Introduction by Croakey Professional Services: The North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network, a longstanding supporter of Croakey Health Media, is a foundation funder of our new Primary Healthcare: Community Matters! initiative, which aims to support coverage of primary healthcare and communities.
Below, Christopher Carter, chief executive officer of the North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network, investigates some of the ways that public interest journalism intersects with health.
This is the first in a series of two sponsored content articles to be published as part of the North Western Melbourne PHN’s support for #PHCmatters.
Christopher Carter writes:
Mainstream media coverage of health issues pretty much always makes it personal. Every story must be “humanised” by using a named patient to typify a disease, or a treatment, or a service.
It’s an understandable approach, but it is also problematic. It enforces the idea that diseases or treatments exist in isolation, rather than within complex health and social systems. It also contributes to the idea that some patients are exemplars of particular conditions.
As anyone who works in health communications is all too aware, the mainstream media approach requires, more often than not, dumbing down and over-simplification as a trade-off against raising awareness.
It is, at best, an imperfect deal.
“Journalists play a key role in society as storytellers and sense-makers who can mediate between experts, institutions, and the public,” writes American communications expert Dr Yotam Ophir (and team) in the Palgrave Handbook of Science and Health Journalism (Springer Nature, 2024).
“While the news media could serve as an important source for information about health, medicine, and science, journalists often fail to adequately inform the public, which could result in detrimental impact.”
At the other end of the crowded health media spectrum lie the influencers – sometimes self-titled as ‘citizen journalists’ – who peddle faddish and often dangerous content, untouched by fact check or reference, in pursuit of crackpot or conspiracist delusions.
Contributors to both these arenas can and do influence the behaviour of readers, and those who listen to them.
And nothing in this space, in legacy or social media, is straightforward. Health discourse frequently shades into political diatribe. This occurs even in the most risk-averse outlets.
When a prominent thought-leader takes a poorly informed stand on a health matter – when, for instance, someone in the public eye claims that HPV vaccine would produce promiscuous teenagers – legacy media is obliged to report the statement, even though journalists and editors likely know its content is nonsense.
News consumption, from all sources, influences public action, for better or worse.
This occurs when consumers actively seek out information. It also occurs, perhaps less predictably, when they operate under a “news-finds-me” perception – described as “a belief that, in the era of social media, individuals can remain adequately well-informed about current events even if they do not actively seek news”.
Determinants of health
Given its ability to influence behaviour, it is not irrational to view journalism as a social determinant of health, alongside (and interacting with) other factors such as income, education, language and location.
However, it is also valid, within the contexts of legacy and social media, to regard it as a commercial determinant.
Health journalists – even very conscientious ones – can be swayed by slick product positioning by pharmaceutical companies. For example, it is no longer novel to regard Ozempic as a weight loss drug first and a diabetes treatment second.
Among influencers, the relationship between commercial interests and promotion is often quite naked.
Given these factors, where should even health professionals go to seek trustworthy material? Public interest health journalism – typified by the material consistently published by Croakey – represents a necessary counterbalance.
Public interest journalism as a concept is broad, but centres on interpretations of the word ‘community’. It ranges from hyper-local location-based outlets to sector-based publications such as this one.
Perhaps just as important in terms of definition, it is rarely (if ever) driven by profit motives.
“Public interest journalism is a public good,” says Australia’s Public Interest Journalism Initiative.
“It is the accurate, reliable news and journalism at the heart of public discussion, diversity of voice, open justice, accountability and informed decision-making. It educates, inspires and brings together communities.”
And that set of values and intentions – it is not excessively cynical to say – constitutes a fairly terrible way to make a motza.
Croakey is committed to values that were once deeply embedded in legacy media. Its editors seek qualified healthcare professionals to write about well-defined topics. Stories are expected to be properly referenced, and thoughtful.
Submitted or commissioned material is then reviewed and edited. This is, as it should be, a sometimes challenging process. Assumptions are questioned and references demanded. Readers are neither taken for granted nor infantilised.
It takes little imagination to conclude that such a labour-intensive process, from contributors and editors, is unlikely to be an economically lavish one.
Sustainability is a necessary condition for viable public interest journalism, but by no means an assured one.
We are proud to support Croakey Editor-in-Chief Dr Melissa Sweet and her team, and encourage other healthcare organisations to follow suit.
See Croakey’s archive of articles on public interest journalism and health
