Welcome to the Real World: A Look Inside Network Medical News
by Steve Elias, MD, FACS, FACPh
The Pacific Vascular Meeting. The American college of Phlebology Foundation Meeting. The Venous Disease
coalition meeting. At each meeting, it’s always the same discussion: how do we educate the public about venous
disease? How do we reach the entire country and let them know what we do? “Your debutante knows what you
need but I know what you want.” The real world of media medical reporting is quite cognizant of what the viewers
want. If they give them what they need and not what they want, no one may watch that television station or listen
to that radio broadcast. Medical reporters have become rock stars. “When I look at the television, I want to see
me staring right back at me.” Mehmet Oz, Sanjay gupta and Jennifer Ashton are just a few of these medical rock
stars. They all understand what the public wants, and as vein specialists, we should also. It is the only way we can achieve our global desired goal of patient/public education about venous disease.
To this end, I entered the world of network television to try to better understand how it works and how we can
better position our message. Jennifer Ashton, MD, FAcOg, is the cBS News Medical correspondent for “The Early
Show” and for “The Evening News with Katie couric.” Since she gets a lot of air time, I thought an interview with
her would provide some interesting parallels for our VEIN readers. Below are the questions I posed to Dr. Ashton, her responses and some thoughts on how this may help guide future strategies for venous education.
What are the key general concepts you consider when doing a story about a particular disease state?
What do you want to accomplish?I consider: is the story newsworthy? Does it either affect a majority of the viewing audience or is it so unique and interesting that even people not personally affected will find it important to watch. My goals in reporting a story are always try to make the viewer more knowledgeable about a given medical story, or in the case of breaking news, to simply explain things in a “news you can use” manner.
Are there different categories of disease such as Life-threatening, Life-altering, Life-enhancing etc. that the public wants to know about? Which types seem most “popular”?
The kinds of medical stories that tend to rate well on TV center around cancer, obesity, sex and issues affecting
women and children.
As a follow up; which types of disease states do you most enjoy doing a story about?
I have a particular interest in issues concerning heart disease, sports related head trauma and ob-gyn subjects.
How much input do you have in suggesting topics?
It is not that I have so much input in suggesting topics. CBS has 6 full time medical producers. They usually decide upon topics. I do have ultimate veto power if I don’t think a particular story is right. When a story airs on network news as opposed to cable, we are careful not to give too much opinion but rather stick to “the facts” and let the audience decide for themselves.
So then what determines which topics are discussed?
Well, I may suggest topics but most are decided by our producers. Their decision is based on a number of factors. For instance “what’s happening on the wire” is an important driver. They monitor the Internet to see what health topics are hot. Also, if it is Breast cancer Awareness Month or Alzheimer’s Awareness Week etc, this may drive our stories.
So it seems that what the public wants sets a lot of topics.
Yes, I’d say that is true. We try to understand what they want by gathering data, keeping in mind that we don’t want to be too heavy for too long on a particular topic.
In terms of the story, how long do they usually air for and what is your target audience?
The length of a story ranges from 1-3 minutes. We may shoot film for an hour or more but it all gets distilled down for the 1-3 minutes. Our target demographic is ages 24-54 years, the greater percentage of which are women. This must be similar with your patient population. This doesn’t mean that all our stories are geared for this
audience. Stories which affect younger or older segments may impact the children or parents of our target audience.
How do you decide which experts to use, if any, when you are doing a story? Are experts necessary or is a good patient more important?
As a medical correspondent, I don’t personally decide whether to use an expert or a patient in reporting a story.
These decisions are made by senior producers at the network. Most of the time, it depends on the specific story.
As a medical correspondent, my job is to familiarize myself with every story I report so that I become a temporary
expert in whatever I am discussing. We do this with the assistance of a powerful medical unit at our network that
assists me in doing research. We also have an extensive database of experts to call upon for vetting stories and
breaking news, even though they themselves usually do not appear on air or in the piece.
What are the measurements you use to evaluate how effective a story was in increasing the public awareness of the issues discussed?
