Health media materials in the dock verdict guilty
Posted on 29. Apr, 2010 by phaedrus in Communications, Health, Industry, News, People
On the 21st of April 2010, at Brown’s Courtroom in Covent Garden, Aurora played host to the first court case of its kind, placing health media materials in the dock, and asking a specialist jury of UK health journalists to reach a verdict. With Judge Jacqui Thornton presiding over the court, Daily Mail Medical Correspondent, Jenny Hope, gave the case for the prosecution, and our own Claire Eldridge took the stand for the defence from an agency perspective, while Patricia Campbell, leading authority on the ABPI, made the case for the Code of Practice.
The evening at Brown’s was fascinating from the outset. As the hallowed halls filled with delegates representing the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the country and UK regulatory bodies, the illustrious health journalists from consumer and medical print, online and broadcast media, mingled throughout. The case then got under way as the ‘prosecutor’, Miss Jenny Hope, treated the court to an intelligent and humourous assessment of the health story writing process, from press release receipt to editor approval. In doing so, she challenged the jury and audience to consider the quality of their media materials, which have declined rapidly in recent years.
To help save herself and her colleagues from the “archaeological dig for a health story”, and to bring out the positive, life-saving side of pharmaceutical research and medicines development, the prosecutor provided invaluable wisdom from the journalist perspective on the deadly sins of press release writing. Time to sift through press releases can be a matter of seconds, so we should make sure they clearly deliver the news.
Miss Claire Eldridge then took the stand and focused on the challenges faced by PR agencies in mediating between journalists and pharmaceutical companies to get fair, balanced and accurate information about healthcare products to the public. Claire stressed that Aurora embraces these challenges with excellent understanding and interpretation of the Code, great client relations and professional, respectful interaction with journalists.
The second leg of the defence case was undertaken by Patricia Campbell, an experienced industry consultant in medical affairs. With health media materials in the dock, the purpose of this speech was to support the Code against scapegoating as the enemy of quality media materials. It was claimed that the Code is often inappropriately blamed for excessively restricting the content of press releases and suggested that over-interpretation is actually frequently more to blame.
According to the case made here, a greater culprit for the proliferation to national journalists of unsuitable, sub-standard media materials is insistence on releases of non-newsworthy stories. While she admitted that the Code has an impact on press releases, it was argued that this is a necessary impact and not something that the pharmaceutical industry should fight against. The point was made that the pharmaceutical industry does amazing work, which is lost among a lot of negative reporting about the industry, but that the Code has the potential to rebuild trust in this self-regulated industry.
The defence then rested, and the debate was opened to the floor for the audience of healthcare communicators, marketeers and medics to engage with the journalist jury about the case presented. Lively debate ensued with interesting insight from all sectors present. The key points made and responses given by journalists covered a wide range of topics. The question of whether it is the journalist’s job to interpret press releases as they come was explored. The journalist view on this was that the pharmaceutical industry should try to be as helpful as possible by providing accessible press releases, tailored to the audience.
There was consensus that the pharmaceutical industry struggles to reach internal agreement between medical, communications and marketing departments, and multiple approvers. As a medical correspondent from a national daily said, “come to me with news, not a document written to appease the opinions of a committee of internal approvers.”
The exciting debate finally drew to a reluctant close. The judge summed up by saying that we all need to work together to remove fear and increase understanding between media and industry and move the debate forward, finding practical solutions to improve the standard of media materials and patient information in the media. Based on the consensus from everyone in the room, Aurora has committed to a follow-up event with journalists, marketeers and medics to deliver these practical solutions.
neilcrump
29. Apr, 2010
Media materials definitely were guilty as charged but based on the consensus in the room they can be rehabilitated. Team Aurora is looking forward to collectively finding a workable solution to turn media materials around and help them to become responsible citizens :+)
If you attended the event here is a quick reminder of the feedback questionnaire address: http://tinyurl.com/2vludzd
Your feedback will help shape how we find a practicable solution. See you soon.