Before I started as NewsBusters managing editor, I finished up a study of the media's bias when it comes to reporting on prescription drugs. The study was released on March 14.
After the page break are some findings from the executive summary. Here's a link to the PDF version of the study.
Even when one new drug was hailed as a “major advance in combating breast cancer” and a “major medical breakthrough,” its manufacturer was given only a passing mention on one network. BMI looked at 132 stories on prescription or over-the-counter drugs from the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening newscasts between January 1 and Sept. 30, 2006.
Among the findings:
- Industry Ignored: While covering everything from medical “controversies” to breakthroughs, nearly 80 percent of the stories excluded the viewpoint of the pharmaceutical industry, failing to include either a company statement or a company spokesman.
- Media Overemphasize Cost to Consumer: The broadcast networks mentioned costs to consumers or drug company revenues 11 times more often than they mentioned drug development costs.
- Networks Leave Companies Unnoticed: Only 22 percent of the stories even named the company that developed the drug or drugs featured in the story.
- What Development Costs?: A mere 2 percent of stories dealt with the cost of developing drugs, and even those costs were downplayed by industry skeptics.
- Special Treatment for Left-Wing Causes: Nineteen stories focused on drugs that were popular liberal causes such as the morning-after pill or HPV vaccine Gardasil. The networks didn’t apply the same scrutiny to those drugs and their makers as they did to others.
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And here's what your study
March 15, 2007 - 19:41 ET by sarcasmoAnd here's what your study missed.
JMR
Nice stretch- must be the seventh inning
March 15, 2007 - 19:46 ET by MobiusStripRe. your remarks:
Industry Ignored: Why should the report include industry input? You get that everytime you open up a magazine or turn on the TV. Poor Pharms, nice profits, great marketing. Media should follow them around. and listen to their PR- reporting it would be cheaper than the PR they have to pay for. Which doesn't go into their beleagured development funds. I pity them.
Media Overemphasize Cost to Consumer: is the audience made of consumers or pharmaceutical companies? This is simply talking to the concerns of the audience. Don't tell me a few minutes of media will get into the gross economics- nor should they. They are selling their own products, not medicine. So big boo-hoo for the Pharms.
Networks Leave Companies Unnoticed: No, they are not required to promote the brands. The pharms do that well enough- it's their jobs.
What Development Costs?: Google some real analyses dealing with development costs vs. marketing, return to development, and corporate profits specific to pharms. Nice try, though I'm still not beating my breast over the pain they are in.
Special Treatment for Left-Wing Causes: So what in the hell makes the HPV vaccine a LIBERAL cause? Cancer is a LIBERAL cause? LIBERALS did the research to create a vaccine? Thought that was the Pharms! They must be LIBERAL- and pretty smart ones, too, because they stand to make boatloads of money through legislation requiring it. I already got my daughter signed up and it ain't cheap. Got Data on that? Got a daughter? Got a sister that died from cervical cancer? No, I think you got some pitifully little things to find and twist, and probably no kohonas to deal with the the bigger issues.
Pretty pitiful, Ken- you must be on way out to dinner.
Typical liberal.... hate bi
March 15, 2007 - 20:16 ET by liberal_bug_zapperTypical liberal.... hate big business, hate profit, hate having the light shined on your sides bias.
I say, if you're liberal, you cannot have drugs made by for profit companies. Why don't you just go and take some bark off of some trees and see if it helps you... you do know that some bark has been found to contain medical properties. Don't use the drugs that come from those you hate.
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"We can only reason from what is; we can reason on actualities, but not on possibilities." ~ Thomas Paine
Where did I state "I hat
March 15, 2007 - 21:54 ET by MobiusStripWhere did I state "I hate big business?" Where did I state I have problems with profit? I run my own business, thank you, for profit. The problem with smug people like you- and the left has those just like you, to be sure- is that you can't argue against points. Your response is to turn things into a personal attack which your own laziness finds more feel-good than actually having a debate. Very schoolboy. The point is that these are tiny gripes, grasped straws that mean nothing. If you want to spend some time doing research, versus just throwing out epithets and vitriol, I'll take you on anyday. Otherwise you're just small beer. BTW- it's aspirin, first synthesized by the German mega firm Bayre AG around a hundred years ago. It was first described by Greek physicians thousands of years ago, and was scraped from river willow bark by whom I sure you would now describe as tree-huggers. Maybe you weren't paying attention in third grade, either.
