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December 02, 2008
Bending Journalism
Thomas O. McGarity and Wendy Wagner's book Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research is an extraordinary contribution to the sociology of knowledge. The typology of tools for bending science mentioned on page 10 of the book (spinning, packaging, harassing, attacking, hiding, and shaping) are elaborated in great detail in cases ranging from popcorn lung to alar panics. I predict that typology will eventually inform research on "bent journalism"--the range of so-called objective reporting subtly shaped by stealth sponsors.
On the Media does a great job covering such situations. This week it reports on conflicts of interest at the show The Infinite Mind, whose host earned "at least $1.3 million from 2000 to 2007 giving marketing lectures for drugmakers, income not mentioned on the program." Gary Schwitzer, director of the University of Minnesota’s Health Journalism Program, identifies "five sins of health reporters:"
Gullibility and naiveté as number one; a failure to discuss costs as number two; as number three, the failure to tell both how small might be the potential benefit and how large might be the potential harms; number four, [failure] to get independent sources; and, number five, to always be looking for conflict of interest in those sources.
Schwitzer's Health News Review grades health stories on these and other bases. Like McGarity/Wagner's chapters on "Restoring Science" and "Reforming Science Oversight," the Health News Review is essential reading for those concerned about the real material bases of conventional wisdom.
Posted by Frank Pasquale at December 2, 2008 08:30 PM
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