Bad news for your health

Bad news for your health
Study cites flaws in TV reporting
By JOHN FAUBER and SUSANNE RUST
jfauber@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Mar. 8, 2006
Can TV news be hazardous to your health?

While health and medical news is a popular topic on local television newscasts, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Michigan found that the typical story was only 33 seconds long, lacked specifics and, in a few cases, contained egregious and sometimes potentially deadly errors, according to an exhaustive analysis of 1,799 TV health stories.

"Most of the stories were not useful, but not overly harmful," said lead author James Pribble, an emergency room physician and lecturer at the University of Michigan Medical School.

Good or bad, health reporting appeared to be a high priority among Milwaukee area TV stations, which ranked 11th out of 50 markets in terms of the number of stories, researchers said. Milwaukee was ranked the 31st-largest market at the time.

More @ http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=406848

Yep its another study! You ever wonder who pays for these studies? Yep, right the 1st time, the taxpayer. (See Basti Rule)