Wide-Ranging Study of National News Reveals Health News Comprises Less Than Four Percent of All Coverage
Eighteen-Month Study Shows Network Evening News and Newspapers
Devote More Coverage to Health than Online News, Talk Radio and Cable
Television News
Health Was the Focus of Less than One Percent Of Campaign-Related Stories during Primary Season
WASHINGTON/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As the news media
industry experiences a period of upheaval and transformation, a study
from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Pew Research Center's Project
for Excellence in Journalism reports that news about health and health
care made up less than four percent (3.6%) of all news content from
January 2007 through June 2008, well behind coverage of foreign affairs
and crime, and just behind stories about disasters and accidents.
The study, Health News Coverage in the U.S. Media, also examines the
type of health coverage in the news, and finds that the largest
proportion (42%) of the stories were about specific diseases or
conditions, with cancer receiving the most attention (10% of all health
coverage). Thirty-one percent of health news focused on public health
issues, including potential epidemics and contamination of food and
drugs. The smallest category of stories focused on health policy or the
health care system (27%) of all health news, or less than one percent
(.9%) of all news content. This category includes stories on topics
such as Medicare and Medicaid, the uninsured, health care costs, and
proposals for reform of the health care system.
"At a time when health care ranks near the top of the public's list
of concerns, there is relatively little coverage of health and health
policy in the news media," said Kaiser's Senior Vice President for
Media and Public Education Matt James.
"And while journalists know that Americans are keenly worried about
their health care, in practice that usually translates into reporting
on specific diseases and conditions rather than examining health policy
issues such as why health care costs so much or what to do about it,"
said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in
Journalism.
Recent trends indicate that people's television viewing is migrating
from network to cable programming and from reading news in print
publications to more online content. The newly released study indicates
that health content ranges from a high of 8.3 percent of network
evening news coverage to a low of 1.4 percent of cable news coverage,
and from 5.9 percent of newspaper content to 2.2 percent of online news
content. Newspapers were the most likely to address health policy
issues (41% of all health coverage, compared to 26% of cable's health
news and 18% of online health news).
"As the public's news consumption shifts more toward online and
cable outlets, people are likely to come across fewer stories about
health, and particularly about health policy," said Kaiser's Victoria
Rideout, vice president and director of The Program for the Study of
Media and Health at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The study encompassed a significant portion of the 2008 primary
campaign season, allowing for an analysis of the prevalence of health
in campaign-related stories. Several candidates were running for
president in hotly contested races for both the Democratic and
Republican nominations, but for the period from January 2007 through
June 2008, health-focused stories made up less than one percent (0.6%)
of campaign news coverage. More generally, coverage of health news
dropped as the primary season started in December 2007. From January
2007 to November 2007, health accounted for 4.1 percent of news
coverage, but only accounted for 2.8 percent of coverage from December
to June 2008.
The report can be viewed at http://www.kff.org/entmedia/7839.cfm.
Methodology:
Health News Coverage in the U.S. Media was jointly conducted by the
Kaiser Family Foundation and the Pew Research Center's Project for
Excellence in Journalism (PEJ). The research was based on coding
conducted as part of PEJ's ongoing News Coverage Index. It includes all
health stories from the NCI for the 18-month period from January
2007-June 2008. A total of 3,513 health stories were analyzed for the
report. For the NCI, stories on 48 different news outlets are captured
and coded, including: the front pages of a rotating group of seven
small, medium and large-market newspapers every weekday and Sunday; the
entirety of the weekday national evening network newscasts on ABC, CBS,
and NBC, and a half-hour from PBS; the first 30 minutes of every
weekday morning broadcast of Good Morning America, Today, and the Early
Show; a rotating schedule of five hours of cable news programming every
weekday, from CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC; more than two hours a day of a
rotating selection of news and talk radio; and the top stories from
each of five online news sites such as CNN.com and Yahoo News. A more
detailed methodology including specific outlets can be found in the
report, Health News Coverage in the U.S. Media. The complete
methodology of Pews' NCI is available at http://journalism.org/about_news_index/methodology.
The Kaiser Family Foundation is a non-profit private operating
foundation, based in Menlo Park, California, dedicated to producing and
communicating the best possible information, research and analysis on
health issues.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism is an initiative of the Pew
Research Center in Washington D.C. and is dedicated to studying the
performance of the press, specializing in part in content analysis. The
Project is funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Source: Henry J. Kaiser Foundation
CONTACT: Rakesh Singh of Kaiser Family Foundation, 
+1-650-234-9232
,
rsingh@kff.org; Tom Rosenstiel or Amy Mitchell, both of Pew Research Center's
Project for Excellence in Journalism, +1-202-419-3650
Web Site:
http://www.kff.org/
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