ISSUE

Summer 2003

Medical Reporting

“The chasm between medical journalists and physicians appears mostly to be one of ignorance rather than conflicting interests or malice,” writes Terry L. Schraeder, who for 10 years worked as a medical journalist before entering medical school. Now doing her residency in internal medicine, she uses these experiences to highlight the problems between journalists and doctors and ways to close the widening gap of distrust. She is convinced that only when they “understand the other’s professional training, education, deadlines, responsibilities, codes of ethics, and internal stresses” will the chasm narrow. – Melissa Ludtke, Editor

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Articles

Journalist’s Trade

What makes a good medical reporter?

The late Victor Cohn, a former science editor of The Washington Post, said: “A good medical reporter is, first of all, a reporter after a story, not just a medical…
Council for the Advancement of Science Writing
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Portraits of the Living With the Dead

A photographer documents the transition from medical student to physician.
Meryl Levin
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

A Doctor Examines a Journalist’s Work

As she moves between being a doctor and a medical journalist, loyalties are divided.
Perri Klass
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Medical Journalism Training

Medical Journalism Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Journalism and Mass Communication. As one of the nation’s first master’s programs in medical journalism, the…
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

What Happens When Journalists Don’t Probe?

They fail to ‘fulfill their obligation to the public interest as counterweights in the American system.’
Murrey Marder
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Medical Reporting In a Highly Commercialized Environment

A family doctor prescribes eight guiding principles for accurate and fair coverage of research findings.
John Abramson
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Constraints on China’s Coverage of SARS

For a variety of reasons, neither the government nor the press handled the medical crisis well.
Philip J. Cunningham
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

The Emotional Toll of Reporting on a Cancer Trial

‘I’d essentially planned to do a story about dying people with no real hope of a cure acting as guinea pigs.’
Jenni Laidman
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Helping Reporters Play the Medical Numbers Game

A journalist reminds us about how tricky putting ‘facts’ into perspective can be.
Lewis Cope
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Critical Tools for Medical Reporting

A medical editor’s book provides advice and guidance for journalists.
Ragnar Levi
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Tips for Writing Medical News

Never use the word “miracle.” Leave that to ministers, mayonnaise-makers and sports-writers. Don’t use “breakthrough.” Breakthroughs are infrequent and this word, like controversy, is so overused that it has lost…
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

A Hard Look Finds a Network Script Fades to Blah

A journalist tracks where and how a medical story began and how its content came to be exaggerated.
Mervin Block
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Weighing Anecdotal Evidence Against the Studies

A reporter explores connections between increased rates of cancer and the changing lifestyle of Alaska Natives.
Diana Campbell
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

‘Living With Cancer’

A newspaper links forces with TV and radio to inform the community about the causes and consequences of this disease.
Lois Wilson
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Digging Beneath What Is Said to Be the Truth

‘It puts the journalist in the position of challenging the source directly, a position no reporter or editor finds comfortable.’
Philip J. Hilts
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Using a Weblog to Track War Coverage

‘If some of the embedded U.S. journalists are showboating, the anchors home are cheering them on.’
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Transforming Medical Science Into Public Policy

An editorial writer describes her role in helping readers understand the issues.
Barbara Egbert
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Is Stem Cell Reporting Telling the Real Story?

A journalist says that media coverage of stem cells and cloning is repeating the mistakes the press made during the dot-com bubble.
Neil Munro
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Covering Ethical Debates About Medical Issues

Journalists in Nebraska played a role in informing people about the complexities of the science and ethics of medical research.
Kathleen Rutledge
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Reporting the Cloning Story: From Hype to Healthy Skepticism

Journalists can produce stronger stories by scrutinizing the motives, finances and personalities of researchers.
Aaron Zitner
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Mental Illness: Reporting on Maine’s Most Vulnerable Children

Doctors and social workers said she’d ‘never be able to tell the story.’ She did.
Barbara Walsh
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Investigating What Goes Wrong in Medicine

After 30 years of doing this, a reporter passes along lessons—some serious, some not so serious.
Paul Lieberman
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Acting as Watchdog on Cancer Research

A small newsletter can create big waves with its long and complicated stories.
Paul Goldberg
June 15, 2003
Watchdog

A Lengthy Legal Battle to Gain Access to Public Documents

A Delaware newspaper tries to obtain data about the state’s criminal justice system.
Deborah Henley
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Breaking the Medical Malpractice Code of Secrecy

At The Burlington Free Press, a reporter persists in unearthing stories that doctors don’t want told.
Stephen Kiernan
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Keeping an Eye on Thailand’s Press

A media column tracks coverage and commentary about the war in Iraq.
Songpol Kaopatumtip
June 15, 2003
Nieman Notes

Photographer Gordon Parks Turns 90

‘Gordon is our lamplighter, and I love him for that.’
Lester Sloan
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Learning To Be a Medical Journalist

‘If you already are a skilled reporter and writer, the transition to medical journalism should be relatively easy.’
Thomas Linden
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Televised War Coverage in Namibia

‘It is evident that objective journalism has been lost in the “us” and “them” scenario ….’
Gwen Lister
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Documenting Native Approaches to Wellness

With images and words, a journalist tells the story of a tribe’s effort to prevent and control Type II diabetes.
Mary Annette Pember
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Blogging the War Away

