Medical journalism

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Medical journalism is journalistic reporting and commenting on topics that concern medical and related issues.

General

Events from all medical fields are at the center of medical journalism. Often topics such as B. from health policy , psychology , nutrition , ethnology and environmental policy , which can be related to legal, economic, social, ethical and other problems. In many editorial offices , the departments for knowledge / science, research, innovation, etc. Responsible for this area, but there are also independent departments for medicine and health.

history

Even the news letters and flyers of the 15th and 16th centuries often contained medical material, including reports on epidemics (plague), bloodletting, urination, medicines, freak births and (miracle) cures. They were also taken up in the first magazines and newspapers . It is noteworthy that the world's first dissertation on newspaper and news - it was published in Leipzig in 1690 - was written by a doctor, Tobias Peucer . He previously had a doctorate in medicine. The pattern that is still valid today, that questions about health and illness, suffering and healing affect the most elementary human needs, can be seen early on. After about 1850 the modern scientific phase of medicine began with numerous discoveries and the differentiation of the subject. In 1894 the Association of German Medical Specialist and Professional Press was founded; later other medical journalistic-oriented professional associations were added.

The Hamburg doctor Ernst Rittershaus wrote a very early investigation into the presentation of medical questions in the press. Under the title "Insanity and the press. A cultural image" in 1913 he traced in detail on 245 pages how seven Hamburg newspapers reported on topics such as psychiatry, mental illnesses, asylums, alcoholism and crime. Today almost all editorial offices of daily newspapers, popular magazines and numerous specialty publications offer articles from medical fields, e. B. on the causes as well as the diagnosis and therapy of diseases , their prevention , epidemiology , course and spread, as well as medical education , treatment costs and treatment errors . Questions of medical professional policy and ethics can also be an issue.

Professional field

Access to medical journalism usually requires a degree and journalistic training; however, this is not mandatory. Medical journalists, like science journalists, work freelance or on a permanent basis for the press, radio, television, press offices and online journalism; often they are also authors of books. What is important here is the ability to translate often complicated processes from technical terminology into a language that is easy to understand. At www.medizinmag.de there is an online guide that provides detailed information on how to work correctly with medical topics.

Media awards

Numerous prizes are awarded in science journalism, including the following specifically exclusively in medical journalism:

The 'Wilhelm and Ingeborg Roloff Prize', advertised by the German Lung Foundation since 1996 . The first prize is endowed with 3000 euros, the second with 2000 euros. They are awarded every two years for exemplary contributions to pulmonary medicine / pulmonology.

Since 2008, the Foundation for Experimental Biomedicine has awarded the 'Peter Hans Hofschneider Research Prize', endowed with 20,000 Swiss francs, within medical journalism for works with a convincing presentation of political, scientific or social backgrounds.

Since 2009, the German Evidence-Based Medicine Network (DNEbM) eV has been awarding the 'Evidence-based Medicine in the Media' journalists' prize. The prize, endowed with 1,500 euros, honors journalistic work in which this medicine plays a central role.

The pulmonary hypertension foundation awards the € 3,000 journalist prize 'Together against pulmonary hypertension'.

There are several awards totaling 30,500 euros from the Dr. Georg Schreiber Media Prize for contributions from the fields of health and social affairs.

literature

  • Brigitte Bäder: Medicine and the press through the ages. Phil. Diss., Munich 1954 (as a reprint together with Paul Cattani's dissertation on medicine in the political press. A social medicine study , med. Diss. Zurich 1912/1913, under press and medicine in tension. Reprint of two pioneering studies in medical communication Published in 1993 by the Brockmeyer University Press, Bochum, ISBN 978-3-8196-0125-5 ).
  • JF Volrad Deneke: Doctor and medicine in daily journalism of the 17th and 18th centuries. Deutscher Ärzte-Verlag, Cologne / Berlin 1969.
  • Bettina Fromm, Eva Baumann, Claudia Lampert: Health Communication and Media. A textbook. W. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-17-020683-0 .
  • Horst Merscheim: Medicine in magazines. Reporting analysis from Bunte, Neue Revue, Quick and stern. Study publisher Dr. N. Brockmeyer, Bochum 1978, ISBN 3-88339-016-X .
  • Horst Merscheim: Medicine on TV. Problems of mass media mediated health reporting. Study publisher Dr. N. Brockmeyer, Bochum 1984, ISBN 3-88339-358-4 .
  • Heinz-Dietrich Fischer (Hrsg.): Medical journalism. Premises, practices, problems. Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1990, ISBN 3-631-40838-2 .
  • Constanze Herweg: Medicine in words and pictures in the GEO reportage magazine. LIT Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-643-10331-4 .
  • Ulrike Hoffmann-Richter: Psychiatry in the newspaper. Judgments and prejudices. (= Edition Das Narrenschiff). Psychiatrie-Verlag, Bonn 2000, ISBN 3-88414-295-X .
  • Franzisca Gottwald: Health Public. Development of a network model for journalism and public relations. UVK Verlagsgesellschaft, Konstanz 2006, ISBN 3-89669-571-1 .
  • E [rnst] Rittershaus: Insanity and the press. A cultural image. Gustav Fischer, Jena 1913.
  • Mike S. Schäfer: Science in the media. The medialization of scientific topics. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-15592-0 .

Professional associations and research groups

Individual evidence

  1. ^ JF Volrad Deneke: Doctor and medicine in daily journalism of the 17th and 18th centuries. Deutscher Ärzte-Verlag, Cologne / Berlin 1969.
  2. ^ Eckart Klaus Roloff : The coverage of heart transplants in the West German press. An analysis of statements on the phenomena of medical journalism. Dissertation. Salzburg 1972.
  3. ^ Association of Medical and Science Journalists
  4. ↑ Georg Schreiber Media Prize - accessed on May 11, 2020