Visit us on Facebook Visit us on Linked In Visit us on Twitter Visit us on Instagram View our RSS Feed 
May
09
Posted by Andrea Ryce on May 9th, 2006
Posted in: News From NNLM PNR
On May 5, NPR’s On The Media profiled a website that grades health stories broadcast in the popular media. Health News Review (www.healthnewsreview.org) was created by Gary Schwitzer, a professor of journalism at the University of Minnesota. The reviews evaluate each story using 10 standardized criteria resulting in a score out of 5 stars. For instance, the Time story on a cancer drug trial scored 4 stars, while the biofeedback story reported by The Wall Street Journal only merits two. The website is solely funded by the not-for-profit 501(c)(3) foundation called The Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making. As Gary Schwitzer says: “I would shut down the site before I would accept pharma money in such an effort. It won’t happen on my watch.”
The interview with Schwitzer is only 6 minutes long. You can access it at the On The Media website. Scroll down to “Health News Gets a Checkup”.
ABOUT Andrea Ryce