Australia's media reporting of health and medical matters: a question of quality

Van der Weyden and Armstrong enthusiastically cite Schwartz and Woloshin: “don’t report preliminary findings”.1 (In fact, they wrote, “In general, don’t report preliminary findings”,2 but let’s allow this journalistic context tweak.) In their article, Schwartz and Woloshin contend that this is because “what is new may turn out to be wrong”.

Many things reported in newspapers are subject to subsequent change. So, to be on the safe side, let’s exclude them all. No more Cabinet leaks: let’s wait till everything is resolved and perfect-bound by the government stationery office. An end to covering murder trials: what if the accused is found not guilty? Forget about half-time match scores, and definitely no celebrity weddings because they’ll be divorced within the year.

A moratorium on discussing preliminary findings would put off-limits highly respected annual meetings such as those of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which set the treatment agenda annually for clinicians and patients in the fastest-paced medical specialties. It is nonsense to suggest the media should censor early results, a point that has been made previously.3

The world has moved on. News is no longer a series of monolithic reports, each entirely true and complete. Like life, news is a work in progress — a rolling tide of updates, each modifying the last.

Everyone loves a winner, and it is gratifying to note the Sydney Morning Herald is currently top of the Media Doctor league table.4 This website is a useful focal point, and Smith and colleagues’ suggestion that researchers take some responsibility for how their results are presented to the public is helpful.5

But of the three solicited commentaries,6-8 not one was from a newsroom health reporter, or — better still — a daily news editor or producer who decides, amid the controlled chaos of breaking and evolving stories, which reports should run and how prominently.

Was this because they were not approached?

Imagine a five-article package on immunisation practice without a view from a general practitioner, or one on appendicectomy without the insight of a surgeon.

It is a serious omission that undermines the credibility of the MJA’s package and calls its motivation into question. Genuine rapprochement might threaten the sport of media sniping that has become a lively sideline for some medical journals.