Bangladesh health journalism: A pilot study exploring the nature and quality of newspaper health reporting
1 Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
2 Department of Public Health and Informatics, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka. Bangladesh
3 Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Dhaka Medical College, Dhaka, Bangladesh
4 Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Brahmanbaria Medical College, Brahmanbaria. Bangladesh
5 Department of Paediatrics, Combined Military Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh
6 Senior Business Editor, Ekushey Television (ETV), Dhaka. Bangladesh
7 Department of Dermatology & Venereology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka. Bangladesh
8 Global Brain health institute, School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
9 Department of Psychology, Health & Technology, University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands.
Research Article
International Journal of Frontiers in Life Science Research, 2021, 01(02), 016–027.
Article DOI: 10.53294/ijflsr.2021.1.2.0047
Publication history:
Received on 16 September 2021; revised on 06 November 2021; accepted on 08 November 2021
Abstract:
Introduction: The media is an important source of health-related information for patients, general public, policymakers and health professionals and has a large influence on their knowledge and opinions. No studies so far have explored the content, nature and quality of health journalism in Bangladesh.
Objectives: To i) explore the nature and quality of media coverage of health stories in Bangladeshi newspapers, ii) understand the perceptions of reporters about medical- and health journalism, including the perceived barriers and facilitators, and iii) identify factors influencing health reporting.
Methods: In a mixed-method pilot study, during a five-month period, all medical and healthcare related news articles published in three leading Bangladeshi daily newspapers (N=461), were content analyzed, and journalists were asked in a questionnaire about their knowledge and medical skills.
Results: Only 44% of the articles reported in a positive tone on health services aspects, while 27.1% were related to malpractice or treatment errors. Many articles contained questionable medical information (49.9%), mostly regarding unregistered clinicians (67.5%), often referred to as ‘doctor’. Treatment errors by unregistered clinicians were reported seven times more often than those by registered physicians (p<0.001). A survey was completed by 23 selected medical- or health journalists (77% response); most of them (78.3%) had no previous training in health journalism and in only 26.1% this was offered by their media house. Journalists self-reported their own insufficient understanding of medical terminology (73.9%), ethics (95.7%) and relevant laws (91.3%).
Conclusion: This study is an eye opener about shortage of medical knowledge among health journalists in a developing country. This shortage may often result in misinformation regarding medical (mal)practice, health laws and ethics. There is ample room for improvement of the quality of health news reporting and health journalism skills in Bangladesh. N=287
Keywords:
Medical journalism; Bangladesh; Health reporting; Media; Health literacy; newspapers
Full text article in PDF:
Copyright information:
Copyright © 2021 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Liscense 4.0