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Article: Sources and coverage of medical news on front pages of US newspapers

TitleSources and coverage of medical news on front pages of US newspapers
Authors
Issue Date2009
PublisherPublic Library of Science. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.plosone.org/home.action
Citation
Plos One, 2009, v. 4 n. 9 How to Cite?
AbstractBackground: Medical news that appears on newspaper front pages is intended to reach a wide audience, but how this type of medical news is prepared and distributed has not been systematically researched. We thus quantified the level of visibility achieved by front-page medical stories in the United States and analyzed their news sources. Methodology: Using the online resource Newseum, we investigated front-page newspaper coverage of four prominent medical stories, and a high-profile non-medical news story as a control, reported in the US in 2007. Two characteristics were quantified by two raters: which newspaper titles carried each target front-page story (interrater agreement, >96%; kappa, >0.92) and the news sources of each target story (interrater agreement, >94%; kappa, >0.91). National rankings of the top 200 US newspapers by audited circulation were used to quantify the extent of coverage as the proportion of the total circulation of ranked newspapers in Newseum. Findings: In total, 1630 front pages were searched. Each medical story appeared on the front pages of 85 to 117 (67.5%-78.7%) ranked newspaper titles that had a cumulative daily circulation of 23.1 to 33.4 million, or 61.8% to 88.4% of all newspapers. In contrast, the non-medical story achieved front-page coverage in 152 (99.3%) newspaper titles with a total circulation of 41.0 million, or 99.8% of all newspapers. Front-page medical stories varied in their sources, but the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times and the Associated Press together supplied 61.7% of the total coverage of target front-page medical stories. Conclusion: Front-page coverage of medical news from different sources is more accurately revealed by analysis of circulation counts rather than of newspaper titles. Journals wishing to widen knowledge of research news and organizations with important health announcements should target at least the four dominant media organizations identified in this study. © 2009 Lai et al.
Persistent Identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/66037
ISSN
2023 Impact Factor: 2.9
2023 SCImago Journal Rankings: 0.839
PubMed Central ID
ISI Accession Number ID
References

 

DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorLai, WYYen_HK
dc.contributor.authorLane, Ten_HK
dc.contributor.authorJones, Aen_HK
dc.date.accessioned2010-09-06T05:43:04Z-
dc.date.available2010-09-06T05:43:04Z-
dc.date.issued2009en_HK
dc.identifier.citationPlos One, 2009, v. 4 n. 9en_HK
dc.identifier.issn1932-6203en_HK
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/66037-
dc.description.abstractBackground: Medical news that appears on newspaper front pages is intended to reach a wide audience, but how this type of medical news is prepared and distributed has not been systematically researched. We thus quantified the level of visibility achieved by front-page medical stories in the United States and analyzed their news sources. Methodology: Using the online resource Newseum, we investigated front-page newspaper coverage of four prominent medical stories, and a high-profile non-medical news story as a control, reported in the US in 2007. Two characteristics were quantified by two raters: which newspaper titles carried each target front-page story (interrater agreement, >96%; kappa, >0.92) and the news sources of each target story (interrater agreement, >94%; kappa, >0.91). National rankings of the top 200 US newspapers by audited circulation were used to quantify the extent of coverage as the proportion of the total circulation of ranked newspapers in Newseum. Findings: In total, 1630 front pages were searched. Each medical story appeared on the front pages of 85 to 117 (67.5%-78.7%) ranked newspaper titles that had a cumulative daily circulation of 23.1 to 33.4 million, or 61.8% to 88.4% of all newspapers. In contrast, the non-medical story achieved front-page coverage in 152 (99.3%) newspaper titles with a total circulation of 41.0 million, or 99.8% of all newspapers. Front-page medical stories varied in their sources, but the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times and the Associated Press together supplied 61.7% of the total coverage of target front-page medical stories. Conclusion: Front-page coverage of medical news from different sources is more accurately revealed by analysis of circulation counts rather than of newspaper titles. Journals wishing to widen knowledge of research news and organizations with important health announcements should target at least the four dominant media organizations identified in this study. © 2009 Lai et al.en_HK
dc.languageengen_HK
dc.publisherPublic Library of Science. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.plosone.org/home.actionen_HK
dc.relation.ispartofPLoS ONEen_HK
dc.rightsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.-
dc.subject.meshBibliometrics-
dc.subject.meshBiomedical Research-
dc.subject.meshMass Media - statistics and numerical data-
dc.subject.meshNewspapers - statistics and numerical data-
dc.subject.meshUnited States-
dc.titleSources and coverage of medical news on front pages of US newspapersen_HK
dc.typeArticleen_HK
dc.identifier.emailLane, T:tlane@hkucc.hku.hken_HK
dc.identifier.authorityLane, T=rp00227en_HK
dc.description.naturepublished_or_final_version-
dc.identifier.doi10.1371/journal.pone.0006856en_HK
dc.identifier.pmid19724643-
dc.identifier.pmcidPMC2730576-
dc.identifier.scopuseid_2-s2.0-70149112113en_HK
dc.identifier.hkuros167043en_HK
dc.relation.referenceshttp://www.scopus.com/mlt/select.url?eid=2-s2.0-70149112113&selection=ref&src=s&origin=recordpageen_HK
dc.identifier.volume4en_HK
dc.identifier.issue9en_HK
dc.identifier.spagee6856-
dc.identifier.epagee6856-
dc.identifier.isiWOS:000269522800003-
dc.publisher.placeUnited Statesen_HK
dc.identifier.scopusauthoridLai, WYY=34768250600en_HK
dc.identifier.scopusauthoridLane, T=7101662173en_HK
dc.identifier.scopusauthoridJones, A=34770038300en_HK
dc.identifier.issnl1932-6203-

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