In the first scientific review of health information on local television news, researchers found that nearly half of the news stations aired at least one medical story in each broadcast, but the median airtime for these stories was a mere 33 seconds.*
The scientists analyzed 2,795 full-length broadcasts from 122 local stations taken from the top 50 markets throughout the United States. Nearly 1,800 health stories were aired. Not only were the stories sound-bite short, “egregious errors were identified that could harm viewers who relied on the information,” reported lead investigator James M. Pribble, MD, and colleagues at the University of Michigan.
“Thirty-three seconds is barely enough time to say the names of the diseases let alone discuss what happened in the study and what it means for people’s health,” states Jeffrey Novick, MS, RD, Director of Nutrition at the Pritikin Longevity Center® & Spa in Aventura, Florida.
But it’s certainly enough time to scare you, or deliver information that, lacking context, is inaccurate. We need only go back a few months to February, when news stations nationwide announced the latest findings of the Women’s Health Initiative trials, and declared coast to coast: “Low-fat diets don’t work. A low-fat diet won’t lower your risk of breast cancer or heart disease.”
What Americans did not hear was the very important information beyond the headlines. “Very few TV news stations pointed out that few women cut as much fat as they were instructed to, or that the women who did cut their fat the most did in fact lower their risk of breast cancer by 22%. Nor did the stations discuss that the women who ate the lowest amount of artery-clogging fats had the lowest risk of heart disease,” criticizes dietitian Jeffrey Novick.
“What it all boils down to is that science should not be communicated in sound bites.”
In their study, the University of Michigan scientists uncovered another major disappointment – the choice of topics. There were, for example, 23 reports on the effectiveness of duct tape in removing warts, and several on the possibility that lemon juice might be a good contraceptive. These issues are trivial, wrote the authors, compared to epidemic problems such as heart disease and obesity.
Dr. Pribble and team concluded: “…few newscasts provide useful information, and some stories with factually incorrect information and potentially dangerous advice were aired. Regularly reaching 165 million people… it is crucial that television reporting of health news be improved and that reporting errors be eliminated.”
Bottom Line:
- Don’t rely on TV news as your main source of information about health and medical science. Double-check TV information with reliable newsletters and websites such as www.pritikin.com, which provides extensive commentaries on new scientific studies by the physicians, dietitians, and exercise physiologists of the Pritikin Longevity Center, as well as federal sites like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov) and the National Institutes of Health (www.nih.gov).
- Get involved. Write or email your local television news stations, demanding longer, fuller, and better-researched stories on newly published health studies. All of us deserve better than “duct tape cures warts.”
* American Journal of Managed Care, 2006; 12: 170. |
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