RCTs are seldom newsworthy

Results of randomised trials are seldom regarded as newsworthy by British newspapers. An examination of press releases by the Lancet and BMJ and reporting by the Times and Sun revealed under-reporting of randomised trials and overemphasis of bad news from observational studies, particularly studies of women's health, reproduction, and cancer. Research from developing countries was ignored. Bartlett and colleagues (p 81) express the concern that many aspects of medical research are not well represented in newspapers.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

What is newsworthy? Longitudinal study of the reporting of medical research in two British newspapers
Christopher Bartlett, Jonathan Sterne, and Matthias Egger
BMJ 2002 325: 81-84. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