Winner Essays: 2003

Rebecca Deusser, Boston University
Education for science and medical journalism has evolved at a fascinating rate over the past decade. While the need for writers who specialize in reporting health and science issues is growing, I think that it is important to remember that students should be first and foremost, trained as journalists. The basic skills of reporting are vital for any beat, especially when one covers a detailed and complicated topic.

The Boston University Knight Center for Science and Medical Journalism strives to train students to recognize, investigate, analyze and explain scientific and medical findings and issues. These guidelines are extremely important for students with a scientific background, who may not have much experience with writing in a critical manner.

I also think that is becoming more important for students to gain experience in more than one media—for example print and Web media. As the market for journalists becomes smaller and more selective, it is important for young journalists to show that they can cover a variety of issues in different forms and styles of writing.

Another part of learning how to be an effective journalist is to read widely and think deeply about how science and medical issues are covered in all types of news mediums. While major national newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post manage to cover a wide variety of health/science topics well, there is a great disparity between these publications and smaller papers who have few resources and a small staff.

Before beginning my studies at BU, I worked as a stringer for the Cape Cod Times—a mid-sized, regional paper for Cape Cod. Though the paper does have a weekly health and science section, the majority of stories that run are taken directly from the wires. As a result, there is virtually no investigative reporting, and most of the original articles are typically light health topics that hardly scratch the surface of any topic. These conditions feed an attitude about reporting is that places having a health story above reporting it out fully and accurately.

The state of affairs at smaller papers often makes me wonder what kind of training their journalists have, and whether younger generations of reporters will be ingrained with principles, such as quoting people correctly and getting the story right, that foster good journalism.

Health news has emerged as a popular beat, because it is “news you can use.” But I think that the media as a whole does not understand that reporting health, whether it be results from a study in NEJM or JAMA or a newly approved drug treatment, comes with a strong responsibility. No matter what the writer intends to report, readers take health news as advice, and it is extremely important to include every caveat to prevent people from changing their behavior—unless that is the goal of the piece.

Science and medical news coverage can be improved greatly with careful education of young journalist and offering workshops to professional writers. Health and science reporters not only require the fundamental principles of journalism, but they also need to understand how the field of science works, such as its dependence on peer reviewed journals and the unique culture it employs.

Danielle Hawkes, Rutgers University
One of the most important factors in convincing a reader to read past the headline of a story in a newspaper is the relevance of that story to the reader’s everyday life. Obviously readers are interested in stories that can provide them with information on issues that can affect how they live, work and play. Health and science stories often embody this value of relevance because health is a part of every individual’s life. Regardless of a person’s sex, race, socioeconomic status or lifestyle, health is a concern for everyone. Science stories also cover issues that affect readers’ daily lives, especially as the effects of technological and other scientific breakthroughs spread more and more rapidly in the 21st century. Thus, it seems health and science stories should play a prominent role in print and broadcast media. However, health and science stories are often supplanted by other hard news and even features stories. An increase in health and science coverage, and improvements in the quality of this coverage, would be extremely beneficial to the field of journalism and to the general public.

An aspect of health and science journalism that seems to be lacking is the education available to aspiring health and science journalists. It is hard for me to accurately evaluate the training that is available, because I only know what is available at my university. However, considering that Rutgers University is a large institution that includes research facilities and a school of communication, I think it is a fair representative of universities. At Rutgers, there is one course offered in the field of science and health journalism. The course is comprehensive, but the fact that it is only one course puts a huge demand on the professor and the student. Learning about an entire field in a single course is impossible. Students are forced to assemble a schedule of journalism and science classes in the hopes of attaining the knowledge they need to succeed as a health and science journalist.

Once an individual has been hired as a health and science journalist, the next obstacle is getting editors to print or broadcast his or her stories. Although health stories are of interest to the public, they are often edged out by hard news stories, especially those that contain the violence and scandal media executives know they can sell. In broadcast news the lack of exciting video or other eye-catching visual elements can often hurt a health or science story. These practices are a disservice to the public that depends on print and broadcast media as their main source of health and science information. Learning about how to prevent an illness, or alleviate one that an individual is already suffering from is undoubtedly important news, but these stories are often buried in a newscast or in the back of the front section of the newspaper.

Some health and science stories do make front-page news. However, these stories are not always pertinent to the public. A health story that snagged a huge amount of airtime and print coverage was the supposed cloning of a human baby. Journalists framed this story as a mystery, and questioned whether or not this cloned baby actually existed. However, my question was not whether the baby had been cloned, but why journalists were bothering to cover this story, and why producers and editors were letting it take up space. The so-called researchers refused to show any evidence, and they certainly didn’t seem to be a reliable source. This story most likely received so much attention because journalists were afraid that if they didn’t cover it, someone else would. This was a valid fear, but it reveals a problem that exits throughout all fields of journalism—the trend of sensational, and even downright silly, stories taking precedent over less glamorous, but more important, stories.

The most important initiative that needs to be taken in the field of health and science journalism is an increase in coverage of stories that are truly important and relevant to the lives of readers and viewers. Editors and producers need to realize that medical and scientific breakthroughs and other developments are at least as important as government proceedings and crime stories. People depend on media outlets to provide them with health information that can allow them to prevent diseases and conditions or to alleviate conditions they may already be suffering from. Science stories can provide audiences with information on technology that can improve their lives, or even give them a glimpse at the future. Health and science journalists need adequate space and airtime to be able to tell these stories accurately and in a context that allows the reader or viewer to understand the meaning of the news.