We follow not only ratings, but online viewer comments and “wire traffic” so we can keep our fingers on the pulse
of how effective we are in reporting a story.
By “wire traffic” you mean what is being discussed and or accessed on the Internet?
Yes, the Internet is powerful in many ways. We use it to also consider what health subjects people are interested in.
Where do you see the role of industry/companies in the education of the public about vein disease or any disease? Should they be involved at all?
Since often it is industry that has deep pockets with which to commit recourses to PSA/ ad campaigns, I think the lay-public should use caution when obtaining any information from a source with a conflict of interest, especially a fiduciary one. As a medical correspondent, I am precluded from any financial ties with companies on which I may be reporting, and am obli-gated by network standards and practices to disclose any conflict of interest, should there be one. Ideally, any party with bias should not be involved in public education campaigns.
How can the venous societies better increase public awareness and education about vein disease? What
type of stories have you done or seen that were particularly well received about venous disease?
Reminders about DVT prevention month are good ways to keep the issue of vein disease on the media radar. I cannot say that I remember any particular story.
Is there a story about venous disease that you feel needs to be done?
I think the public is always interested about prevention and treatments of varicose veins, and on a more serious
level, I think the lay viewing audience could always know more about DVT prevention and treatment.
How important is it to have a “celebrity” spokesperson for a particular disease and how does it impact on public awareness?
It is always helpful to have a recognizable face to connect with certain disease. The public likes to put a personal face on a disease and a celebrity can be very effective at this. Having a celebrity talk about a health issue is the holy grail of network news. We do actively seek out these people. Interestingly the more “famous” a celebrity is, the more influence they have in deciding how that story will air.
As a medical expert yourself, how do you prepare for a story on a topic you may not know that much about?
As I already mentioned, I do a “deeper dive” but I also feel fortunate, because I come from a family of six other
physicians, including a general surgeon, cardiothoracic surgeon, plastic surgeon, internist and cardiologist, so I
am able to readily reach out to other specialists for in-depth explanations on almost anything. In addition, as an
Ob-gyn, I am trained in and deal with (on a regular basis) everything from obesity, to depression, cancer, diabetes, sexual dysfunction, etc. as a woman’s primary care physician, so a large majority of newsworthy stories actually fall within my “wheelhouse” so to speak. But as any physician knows, we all had to learn about every specialty in medical school so further research is really just a “deeper dive” which I enjoy because it allows me to learn every day.
DVT can be a life threatening event; more people die of pulmonary emboli in the U.S. each year than breast cancer, AIDS and accidents combined. Is it a very preventable disease? Do you think non-vascular physicians or the public are aware of this?
No. I make it a regular practice to inform my patients who are traveling long distances about the ways they can
reduce their risk of DVT. It is always the first time they have heard it!
Have you ever done any stories on this major public health issue?
No, not yet. Some thoughts that emerged from this interview as they relate to venous disease public education were:
• We would do well to seek out a celebrity spokesperson that wants to work with us to heighten public awareness.
• Regular doctors speaking about health issues don’t really work. The public wants a medical reporter they trust. This is why we don’t often see “regular folks” like us on television. So give up your thoughts of fame or fortune.
• Sponsoring on-air health segments are expensive; one sponsorship for one time costs about $250,000.
• The more cost effective method is the Internet. Dr. Ashton’s producers use the Internet to monitor hot topics “on the wire” and to evaluate the effectiveness of a story. We all know our patients use the Internet to research a disease topic.
• It would be best if when looking up “vein disease” or “varicose veins” the major venous societies’ web sites are shown on that crucial first page. Web presence is crucial to our public education.
• I understand Dr. Ashton’s comments about industry but I believe we have been very fortunate in our specialty, with industry support to develop educational programs without necessarily pushing their companies’ agenda. We need to continue this partnership to further public education. Having said all this, a three minute segment on cBS by Dr. Ashton, cNN by Dr. gupta, or a show by Dr. Oz on venous disease may be our Holy grail. We await their phone call.