Wow, you can look up on wik
March 15, 2007 - 22:10 ET by liberal_bug_zapperWow, you can look up on wikipedia what drugs are made from bark... don't forget Taxol, a drug made from the bark of the Pacific yew tree, a favorite of libs like yourself. And there are other remedies made from bark as well, however, I'll stand by my original statement, libs like you do not deserve the benefit of the companies who make these drugs if you're going to disparage and tear down their efforts at every turn. The MSM ignoring WHO makes the drug while championing the drug allows them to write stories in the future on how the evil drug companies are making a profit at your expense. You bunch of bong toking hypocrites.
I don't care if you own your own business, you probably don't do very well as you're not too bright. I hope it fails.
And you implied you hate big business with every dripping sarcastic remark about the drug companies, and your ignorant dismissal of the amount of money spent on research. Unlike you, I get my news from all sides, not just the Daily KOS, and I also never go and troll those sites. I don't even make comments as any question on those sites are considered trolling... and I've been told no less on three occasions. Words have implications, and yours implied that you hate these companies for making a profit. Is your business so bad that you must disparage someone else's business?
If you want some more information than you get from your local lib talking points show... maybe you should listen to radio talk shows like BioTech nation with Dr. Moira Gunn, she conducts some pretty eye opening interviews with the researchers and CEOs of many of these biotechnology firms and drug companies about how much is actually spent on research, and how risky their business is. Your level of risk is probably next to zero. Maybe you shouldn't be so Damned judgmental and such an ass the next time you criticize an honest look at a bias that is being made to tear down these people who are helping to cure the world. Just because they make a profit... you find them evil. And again, you may not have used the word evil, but it was implied in the way you wrote about the companies.
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"We can only reason from what is; we can reason on actualities, but not on possibilities." ~ Thomas Paine
Interesting
March 15, 2007 - 22:35 ET by MobiusStripInteresting you mention Taxol, as my company provided a great deal of the process design support that went into the refining plant in Boulder a number of years ago. Made some fine profit, too, though Taxol did not turn out as well as hoped. And I'm very aware of the risk profiles of that industry- which are balanced by profit potentials. Risks are undertaken and underwritten by investors- their choice. If longshots fail, they lose. If you develop a drug like Gardisil, you win bigtime- very bigtime. But to go off me with assumptions as to who I am, how I think and what I do is baseless speculation that offers nothing. Part of my college was paid for by a Merck stock gift from my grandfather, the chemist that developed latex paint and a shrewd investor. The other part and greater bulk I made working in a hellhole factory. Yet you are intent in making knowing assumptions based on prejudices of people you know nothing about. That is only an impediment to discourse and neither salves or solves.
They have even greater risk
March 15, 2007 - 23:03 ET by liberal_bug_zapperThey have even greater risk when people disparage their profits when they do actually make one. These companies spend a great deal on research, in fact, of all industries, they are some of the biggest spenders, in terms of percentage of cost, on research.
As for your claims... I'm not going to even bother trying to ascertain whether you are telling the truth or not... but I think it's kind of telling of the kind of person you are when you start bragging about things as if it will change the fact that you are ignorant. In fact, most of the braggarts I've ever known turned out to be liars and people embellished their lives to make themselves seem more important than they really were.
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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." ~ Thomas Paine
Here's the thing: You guys fa
March 15, 2007 - 20:52 ET by balboaHere's the thing: You guys fall all over yourself anytime a study comes out that says something you don't agree with, citing the source of the study as biased.
Why should anyone believe a study done by MRC isn't biased?
Bal, did you know that HPV is
March 15, 2007 - 21:01 ET by tracheostomyDELETED. Failed 2 check my facts.
Here's the thing: You guys
March 15, 2007 - 21:04 ET by sarcasmoHere's the thing: You guys fall all over yourself anytime a the news media comes out & says something you agree with, claiming the "mainstream" media somehow isn't biased.
Why should anyone here believe any story done by news media (and I explicitly-include Fox News -- see my latest antilibertarian-ideas bias-complaint and debate-challenge in the open-thread) isn't biased?
