Sources and coverage of medical news on front pages of US newspapers.

Background: Medical news that appears on newspaper front pages is intended to reach a wide audience, but how this type of medical news is prepared and distributed has not been systematically researched. We thus quantified the level of visibility achieved by front-page medical stories in the United States and analyzed their news sources.

Methodology: Using the online resource Newseum, we investigated front-page newspaper coverage of four prominent medical stories, and a high-profile non-medical news story as a control, reported in the US in 2007.

Characteristics of medical research news reported on front pages of newspapers.

Background: The placement of medical research news on a newspaper's front page is intended to gain the public's attention, so it is important to understand the source of the news in terms of research maturity and evidence level.

Methodology/principal Findings: We searched LexisNexis to identify medical research reported on front pages of major newspapers published from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2002. We used MEDLINE and Google Scholar to find journal articles corresponding to the research, and determined their evidence level.