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>If the news reflects the medical community's POV and the medical community is wrong, that makes them "complicit"? The expectation is that news are independent

>If the news reflects the medical community's POV and the medical community is wrong, that makes them "complicit"? The expectation is that news are independent and practice journalism and they don't just take anyone at their word.

duxup 7y ago
>they don't just take anyone at their word. How does that work exactly? Doctor's say they're not treating pain properly and they feel opioids are a good option to do that. What exactly should a journalist do then? Not report it? Do some science?
- luckylion 7y ago
  > What exactly should a journalist do then? First of all, ideally you'll leave those topics for your journalist buddies that actually know what they write about because they've been in medicine. If those aren't around: talk to other doctors, preferable some that are not being paid by a pharma company, to see whether they agree. The same is true when your government tells you that all the intelligence sources agree and $desertCountry has lots of $wmd and is planning to conquer the world by doing $evilThing and $ourAlliance needs to invade now. Granted, the news media hasn't done a good job there either, you could say they were complicit by uncritically repeating propaganda.
  - duxup 7y ago
    Will those journalist buddies ever know more than actual doctors?
    - luckylion 7y ago
      They'll usually know as much, and often more, yes (their job isn't to treat people but to write about treating people, that gives them more time & incentive to learn). At the very least, they know enough to be cautious when they encounter some claims. It'd be easy for me to convince a general journalist that Perl is the language of tomorrow. It'll be much harder to convince a journalist that has worked in software development and still keeps up. A journalist that has a medical background can judge these things much better, can actually read studies and understands the monetary incentives given by pharma companies - and in most cases they are not part of the game, they are not paid to shill.
EpicEng 7y ago
So... journalists should have spent their free time self learning their way to a medical degree? Let's not forget stats as well since they'll need to read and understand hundreds of medical studies. Journalists cannot be experts in every field they report on.
- macspoofing 7y ago
  >journalists should have spent their free time self learning their way to a medical degree? Maybe. There are journalists with technical backgrounds. But let's leave that aside. Are you telling me you can't find experts to explain the nuances of the particular policies? Take the example of Theranos. While the company was getting fawning press coverage, there were many specialists that were calling bullshit on their claims, from medical professional, university professors, to even competitors.
  - EpicEng 7y ago
    >Are you telling me you can't find experts to explain the nuances of the particular policies? Would those experts be... medical professionals?
    - macspoofing 7y ago
      >Would those experts be... medical professionals? Yes. The point is there is never uniformity of opinion. For every disastrous policy, in hindsight, there were multitude of voices raising concerns. A good journalist will be able to talk to with experts and get down to the meat of the matter and deliver the information to the public.
      - EpicEng 7y ago
        But the expert consensus at the time was that the (now known to be problematic) course of treatment was correct. Do you have evidence that there was evidence to the contrary during the relevant period of time?
ben509 7y ago
(I'm not taking a side on whether the opiod question is correct, just talking about the process of journalism.) The press's ability as an institution to contradict another institution has practical limits. In particular, if the broader medical community is largely on board with opiods, for a journalist to write a story, they have to get comments from medical authorities. If those comments are consistently saying that opiods are necessary and good for pain management, an ethical journalist can't just ignore all those comments and harp on a few outliers. And for a story to catch on, other journalists have to, in effect, replicate that work: they have to do their own investigations, but they're going to get a similar distribution of comments. The press can typically focus on an institution if there's a particular scandal involving specific people or entities because then their questions become more targeted.
- macspoofing 7y ago
  >If those comments are consistently saying that opiods are necessary and good for pain management, an ethical journalist can't just ignore all those comments and harp on a few outliers. They can. And they must. Would you make this same argument when journalists cover fiance or war? In the case of the former, there is usually 'irrational exuberance' that emanates from financial professionals that inevitably leads to a crash. Journalist should just take that at face value when the finance industry says subprime derivatives are great? How about the latter, war. Just because everyone is on-board, should journalists stop asking questions? If all journalism is is a mouthpiece, why do we need it in the age of internet? I can go and read what the various agencies have to say without a middle-man.
  - ben509 7y ago
    > Would you make this same argument when journalists cover fi[n]ance or war? Yes. A journalist's job is to report news, not make it. Activist journalism has virtually destroyed the reputation of the press. What good is any coverage if your audience thinks you're dishonest? > Just because everyone is on-board, should journalists stop asking questions? They should not be distorting their coverage of the answers. > If all journalism is is a mouthpiece, why do we need it in the age of internet? Activist journalism is just a mouthpiece for interest groups.