JMR
Why should anyone here beli
March 15, 2007 - 22:15 ET by Free StinkerWhy should anyone here believe any story done by news media
Good question.
Even if there is no bias for or against any viewpoint (which assumes a lot), there is always incompetance . . .
Good point on the possibili
March 16, 2007 - 04:19 ET by sarcasmoGood point on the possibility of incompetence (but there's no-way the behavior of Fox News in the anti-small-government bias I've singlehandedly-busted is an accident!). It's highly likely the bold part of my parenthetical above "cloaked" the question, but I'd enjoy seeing a response out of Bal....
JMR
Well, as every 5th grader has
March 16, 2007 - 09:38 ET by balboaWell, as every 5th grader has said at one time or another, "I asked first."
Why am I supposed to believe that MRC studies aren't biased?
Ok, Balboa
March 16, 2007 - 10:37 ET by sarcasmoOh, I'm sure they are in some ways (for example, I severely doubt whether the MRC would want any polling firms they pay to distinguish bias against conservatives from the separate bias I've conclusively shown against libertarians in their poll questions, because it's not up to them to pay to make the points I make on their forums for free!). But when you see studies like the one the other day which -- despite the "a left-right line is a comprehensive map, and all we need to describe the politics of humanity!" simplemindedness I continually deride here -- say that about twice as many people think the media's biased to the left as to the right, or when you see various lefty-bias admissions by reporters themselves, you might just want to pay attention to the MRC's studies anyway, flaws & all. And I asked second, so how 'bout a response?
JMR
You shouldn't think anything
March 16, 2007 - 10:53 ET by balboaYou shouldn't think anything is completely objective.
Objectivity
March 16, 2007 - 10:55 ET by MightyMouthBut isn't objectivity, objective?
"There are two types of people in this country; those who provide freedom and those who enjoy it." MM says...
It's impossible to suspend
March 16, 2007 - 11:08 ET by sarcasmoIt's impossible to suspend judgment on everything forever in life though. For example, there are certain obviousities of media bias, like "apparently Democrats can toss what's arguably an ethnic slur at an ethnic Republican, but if a Republican called an ethnic Democrat the exact same slur we'd see a media-macaca-$#!T-fit, and everyone here -- probably even you -- knows it." Bias abounds in the media, and the studies and posts on this site are supposed to be designed to reduce the problem of mediabias.
JMR
Trust, but verify, balboa.R
March 16, 2007 - 14:37 ET by Ken ShepherdTrust, but verify, balboa.
Read the study. I promise that unlike Ambien, it won't cause you to pull a Patrick Kennedy.
But seriously, we looked at and examined objective criteria. Was the actual name of a drug company mentioned, yes or no. That's not a subjective "ewww, I didn't like this story" question.
The study has empirical data based on an 8-month swath of evening news broadcast coverage. Eight months, 132 stories, that's a decent sample size in a reasonable time frame of media coverage.
BIAS!
March 15, 2007 - 21:04 ET by gfrrmanWe KNOW the MSM is biased and it is pointed out here on this site everyday...thus the reason for the site. Get it?? The MRC points it out and backs it up by revealing the fact. That's how it's done. MRCs bias is to point out the bias. Are you that clueless?
I think there are a lot of fo
March 16, 2007 - 09:27 ET by BruzillaI think there are a lot of folks in the Liberal World who are really terrified by the success of GWB's Medicare Prescription D plan. When he proposed this plan, he took one of the key Dem issues out of the mix and they have failed to find a substitute one. They are also terrified because the way that Medicare Part D is working it is reducing the costs of drugs, reducing the costs of the program, and accomplishing this while meeting the needs of seniors. At the same time, it is also having a huge influence on drug companies that used to charge top dollar for name drugs until their patent wore off. Now, due to the structure of Med D payments and demand for generics, these companies must come out with generic version of their drugs well before the patents expire. And... all of this is resulting in enough generics being available now that major retailers are changing their pharmacies to offer discounted generic scripts WITHOUT the need for insurance, so now all those pitifull unwashed masses without insurance can get drugs for less than what people with insurance are paying in many cases.
You want to know why the MSM doesn't want to talk about medicines these days? It's because any discussion of prescription drugs since 2004 means nothing but rave headlines for Bush, Republicans, drug companies, WalMart, etc., and they will not stand for that.