Medical reporting recommendations: a gap between practical and theoretical approach of journalists in Italy.

Objective: This survey involved medical reporters to identify degrees of theoretical and actual compliance to recommendations for health reporting.

Methods: The questionnaire was addressed to 450 Italian journalists and obtained a redemption of 23.1%.

Improving health communication. Supporting the practice of health communication.

Background: Health authorities, hospitals, commercial enterprises, and mass media all deliver health and medical communication in different forms. With such a vast amount of biomedical and clinical information available, any action to ensure the spread of clinically relevant news items is welcome.

Objectives: This paper tries to define a new role for health science librarians in improving medical communication and reporting.

Information sources in biomedical science and medical journalism: methodological approaches and assessment.

Throughout the world the public is showing increasing interest in medical and scientific subjects and journalists largely spread this information, with an important impact on knowledge and health. Clearly, therefore, the relationship between the journalist and his sources is delicate: freedom and independence of information depend on the independence and truthfulness of the sources. The new "precision journalism" holds that scientific methods should be applied to journalism, so authoritative sources are a common need for journalists and scientists.

Science information in the media: an academic approach to improve its intrinsic quality.

The lay audience expresses a clear demand for scientific information, particularly when health and welfare are involved. For most people science is what they learn from the media. The need for good scientific journalism is pressing, to bridge the gap between the slow pace of science and the fast-moving and concise nature of successful mass communication.