Health and the media: uneasy partners?

12 World Health • SOth Year, No. 6, November-December 1997 Health and the media: uneasy partners? Philippe Stroot Goodwill and mutual understanding are indispensable for a new and much-needed partnership between the health sector and the press. But if iournalists are to be effective intermediaries, they must be given the freedom to do it in their own way. Most of the information that the public receive on health problems comes through the media. This is very obvious as re- gards AIDS, Ebola fever or "mad cow" disease, and it is equally true of "diseases of civilization" linked to such unhealthy lifestyles as smok- ing, alcohol abuse or lack of physi- cal exercise. But if they serve as vehicles of information, the media also help to propagate harmful ways of life. Especially vulnerable in this respect are those people in develop- ing countries or countries in transi- tion who indiscriminately yearn to adopt "Western" lifestyles. For evidence of this we need look no further than the ubiquitous advertisements for cigarettes in eastern Europe, both in the newspa- pers and on giant hoardings. After helping to create new smokers among young people impelled by one-upmanship or unthinking admi- ration for imported novelties, the media in those countries will cer- tainly convey information about the harmful effects of smoking and Ebola crisis in Zaire. General information about health reaches the public mostly through the press. Photo Keystone/ AP /J-M. Bou ju © publicize the draconian measures taken by other countries to fight against this scourge .. . So the impact of the press, radio and television on public health is a complex affair, but its importance is steadily growing. Every opinion poll that examines what the public wants puts health high among the priorities for readers, listeners and viewers. Yet regular sections or programmes devoted to health problems are far from common in the media, though nobody could possibly imagine them failing to have a section on sport, the weather or celebrity gossip. It is something of a paradox that information about health should be considered of secondary importance by editors and programme directors when public interest is clearly so strong. One possible explanation is that "medical" news is often judged to be too "specialized" and that journalists themselves may suspect they don't have sufficient knowhow to discuss such topics without the risk of making mistakes. What cannot be denied is that many scien- tists, particularly in the health field, complain that their statements have occasionally been distorted by journalists. A shared responsibility There are wrongs committed on both sides, however; if the press some- times takes these matters too lightly, the specialists too are often ignorant of the ways in which journalists work and the constraints they face. They may refuse to make an effort to explain matters precisely to inter- viewers who, generally speaking, have rather limited ideas about the subject of the interview. The special- ists therefore have to share the responsibility and take pains to ensure that what they say is very clear. The journalists in tum should not hesitate to say so if they have not fully understood and to ask the person interviewed to explain. With a little effort on both sides, there can be much better collabora- tion between those whose precious World Health • SOth Year, No. 6, November-December 1997 findings are vitally needed by the general public (doctors, research workers, specialist groups or interna- tional bodies) and those whose task is to transmit that information. In the Swiss city of Geneva, a group called Cultural Encounters brought together experts in various fields to clarify the role of the media in the general context of "scientific and technical culture for all citizens." One of the participants, a radio journalist, commented that "if the two worlds of science and the media have long had trouble understanding each other, it 's because they really are poles apart! The one concentrates on long-term, in-depth, rigorous examination of observations or statistics, while the other necessarily works at high speed and looks for a colourful, simplified and approxi- mate story." What is true for scien- tific news in general is equally true for news about health. Another participant quoted the huge media attention given to in vitro fertilization - "test-tube babies" - and stressed that "superficial and partial knowl- edge entails the risk that the general public will see only the trivial and peripheral aspects of an ethical debate which should concern every member of society". The recent excitement about the cloned sheep called Dolly, and speculation about the implications of cloning technol- I I ogy for human beings, make these remarks particularly relevant. In practice, officials working in health and members of the press are being driven to arrive at some mu- tual understanding, the former be- cause they can only improve public health by keeping the public fully informed, and the latter because the public insists on being better in- formed about health. Ideally this information will consist of much more than the same old advice about nutrition and diet, and will be delib- erately aimed at developing funda- mental health knowledge among the general public. This would not only help people to protect their own health better and to avoid what might be harmful, but also to better appreciate the major health problems of our times and to support the efforts being undertaken to counter- act them. Priority for health Who is better placed than the press to help the public understand that the battle for health must have top priority, and that any untimely penny-pinching in this domain may put the future at risk? As witness to this risk, take the re-emergence of such diseases as diphtheria in parts of the world from which they had n-,1 ~ ~ Press Conference al the Un iversity Hospital in Zurich , Switzerland. By sharing their findings with the media, scientists can contribute lo a better understanding of fundamental health issues. Photo Keystone/ek/ Ruckstuhl © practically disappeared, simply because the health protection of the public has fallen victim to political and economic upheavals. 13 At a time when information technology is expanding at an un- precedented rate, there is no short- age of technical means to guide public opinion ; what is lacking is the willingness of decision-makers to set the right kind of priorities for the information conveyed. Press man- agers and editors have to decide whether the eradication of polio and the elimination of leprosy, children's vaccination, disease prevention and the advocacy of healthy lifestyles are minor topics compared with the mass of other news items churned out daily by newspapers, radio stations and television channels. As for those who hold key infor- mation about health matters, they ought to make a greater effort to communicate it to the press, always bearing in mind that a newspaper article is not a scientific publication and that they should not expect a journalist to write in the same way as a research worker addressing his or her peers - even if this means that the in-depth detail and strict science may not be perfectly reflected as a result. Goodwill and mutual understand- ing are indispensable in this new and much-needed partnership between the health sector and the press. If journalists are to be effective inter- mediaries , they must be given the freedom to do it in their own way; this means helping them in their task, and certainly not trying to "use" them - they have a horror of that! The activities of international or national organizations working in the field of health have everything to gain from this partnership and, at the end of the day, so too does humanity in general. • Mr Philippe Stroot is Coordinator, Media Relations, Health Communications and Public Relations Un it, World Health Organization, 1 2 1 1 Geneva 27, Switzerland.