Over the past few decades, the environment in which health journalists work has changed dramatically. Many newspapers and print magazines are struggling to stay afloat and a growing number of journalists work as freelancers rather than full-time newsroom staff.
There has also been a shift in how the public consumes health news, with more people getting their news online rather than from newspapers or consumer magazines. This has led to online and print publications fighting for a finite share of the public’s attention, competing against not just traditional publications, but also informal news sources such as social media.
Health journalists continue to adapt to these changes in the news industry. But it’s clear that they face challenges which make it harder for them to write compelling health news stories that are accurate, while at the same time putting new studies in the broader context of ongoing research. Here are a few of those challenges.
Writing many health news stories a day
Many online and print publications are struggling to survive, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to a large number of journalists, including freelance health writers, being laid off.
In a 2009 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 40 percent of staff journalists said the number of health reporters at their publication had gone down, while only 16 percent said it had increased. In addition, almost 40 percent expected their own position to be eliminated within a few years.
The health reporters who remain in the newsroom are often left to keep the health news flowing, which sometimes means writing several stories per day. Ivan Oransky, editorial vice-president of Medscape, wrote in a recent paper in the journal Information Services & Use that this high volume of work “does not facilitate in-depth reporting, or context.”
Keeping up with shorter news cycles
With so many print and online publications vying for a finite share of the public’s attention, health reporters are often asked to write stories more quickly. This is especially true for stories about the latest health research. If these are not published within days of a new study being released, the stories risk being “dated” by the time they are published.
This leaves less room for reporters to add context to their stories, which is essential when writing about health. New studies don’t happen in isolation. They are preceded by other research and will inevitably be followed by additional studies. Writing more news stories per day also makes it difficult for health reporters to find sources who can help provide that context.
In addition, if a reporter is unfamiliar with a topic, it can take time for them to get up to speed. Without adequate time to research the topic, they may be tempted to write from a press release. This can sometimes work, but can also lead to missing the nuances or flaws of the study.
Writing at the mercy of journal embargoes
Health reporters have early access to many new research studies before they are made public, through what’s known as the embargo system. This allows reporters to review the study, interview the authors and other experts, and write a high-quality story.
While some embargoes give health reporters several days to do all of this, there has been a shift toward shorter embargo times. Still, even if a reporter has five to six days to pull together a story, they may waste that time by waiting until the last minute to do the important work of researching and writing the story.
Related to this, some government agencies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, have used embargoes to try to control which sources the health reporters talk to. This limits the ability of reporters to write a balanced news story.
“I think embargoes that attempt to control sourcing are dangerous because they limit the role of the reporter whose job it is to do a full look at a subject,” New York Times former public editor Margaret Sullivan told Scientific American.
Battling against health news spin
Oransky wrote that embargoes also create the false impression that research “breakthroughs are the norm rather than the exception.” In fact, most studies published represent an incremental development over what has come before.
As health reporters are pressed to write stories more quickly, they have less time to put new research into this broader context. Also, limited word counts for news stories means that any context is reduced to a brief mention of previous research toward the end of the story.
Press releases may also “spin” research results into something bigger than they actually are. This spin also happens within journal articles. While some studies point to academic press releases as the culprit, health reporters can make it worse by not reading the actual study, not reaching out to the right experts, and not spending enough time crafting the story to capture the nuances of the research.
Dealing with the replication crisis
Related to spin, health reporters may be asked to cover new studies because they offer exciting results. But many studies in preclinical medicine, psychology, and other fields cannot be replicated — this is sometimes known as the “replication crisis.”
Yet once health reporters cover a story, it’s rare for them to follow-up when another study refutes those findings. “Journalists preferentially cover initial findings although they are often contradicted by meta-analyses and rarely inform the public when they are disconfirmed,” wrote the authors of a 2017 PLoS ONE paper.
So if a study turns out to be a “one-hit wonder,” the public may have already moved on. Also, by the time a later study comes out, a reporter may no longer be at the newspaper or other publication where they wrote the original story. So even if they do write a follow-up story, it will never be linked to the original.
Conclusion
There’s no easy fix to the challenges faced by journalists who write health news. Ideally, journalists would all work for publications that value in-depth reporting over quick summary news stories. That is unlikely to happen any time soon.
Still, journalists should be aware of the problems that come with writing too many news stories each day, and not having enough time to do essential background research. This awareness itself should help them head off some of the problems that can arise. It can also help them create compelling health news stories that are accurate and put the latest research in the proper context.
