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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged health

1. February 10, 2012 04:55 PM

   “Economy Class Syndrome” Debunked

   Personal blood-clot narrative makes for bad science writing in Washington Post

   By Curtis Brainard

   Telling a first-person story about a health problem is a popular frame in medical writing, and it can be effective as long as the author adheres to the principles of high quality, evidence-based reporting. An article on the front page of The Washington Post’s Health section in mid-January demonstrated how the personal narrative can go very wrong, however. In the...

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2. June 7, 2012 11:25 AM

   A superb expose about an unsafe medical device

   The OC Register lays bare a lax approval system that hurts patients

   By Trudy Lieberman

   Tony Saavedra and Courtney Perkes, reporters for The Orange County Register, deserve a laurel for their superb piece about harmful medical devices that have gravitated into widespread use with minimal oversight by the Food and Drug Administration, and without testing on humans. This is one of the best patient safety stories I’ve read in a long time. What makes it...

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3. October 26, 2012 03:00 PM

   CNN says women vote with their hormones

   The Twitterverse goes mental

   By Hazel Sheffield

   It took seven hours of Internet backlash on Wednesday night for the Internet to convince CNN that an article it published needed to be removed. The article? A piece written by CNN’s Elizabeth Landau, based on unpublished research, saying that women’s voting choices are affected by their ovulation cycles. For a time, the story was featured on the CNN homepage....

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4. June 14, 2012 03:00 PM

   Covering the animal within

   Zoobiquity promotion belies activity in comparative medicine

   By Curtis Brainard

   The promo machine for an upcoming book, Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing, by UCLA cardiologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and science writer Kathryn Bowers, has been in high gear all week. It started with a 4,100-word excerpt in The New York Times Sunday Review, and continued with spots on NPR and ABC News. The...

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5. January 13, 2012 12:00 PM

   Critical Juncture for HuffPo Science

   With new section, David Freeman has an opportunity to raise the bar

   By Curtis Brainard

   The Huffington Post’s announcement last week that it had launched a new section intended to be a “one-stop shop for the latest scientific news and opinion” incited a flurry of circumspect commentary about whether or not the site was turning over “a new leaf” in science coverage. Over the years, The Huffington Post has drawn widespread criticism for publishing misleading...

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6. November 12, 2010 06:08 PM

   Gruesome Graphic Labels

   FDA’s new anti-smoking labels light up the web

   By Cristine Russell

   It was inevitable that the FDA’s new proposal to put graphic, and often gruesome, pictures of dead bodies and diseased lungs on cigarette labels would provide a field day for clever headline writers and pundits. “FDA is stepping up and kicking butts,” said the Newark Star-Ledger, whose editorial board compared the proposed designs to “a fortune cookie with a death...

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7. November 12, 2012 03:00 PM

   Take a beat

   Media pump too much news from heart association meeting, critic says

   By Curtis Brainard

   More than 10,000 stories came out of the annual meeting of the American Heart Association (AHA), which took place in Los Angeles last week, but it was the media’s ticker that was beating too fast and too hard, according to the media criticism website HealthNewsReview.org. The cardiac confab is always a big draw for journalists, and as with other scientific...

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8. February 25, 2011 02:38 PM

   The Times, It Is A Changin’

   New editors to lead science, environment coverage

   By Curtis Brainard and Cristine Russell

   “The world turns. The universe expands. The stethoscope passes. And we have a new Science editor,” Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, announced in an e-mail to staff last week. Barbara Strauch, who is now the science department’s health editor, will take the reins from current editor Laura Chang on March 15. Chang, who joined the...

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9. October 16, 2012 04:00 PM

   The good news about organics

   And why the media tend to ignore it

   By Curtis Brainard

   In the long-running debate about whether organic food is more healthy and nutritious than the conventional variety, the press has shown a preference for covering research rejecting the averred value of organics. Such was the point of a clever, but incomplete piece of criticism that appeared in The New York Times’s weekly Science Times section on Tuesday. Using a head-fake...

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10. May 24, 2012 06:50 AM

    The new medical-credit racket

    The Record uncovers how patients are getting shafted—medically and financially

    By Trudy Lieberman

    Reporter Lindy Washburn, at The Record in Bergen County, New Jersey, has revealed the latest shenanigans of unscrupulous members of the medical profession out to make a buck. Washburn, who is something of an expert on the business practices of health care providers, investigated the unsavory activities of New Jersey doctors, dentists, and chiropractors who pressure patients to sign up...

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11. August 8, 2012 06:50 AM

    The science of performance

    Reuters writer reviews the research amid London Olympics

    By Curtis Brainard

    Does sex diminish athletic vigor? Does athletic tape enhance it? These are just a few of the questions that one Reuters correspondent has sought to answer amidst the toil, tears, and sweat at the Summer Olympics in London. Kate Kelland, who covers health and science in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa for the wire service, has been on the...

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12. October 9, 2012 11:00 AM

    The value of skepticism

    Why science reporters should question research

    By Curtis Brainard

    Skepticism has earned a bad name in recent years thanks to those who doubt the consensus that human industry is a significant driver of global climate change. But it’s important to remember that healthy skepticism is a key tenet of the scientific profession, and central to the quality control of research. Two papers published in the PLOS family of journals...

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13. September 11, 2012 11:30 AM

    What does ‘healthier’ mean?

    Coverage of organic-food study plays loose with the term

    By Curtis Brainard

    “Healthier” is a word the media often use without enough care, and that shortcoming was on full display during last week’s coverage of a study examining the nutritional value and presence of contaminants in organic versus conventional foods. The study, from a team of researchers at Stanford University, was a “meta-analysis” of 237 previous papers and it reignited the debate...

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