Alexis Anderson is a senior director of communications at GroundFloor Media, a Denver-based public relations agency. In her role, she focuses on the development and implementation of traditional and non-traditional media and influencer programs for health care, consumer, nonprofit, and professional services organizations.
Some of Colorado's most respected health care reporters – including Michael Booth, Diane Carman, Cynthia Hessin, Andis Robeznieks, Eric Whitney and Tim Wieland – sat together this afternoon at the Colorado Health Symposium on a panel entitled, "An Uneasy Alliance: Health Care and the Media." Their mission was to explain, and at times defend, the role of the media and the job that media organizations are doing to explain and properly represent the complex issues of health care.
Within minutes, certain similarities became clear – the media, just like its public, struggle with the complexities of health care reform, and often only have a few minutes or a few columns with which to examine the issues, share all sides of the story and challenge perceptions if they need to be challenged. Combine that with misinformed and often disengaged readers (because as Booth pointed out, a lot of people grab The Denver Post just to check the lottery scores) and you have the perfect storm for a daily uphill battle to generate articles or segments that accurately portray the state of health care in our state.
Shrinking budgets, dried up advertising revenue streams and fewer beat reporters also contribute to the hurdles media face when covering this industry. For example, Whitney of Colorado Public Radio noted that he would love to cover more wellness stories, such as obesity. But because his organization needed to hone in on a certain focus for its health care coverage, the majority of his assignments are dedicated to access to care. Carman of Health Policy Solutions has the opposite problem. She has the online space to delve deeper into issues than her mainstream counterparts, but struggles to attract the "eyeballs" that The Denver Post and CBS4 Denver inherently attract daily.
So what is the solution? According to the panel, there are many. Coloradans should support Colorado Public Radio and Rocky Mountain PBS with donations, and outlets like The Denver Post with subscriptions. Health care trade magazine readers can engage more deeply with outlets like Modern Healthcare and the work of Robeznieks by purchasing survey data and participating in programs such as "best places to work." Aside from monetary support, Booth noted that he desires to demand more from his readers – to read, watch and listen beyond the stories they "like" to know about, and to spend more time on the stories they "need" to know about and understand.
In the end it is prudent to take away the following from the panelists – we are all responsible for how health care is covered in Colorado. Why? Because as consumers we need to demand the highest quality of journalism by publicly supporting and celebrating the journalists who strive to go beyond the hype, cable network screaming and first layer of political bickering to cover what is real, fair and balanced.
Do you think the Colorado media is doing a good job covering health care issues? If not, what do you think it will take to improve on what they deliver?
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