprez

2017

Journal of Applied Journalism &Amp; Media Studies

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Digital technology, the internet and mobile media are transforming the journalism and media landscape by influencing the news gathering and sourcing process. The empowering capacities of social media applications may constitute a key element for more balanced news access and "inclusive journalism". We will build on two contrasting views that dominate the social media sourcing debate. On the one hand, literature shows that journalists of legacy media make use of social media sources to diversify their sourcing network including bottom-up sources such as ordinary citizens. On the other hand, various authors conclude that journalists stick with their old sourcing routines and continue to privilege top-down elite sources such as experts and government officials. In order to contribute to this academic debate we want to clarify the Twitter practices of professional Belgian health journalists in terms of how they use the platform to monitor potential sources. Therefore, we examined the 1146 Twitter "followings" of six Belgian health journalists by means of digital methods and social network analysis. Results show that top-down actors are overrepresented in the "following" networks and that Twitter's "following" function is not used to reach out to bottom-up actors. In the overall network, we found that the health journalists mainly use Twitter as a "press club" (Rupar, 2015) to monitor media actors. If we zoom in specifically on the "following" network of the healthrelated actors, we found that media actors are still important, but experts become the most followed group. Our findings also underwrite the "power law" or "long tail" distribution of social network sites as very few actors take a central position in the "following" lists while the large majority of actors are not systematically monitored by the journalists.

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Journalists and their sources of ideas and information on medicines

Cited by 53 publications

References 6 publications

Coverage by the News Media of the Benefits and Risks of Medications

Coverage by the News Media of the Benefits and Risks of Medications

Frequently cited sources in cancer news coverage: a content analysis examining the relationship between cancer news content and source citation

‘To follow or not to follow?’: How Belgian health journalists use Twitter to monitor potential sources

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