A media critic wages his own media war against the coverage of the war.
Danny Schechter
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Using Technology to Uncover Medical Stories

With computer-assisted reporting: Think small and big.
Chris Adams
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

German Skepticism About America’s Intent and Goals in Iraq

One headline called it ‘The worst invasion of Baghdad since the Mongols.’
Martin Gehlen
June 15, 2003
Watchdog

Summer 2003: Watchdog Reporting Introduction

As part of the Nieman Foundation’s Watchdog Journalism Project, Nieman Reports is featuring two articles about watchdog reporting. In the first, Deborah Henley, executive editor of The (Delaware) News Journal,…
Melissa Ludtke
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Getting a More Complete War Story

Arab + U.S. television = more accurate war coverage.
Rami G. Khouri
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Summer 2003: Introduction

It’s always been a tug-of-war between secretive government officials and those whose job it is—the press—to hold them and their actions accountable. In peaceful times, no elected leaders, no appointed…
Melissa Ludtke
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

Summer 2003: Medical Reporting Introduction

“The chasm between medical journalists and physicians appears mostly to be one of ignorance rather than conflicting interests or malice,” writes Terry L. Schraeder, who for 10 years worked as…
Melissa Ludtke
June 15, 2003
Opinion

Summer 2003: Words & Reflections Introduction

Is it possible for truth to exist in journalism? This question resides at the core of “The Press Effect: Politicians and the Stories That Shape the Political World,” a book…
Melissa Ludtke
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Readers Question Editors’ Judgments About War Coverage

‘Where were these stories when, over the last year, Bush was building up his “case” for war?’
Michael Getler
June 15, 2003
From the Curator

Newspaper Editors Confront Errors

‘We learn from one another’s mistakes.’
Bob Giles
June 15, 2003
Journalist’s Trade

A Chasm of Distrust in Medical Reporting

A doctor who was a medical journalist tries to understand why journalists don’t trust their sources and sources don’t trust reporters.
Terry L. Schraeder
June 15, 2003
Opinion

‘Small Pieces Loosely Joined’

Part of the problem with AOL Time Warner’s failure to capitalize on the Internet might be a basic misperception of what kind of medium the Internet is. Like all the…
David DeJean
June 15, 2003
Opinion

Media Companies and the Internet

We know there’s a problem, what’s the solution?
David DeJean
June 15, 2003
Opinion

Challenging the Charge of Liberal Bias in the Media

An editor’s response: Understand our biases, act as journalists, be a watchdog of the powerful.
Michael Riley
June 15, 2003
Opinion

What Stands Between the Press and the Truth?

When it comes to coverage involving politics, the answer seems to be a lot.
Seth Effron
June 15, 2003
Watchdog

Reporting Holds Michigan’s Child Welfare System Accountable

At the Detroit Free Press, a watchdog reporter sees the impact of his stories.
Jack Kresnak
June 15, 2003
Watchdog

The Arguments: The News Journal v. DELJIS

To try to prevent newspaper access to computer databases, the Delaware Criminal Justice Information System (DELJIS) has argued that: By using fields to link cases related to a defendant, a…
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Receiving Very Different News

‘It’s like you are talking about two different worlds.’
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Deciding What Images to Show

‘If a fact is ugly, should it be kept at a distance from readers and viewers?’
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

The View From Inside the Military

Embedding of journalists was an experiment. How did it work?
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Embedding Reporters on the Frontline

With regained public trust, watchdog reporting might be more welcomed for its role in protecting democracy.
Nancy Bernhard
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Embedded Reporting

Is objectivity an acceptable casualty of this kind of reporting?
Dan Kennedy
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

The Safety of Journalists Who Cover Wars

‘Communications have changed everything—on the battlefield and at home.’
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

In War, Journalists Become Part of the Problem

‘It was horrifying, confusing, numbing and nothing like the myth I had been peddled.’
Chris Hedges
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Presidential Secrecy and Reporters’ Efforts to Breach It

A former White House correspondent suggests ways to ask more probing questions.
Sam Donaldson
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

The Press and Freedom

A radio journalist spots disturbing trends in how the White House press corps reports on the Bush administration.
Bob Edwards
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Examining Press Coverage of the War

‘What is lacking in so much of the instantaneous coverage is verification and historical context, the things that turn coverage into reporting.’
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Covering the War Before It Started

While Iraq war coverage worked well, did journalists probe enough about policies and evidence that led to this war being waged?
Michael Getler
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Are Journalists Asking the Right Questions?

‘Too many of my sources of information have let me down.’
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

What Should News Organizations Do for Access?

Revelations by CNN’s Eason Jordan spark a debate among journalists.
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

Blurring the Line Between Journalist and Publicist

For things to change, the Washington press corps needs to lead the way.
Paul McMasters
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

War Coverage in the Chinese Media

The Chinese people saw changes in the way news of this war was brought to them.
Yuan Feng
June 15, 2003
Opinion

Forty Years of Reporting the Nation’s News

Bob Schieffer reflects on stories he’s covered and the way journalism has changed.
Bill Wheatley
June 15, 2003
Uncategorized

The Arab Press

‘Like their audience, the Arab world’s newspapers are angry, nuanced, multifaceted, passionate and argumentative.’
Rami G. Khouri
June 15, 2003