Volume 197 - Issue 10
The media and public health: complexity, controversy and combat
Author: Craig B Dalton
Med J Aust 2012; 197 (10): 546-547. || doi: 10.5694/mja12.10998
Published online: 19 November 2012
Published online: 19 November 2012
The overt role of journalists is to provide information to an interested or concerned public. But journalists also have a shadow role - generating entertainment value to enhance advertising and shareholder revenue. Likewise the overt role of public health officials is to disseminate accurate, timely information to inform an interested populace; but health officials too have a shadow role - to minimise the political risks of the elected branch of government
Public health officials and the media in conflict in their “shadow” roles
The idea that public health officials and the media could have, or should have, defined roles in communicating with the public is appealing. However, making the assumption that there is some sort of static “role” fails to recognise the complex world we function in, and may actually create the apparent conflict described by Sweet and colleagues.1
The overt role of journalists is to provide information demanded by an interested or concerned public. But journalists also have a shadow role — generating entertainment value to enhance advertising and shareholder revenue — and to ignore this is to ignore the commercial reality in which they are immersed. Contradiction, controversy, sensationalism and tragedies generate dollars.
Likewise the overt role of public health officials is to disseminate accurate, timely information, without contradiction, to inform an interested populace and engage the public in disease control activities; but health officials too have a shadow role — to minimise the political risks of the elected branch of government. Uncertainty, controversy, and imperfections in policy and response are intolerable to Western governments seeking to manage “issues”.
It is within these shadow roles that the conflict between public health officials and journalists can manifest. Each side stands on the high moral ground of their overt role and criticises the other for the objectives of their shadow role. Sweet et al are correct in suggesting that information flow improves when public health officials develop trusting relationships with individual journalists.1 However, a trusted individual journalist does not own or control the media outlet and cannot make absolute guarantees about the final “product”. Headlines, omissions of fact, or creative juxtaposition by subeditors can be beyond the trusted journalist’s control. While some public health officials do provide “off the record” briefings or “deep background” information (particularly to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation), the personal risk to the official should not be underestimated.
Journalists value a diversity of viewpoints, but public health officials are strongly discouraged from voicing alternative views publicly. Most of the diversity in viewpoints will arise from academics. A recent survey of 36 leading Australian public health resarchers identified positive aspects of media contact, but they also reported negative consequences, such as colleagues describing media-engaged researchers as “self-promoting”, “show ponies”, and “media nymphomaniacs”.2 Qualitative semi-structured interviews with infectious diseases experts involved in responding to the media during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic revealed significant disagreement about how best to frame the risk associated with the pandemic.3 The researchers noted that much of the tension and frustration among the experts was confined to scientific and medical circles and hidden from public scrutiny.3
The differing timescales within which public health officials and the media operate are another inevitable source of tension. Socrates called democracy a noble but sluggish horse — the machinations of scientific fact-checking, development and alignment of policy, consultation with stakeholders and clearance of media statements at multiple levels that governments undertake do not move at the speed of the 24-hour news cycle.
Blogging, Twitter, and Facebook will definitely play a major role in government communications in future epidemics, but procedures to clear information for release will need to be streamlined to align with the immediacy of these media vehicles. The Queensland Police Service (QPS) received many accolades for their timely use of social media during the 2011 floods and the Cyclone Yasi response. This included using Twitter, Facebook posts and live video streaming of media conferences. Major media outlets had to run to catch up with the dissemination of information by police by running the police Twitter stream directly live to air. Queensland police did not have to manage the media — they were the media.
The secret of the rapid clearance and delegation of information release to the operational level probably lies in the tradition of police ministers being careful to avoid comment and involvement in “operational matters”. A case study of their success notes that: “Given the majority of the information the QPS released was factual and in the interests of public safety it could be released immediately and without a clearance process. The team was trusted to use their judgement.”4
Australia does not have the equivalent of a Dr Sanjay Gupta — the CNN and Time Magazine health reporter who was so trusted by the US public that the Obama administration allegedly approached him for the position of Surgeon General.5 Public trust built over years or decades lays a foundation on which the discussion of highly nuanced, complex or counterintuitive concepts can be considered.
There is no doubt that responses to future epidemics would be improved by including journalists and interested community members in debriefs, and there is a role for state and federal audit offices in conducting independent audits of pandemic and epidemic responses akin to those conducted by the United States Government Accountability Office.6
Predefined static “roles” and “management” of the media easily collapse in dynamic situations like epidemics. On 12 June 2009, in the CONTAIN phase of the pandemic response to the H1N1 influenza epidemic in Australia, the Executive Officer of the Brisbane Broncos Rugby League team, frustrated by what he interpreted as inconsistency or “flexibility” in government pandemic quarantine and isolation procedures affecting his players, announced: “It’s called swine flu — we’re just going to call it the flu from now on. If someone gets the flu, we’ll treat them the way we normally do.”7 This media statement turned out to be the essence of the PROTECT phase that was announced by the federal government 5 days later. Not all communication issues are manageable.
Competing interests
I was formerly an ABC Science Media Fellow.
References
- Sweet MA, Holland KE, Blood RW. Learning from journalists’ experiences of the H1N1 pandemic. Med J Aust 2012; 197: 544-545. 0_i1115620
- Chapman S, Haynes A, Derrick G, et al. Reaching “an audience that you would never dream of speaking to”: influential public health researchers’ views on the role of news media in influencing policy and public understanding. J Health Commun 2012. In press. Preprint edition. http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/8369/2/Experts_on_Media.pdf (accessed Oct 2012).
- Holland K, Blood R, Imison M, et al. Risk, expert uncertainty and Australian news media: public and private faces of expert opinion during the 2009 swine flu pandemic. J Risk Res 2012; 16: 657-671. 0_i1115624
- Queensland Police Service. Disaster management and social media — a case study. http://www.police.qld.gov.au/Resources/Internet/services/reportsPublications/documents/QPSSocialMediaCaseStudy.pdf (accessed Oct 2012).
- Harris G. CNN reporter tops list for Surgeon General. New York Times 2009; 6 Jun. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/us/politics/07gupta.html (accessed Oct 2012).
- United States Government Accountability Office. Report to Congressional Requesters. Influenza pandemic. Lessons from the H1N1 pandemic should be incorporated into future planning. GAO-11-632. 27 Jun, 2011. http://www.gao.gov/assets/330/320176.pdf (accessed Jun 2012).
- Barrett C, Walter B. Player power sways Broncos decision to play. Sydney Morning Herald 2009; 12 Jun. http://www.smh.com.au/news/lhqnews/player-power-sways-broncos/2009/06/11/1244664788311.html (accessed Jun 2012).
Provenance: <p>Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.</p>