duxup 7y ago

>they don't just take anyone at their word. How does that work exactly? Doctor's say they're not treating pain properly and they feel opioids are a good option to do that. What exactly should a journalist do then? Not report it? Do some science?

luckylion 7y ago
> What exactly should a journalist do then? First of all, ideally you'll leave those topics for your journalist buddies that actually know what they write about because they've been in medicine. If those aren't around: talk to other doctors, preferable some that are not being paid by a pharma company, to see whether they agree. The same is true when your government tells you that all the intelligence sources agree and $desertCountry has lots of $wmd and is planning to conquer the world by doing $evilThing and $ourAlliance needs to invade now. Granted, the news media hasn't done a good job there either, you could say they were complicit by uncritically repeating propaganda.
- duxup 7y ago
  Will those journalist buddies ever know more than actual doctors?
  - luckylion 7y ago
    They'll usually know as much, and often more, yes (their job isn't to treat people but to write about treating people, that gives them more time & incentive to learn). At the very least, they know enough to be cautious when they encounter some claims. It'd be easy for me to convince a general journalist that Perl is the language of tomorrow. It'll be much harder to convince a journalist that has worked in software development and still keeps up. A journalist that has a medical background can judge these things much better, can actually read studies and understands the monetary incentives given by pharma companies - and in most cases they are not part of the game, they are not paid to shill.

EpicEng 7y ago

So... journalists should have spent their free time self learning their way to a medical degree? Let's not forget stats as well since they'll need to read and understand hundreds of medical studies. Journalists cannot be experts in every field they report on.

macspoofing 7y ago
>journalists should have spent their free time self learning their way to a medical degree? Maybe. There are journalists with technical backgrounds. But let's leave that aside. Are you telling me you can't find experts to explain the nuances of the particular policies? Take the example of Theranos. While the company was getting fawning press coverage, there were many specialists that were calling bullshit on their claims, from medical professional, university professors, to even competitors.
- EpicEng 7y ago
  >Are you telling me you can't find experts to explain the nuances of the particular policies? Would those experts be... medical professionals?
  - macspoofing 7y ago
    >Would those experts be... medical professionals? Yes. The point is there is never uniformity of opinion. For every disastrous policy, in hindsight, there were multitude of voices raising concerns. A good journalist will be able to talk to with experts and get down to the meat of the matter and deliver the information to the public.
    - EpicEng 7y ago
      But the expert consensus at the time was that the (now known to be problematic) course of treatment was correct. Do you have evidence that there was evidence to the contrary during the relevant period of time?

ben509 7y ago

(I'm not taking a side on whether the opiod question is correct, just talking about the process of journalism.) The press's ability as an institution to contradict another institution has practical limits. In particular, if the broader medical community is largely on board with opiods, for a journalist to write a story, they have to get comments from medical authorities. If those comments are consistently saying that opiods are necessary and good for pain management, an ethical journalist can't just ignore all those comments and harp on a few outliers. And for a story to catch on, other journalists have to, in effect, replicate that work: they have to do their own investigations, but they're going to get a similar distribution of comments. The press can typically focus on an institution if there's a particular scandal involving specific people or entities because then their questions become more targeted.

macspoofing 7y ago
>If those comments are consistently saying that opiods are necessary and good for pain management, an ethical journalist can't just ignore all those comments and harp on a few outliers. They can. And they must. Would you make this same argument when journalists cover fiance or war? In the case of the former, there is usually 'irrational exuberance' that emanates from financial professionals that inevitably leads to a crash. Journalist should just take that at face value when the finance industry says subprime derivatives are great? How about the latter, war. Just because everyone is on-board, should journalists stop asking questions? If all journalism is is a mouthpiece, why do we need it in the age of internet? I can go and read what the various agencies have to say without a middle-man.
- ben509 7y ago
  > Would you make this same argument when journalists cover fi[n]ance or war? Yes. A journalist's job is to report news, not make it. Activist journalism has virtually destroyed the reputation of the press. What good is any coverage if your audience thinks you're dishonest? > Just because everyone is on-board, should journalists stop asking questions? They should not be distorting their coverage of the answers. > If all journalism is is a mouthpiece, why do we need it in the age of internet? Activist journalism is just a mouthpiece for interest groups.