When Medical News Comes from Press Releases-A Case Study of Pancreatic Cancer and Processed Meat.
PLoS One
; 10(6): e0127848, 2015.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-26083640
ABSTRACT
The media have a key role in communicating advances in medicine to the general public, yet the accuracy of medical journalism is an under-researched area. This project adapted an established monitoring instrument to analyse all identified news reports (n = 312) on a single medical research paper a meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Cancer which showed a modest link between processed meat consumption and pancreatic cancer. Our most significant finding was that three sources (the journal press release, a story on the BBC News website and a story appearing on the 'NHS Choices' website) appeared to account for the content of over 85% of the news stories which covered the meta analysis, with many of them being verbatim or moderately edited copies and most not citing their source. The quality of these 3 primary sources varied from excellent (NHS Choices, 10 of 11 criteria addressed) to weak (journal press release, 5 of 11 criteria addressed), and this variance was reflected in the accuracy of stories derived from them. Some of the methods used in the original meta-analysis, and a proposed mechanistic explanation for the findings, were challenged in a subsequent commentary also published in the British Journal of Cancer, but this discourse was poorly reflected in the media coverage of the story.
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Neoplasias Pancreáticas
/
Difusión de la Información
/
Medios de Comunicación de Masas
Tipo de estudio:
Etiology_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Systematic_reviews
Límite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
PLoS One
Asunto de la revista:
CIENCIA
/
MEDICINA
Año:
2015
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Reino Unido