HealthNewsReview.org
Type of site | Review website |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Schwitzer Health News LLC |
| Created by | Gary Schwitzer |
| Slogan(s) | Independent Expert Reviews of News Stories |
| Website | http://healthnewsreview.org/ |
| Commercial | no |
| Registration | optional |
| Launched | 2006-04-16 |
| Current status | online |
HealthNewsReview.org is a web-based project that rates the completeness, accuracy, and balance of U.S. news stories that include claims about medical treatments, tests, products and procedures. Its 10-point grading scale includes whether a story gives information about its sources and their competing interests, quantifies the benefits of a treatment, and appraises the evidence supporting the story's claims.[1][2][3][4]
In its first 22 months, the website reviewed 500 news stories, and found that they usually failed to discuss evidence quality, alternative options, costs, and absolute sizes of benefits and harms.[5] At that time, the editors of the journal PLoS Medicine wrote: “Schwitzer’s alarming report card of the trouble with medical news stories is thus a wake-up call for all of us involved in disseminating health research-researchers, academic institutions, journal editors, reporters, and media organizations-to work collaboratively to improve the standards of health reporting.” [6] In 2011, the Columbia Journalism Review website published an update on the site's findings.
In 2006, the year the project launched, it was honored with a Knight-Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism.[7] In 2007, it won a Mirror Award to honor those "who hold a mirror to their own industry for the public’s benefit."[8] In 2009, Schwitzer's blog was named "Best Medical Blog" in competition hosted by Medgadget.com.[9]
The organization once reviewed news on television but ceased in [10]
References
- ↑ Wise, Jeff (24 July 2016). "HealthNewsReview.org’s Gary Schwitzer on What’s Wrong (and Right) With the Media". New York Magazine.
- ↑ Perry, Susan (1 May 2015). "Confused by a drumbeat of health news 'dreck?' A Minnesota-based website aims to help". MinnPost.
- ↑ Mazer, Benjamin (6 July 2015). "Journalists are not the end game: An interview with Gary Schwitzer". www.doctorsinoz.com.
- ↑ Brooks, Jon (16 May 2016). "Does Health Journalism Do More Harm Than Good?". KQED Future of You.
- ↑ Schwitzer G (2008). "How do US journalists cover treatments, tests, products, and procedures? an evaluation of 500 stories". PLoS Med. 5 (5): e95. PMC 2689661
. PMID 18507496. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050095. Lay summary – Guardian (2008-06-21). - ↑ The PLoS Medicine Editors (2008). "False hopes, unwarranted fears: the trouble with medical news stories". PLoS Med. 5 (5): e118. PMC 2689669 . PMID 18507502. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050118.
- ↑ "Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism | J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism". www.j-lab.org.
- ↑ http://mirrorawards.syr.edu/press.html. Missing or empty
|title=(help) - ↑ "2009 Medical Weblog Awards Sponsored by Epocrates: Meet the Winners! |". Medgadget. 19 February 2010.
- ↑ Koerth-Baker, Maggie (15 October 2009). "Why HealthNewsReview.org Gave Up On TV". Boing Boing.