News segments on contraception are more likely to feature political figures than medical experts, according to a paper to be published in the journal Contraception, Rewire reports.
Study details
For the paper, researchers reviewed 116 nightly news segments that aired on ABC, CBS and NBC between 2010 and 2014. The study's time period encompassed news segments that aired during the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, as well as coverage of the Supreme Court's June 2014 ruling in Hobby Lobby v. Burwell.
The researchers said the nightly news is an "influential information source," noting that roughly 24 million people in the United States watch news programming each day.
According to Rewire, the researchers involved in the study were from the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and the Veterans Affairs Center for Clinical Management and Research. Rewire reports that the study follows two other research articles on media and reproductive health coverage, including a survey that found more inaccurate than accurate statements on abortion on cable news and an analysis finding that more male reporters than female reporters covered reproductive issues.
Key findings
The researchers found that only 11 percent of news broadcasts included medical professionals and that only 4 percent included health researchers. In contrast, 40 percent of news broadcasts featured politicians, 25 percent featured advocates, 25 percent featured individuals from the general public and 16 percent featured leaders in the Catholic Church.
According to the researchers, 69 percent of news segments covering contraceptives did not provide medical information. In addition, the authors found that news segments did not focus attention on highly effective forms of contraception, such as intrauterine devices. The topics that received the most attention included emergency contraception, featured in 18 percent of news segments, and oral contraception, featured in 16 percent of news segments.
Michelle Moniz, a study co-author and assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan, noted that the news segments generally presented contraception from a political perspective rather than from a public health perspective. The researchers noted, "We found that when the network television media covers contraception ... they do so within a largely political frame and emphasize the controversial aspects of contraception, while paying less attention to health aspects and content experts."
Moniz added, "Health professionals are an untapped resource for ensuring that the most up-to-date, scientific information is available to the public watching the news" (Knight Shine, Rewire, 7/15).
