On the New York Times Health and Medical Coverage

The New York Times Reader: Health and Medicine

The week before last I attended a book launch party for Tom Linden, MD, director of the University of North Carolina’s health journalism program and author of The New York Times Reader on Health and Medicine (CQ Press). Linden has also been a contributing journalist with CNBC and Lifetime Medical Television (I believe I first met him more than 25 years ago when I represented Lifetime). Thanks to my pal and colleague Merrill Rose for inviting me.

For those of us interested in the nexus of medical sciences and journalism, this book should float to the top of the gotta have list. It links some of The Times best articles on medicine with analysis of what goes into journalism and interviews with some of The Times primo science reporters, including Dr. Larry Altman, Gina Kolata and Tara Parker Pope.

Lately I have been thinking how rickety is the same-old same-old approach to public relations: jimmy up that inverted pyramid press release (properly de-souled by the legal and regulatory exorcists), spay it out to the “mass media” and hope for the best. Or calling said mass media and pleading for coverage.

The Times writers, speaking through Linden, talk in detail how their articles are inspired, nurtured and created, using many sources of inspiration and sources of facts and opinion. It’s not that public relations folks cannot help created news articles, but the press release is not often the calling card. Instead it’s individualized pitching providing unique, new and perhaps counter-intuitive angles.

Several of the articles reprinted take to task the pharmaceutical industry for promoting off-label drug use (and yes, we have been guilty of this) and cooking studies or finding (again, it’s been known to happen). But only rarely in this good book has Linden or the reporters he interviewed cast a mirror on themselves by suggesting that they too may have personal biases that they must control like personal demons.

He cites Alex Berenson’s 2006 article on Eli Lilly’s alleged off-label promotion of Zyprexa for dementia, which led ultimately to a $1.42 billion fine. The article was illuminating and a great instrument of journalism; but his sources included plaintiff attorneys that had their own axes to grind. Not pointed out by Berenson.

Hats off however to Tara Parker Pope who admits that it’s not just Big Pharma that reporters should be skeptical of: “…we automatically assume a layer of skepticism about anything that is funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Yet we don’t apply that layer of skepticism to research that is funded by the government, by NIH. There’s always an agenda with every piece of research.”

While every reporter seeks that “great quote” that neatly summarizes a developing story, sometimes a second look is prudent, especially in medical reporting. Gina Kolata famously reported a dinner-party remark by James Watson that Judah Folkman “was going to cure cancer.” On reflection, she admits that she should have called him the day after to reconfim the quote. Yes he said it over din-din, but that doesn’t mean that it exactly expresses his sober judgment.

I worry that great medical journalism is in peril—at the signing party Dr. Altman told me he’s taken The Times buy-out and will only occasionally contribute to the great newspaper. As curmudgeonly as he is, we need guys like him, and books like Linden’s to put it all in perspective.

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