One of the roughest stories about medical coverage I’ve heard was from a bacteriologist who told me about the effort he’d made with a local journalist over a particular research story. But to his horror, when the article was published in the newspaper, every time the word “bacterium” should have been used, “virus” appeared instead. Outraged, he rang the journalist who gave him the standard response — that it was the subeditor’s fault. Not giving up, our intrepid researcher rang the subbie who told him “It wasn’t me, it was the editor”. So he called the editor whose response was, “I used journalistic licence. I reckoned our readers knew the word virus better. It doesn’t matter does it?”

This, of course, is every researcher’s worst nightmare. But it is only a relative risk. It’s true that you don’t advance your academic career by the number of citations on the evening television news. On the other hand, a report of your findings in one TV news slot will reach an audience equivalent to a lifetime’s presentations at learned gatherings, or even, dare I say it, readers of the MJA? So, if the work was worth doing and has been accepted by your peers, it is surely worth telling the community. However, that doesn’t absolve us in the media from getting it right and resisting the influence commercial interests have in pushing products, attitudes and diseases, real or invented.1

The article by Smith et al describing the experience of media doctor in this issue of the Journal (page 190)2 shows the extent to which some of our major media outlets, including the ABC, in their reporting of medical news, fall below the sorts of standards that might allow the community to make rational decisions about their health and medical care. The situation may actually be worse, as media doctor does not monitor talkback radio where public relations companies pushing their clients’ wares can access large numbers of listeners. In addition, there are important problems, such as the way the media can increase stigmatisation of people with major mental illnesses,3,4 that are not necessarily monitored by media doctor’s approach.

Before we become too overwrought though, we are not as badly off in Australia as in other countries, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, where newspaper tabloids can be breathtakingly odious, flaunting science, objectivity, social responsibility and a host of other values in the fight for sales.

The solution is not necessarily to have more doctor–journalists. There are several excellent health reporters with no technical background. Their success comes from staying on the job and being determined to learn the analytical skills required rather than moving on to other more prestigious rounds like economics or politics. A growing number of journalism schools teach some of the essentials of science reporting, but cadets and trainees don’t always come with communication degrees. That means media outlets themselves have as much responsibility as ever to maintain standards. However, there is only so much that public embarrassment from media doctor or from the ABC’s weekly TV program Media Watch5 can do. Researchers should complain when they see things done badly, which can make a difference because the line of least resistance should be to do things well. For example, Professor David Pennington, who chaired the “AIDS Task Force” in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, made a significant impact on coverage by intervening actively in the interests of accuracy and defusing prejudice.

My gripe with media doctor is that they don’t monitor The Health Report (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/helthrpt/default.htm). As we in the Fourth Estate like to say, any coverage is good coverage.