Site Looks for 'Sick' Health Stories

By: Miki Johnson Reporters don't take health or medical beats unless they "have a pretty big heart," Gary Schwitzer insists. But he also knows a big heart is no substitute for training and accuracy in a field as life-and-death as health journalism.

Schwitzer, director of graduate studies for the University of Minnesota's Health Journalism program and the former head of CNN's medical news unit, has long been frustrated by "miracle drug" stories that fail to weigh the costs or that exaggerate preliminary test results, for example.

"There is so much high-quality health journalism being done ? but there are still far too many [health reporters] who are thrown into this beat without the time or training or inclination to do it right," he laments. "We have to try to help them."

With HealthNewsReview.org, a new health media review site, Schwitzer hopes to do just that. The site, funded by the non-profit Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making, rates stories with up to five stars based on accuracy and other criteria. The rating system employs a checklist of 10 common weak points, including biased information sources, quantification of benefits, and lack of details about high costs and/or possible side effects.

Each day the site's staff chooses stories from the country's 50 highest circulation newspapers, the Associated Press, network newscasts, and top newsmagazines, focusing on ones that make claims about the efficacy of treatments, procedures, or tests. Two of a team of 20 health professionals vet each story, then send it back to Schwitzer, who adds his own critique and publishes an overall assessment.

"I try to look at the site daily to see what the reviewers say about current articles, both by me and others," says Carla K. Johnson, who writes about medical studies for the Associated Press in Chicago. "Also, the criteria are a good checklist when I'm polishing a story."

Since HealthNewsReview launched April 15, Schwitzer has heard from many journalists who say the reviews are tough, but that they are eager for the feedback. Because health journalists are often the most knowledgeable in the newsroom about their topics, he adds, constructive criticism can be hard to come by.

Instead, even experienced reporters face editors who cut key information because it's "boring," and reporters are seldom given adequate time or resources to flesh out their stories. And slashed budgets mean that reporters who lack background or training in medicine usually stay that way. Then there's the challenge at the heart of them all: "Journalists who write about medical studies must make complex information understandable to a lay audience without oversimplifying to the point of sacrificing accuracy," says the AP's Johnson.

Sympathetic to these obstacles, HealthNewsReview is also taking an active role in educating reporters. Schwitzer is scheduled to speak at the National Institutes of Health's annual "Medicine in the Media" symposium this summer and he has discussed hosting a workshop at next year's meeting of the Association of Health Care Journalists. He also had writers and editors preview the site before its launch, both to get their feedback and make them aware of the resource.

Scott Bosley, executive director of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, previewed the site and says Schwitzer's constructive criticism could prove to be a useful tool for editors as well.

"The set of standards that he uses are a very good guideline," notes Bosley. "I recommend that they read and absorb what he's laid out there."

In his ideal world, Schwitzer says the site would eventually "put itself out of business" by teaching readers to apply its criteria to health journalism on their own. And by producing smarter and more demanding consumers, the site seeks a higher goal ? doing its small part to stem soaring health-care costs.