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The eMatchPhysicians Blog

Journalistic Responsibility in Health News

Posted on: Wednesday, April 8, 2009

The Schwitzer Health News Blog recently published a post about journalistic integrity and responsibility in regards to online health news comments. The blog referred to an incident with the New York Times’ online edition, where they published an article about how there were a lack of answers for men with prostate cancer. The article received over 150 comments within a few days, some of which demanded answers from the journalist. What are the responsibilities of electronic publishers and the journalists who write such articles?

Journalists usually try to respond to every relevant query about their article. However, the easy access offered commenters by online mediums allows anyone on a lunch break to pop on the computer, make a passionate comment, and then merrily log off without a second thought as to whether or not their opinions will be heard. Why should you answer comments when you don’t know if your answer will be read?

The editorial responsibility lies in two areas – to provide a method of communication for readers while keeping personnel capabilities in mind. Perhaps one way to do this would be to have a check box present when a commenter makes a comment, asking whether or not they would like an answer to their query. Either that, or a short sentence asking the commenter to e-mail the editorial department with their comment if they want to receive an answer. That way, those who want an answer will make it clear. In the case where an editor knows that they cannot commit resources, they can outline in this area that comments will not be treated as online comments only and will not be addressed by the editorial department. Either way, they should make their policies clear in a place where commenters will read them, not just on the “legal terms” area of the website.

While this could be said to be true of all news sites, it is particularly important in health and medical news as commenters are more likely to take the lack of response to their comments more seriously. These are very personal issues for the people commenting and therefore the kind of issues that may actually lead to legal intervention. Keeping this in mind, any responses to commenters should be made by way of a private e-mail or other method of private communication, so as to protect the publishing organization and the journalist from any potential legal fallout. If the publishing organization is large enough, a lawyer should be consulted as to the best way to approach this issue. If it isn’t large enough, the answer is simple – make your policies extra clear and give a response of some kind, even if that response is that there will be no response at all.

What do you think? When you read blogs that have online health news, do you expect a response if you leave comments? What responsibility do blogs or websites, such as eMatchPhysicians.com, have when they publish health or medical news?