Report from the Conference...

Alas, the Ninth Annual Conference on Journalism & Public Policy was, overall, disappointing. It was sponsored by the Knight-Wallace Fellows program at the University of Michigan. The total lack of information on it's website about the conference and it's outstanding speakers should have warned me that this conference would be less informative than it was a media event -- a photo op, perhaps. (I will endeavor to supply the information links they should have...)

Here was a powerhouse collection of experts in journalism and womens health issues...and they were given 10 minutes apiece to speak, plus two 30 minute panel sessions in which were given a chance participate, if there was time. The program booklet given the audience included a card on which one question could be written, which would be presented to the panel at the end of the 4 hour program, if there was time. One question, which might or most likely might not be answered!

No handouts, no email or website information, no electronic backup at all, no overhead or online monitors with names in print large enough to read, for instance -- and although a video was being made, it will not be available to the public, or even put up on the sponsors' websites.

Nor was there any time for the audience to interact with the speakers, whom considering the size of the venue, they could barely see, let alone identify. The speakers did not even have name tags on their persons so that during the 15 minute break in the middle, one might have a chance to find one.

What a waste of time and talent! And what talent it was! So much I wanted to hear from each one about her topic and her experience!

And for what it's worth, I don't think the speakers succeeded very well in condensing what they had to say into only 10 minutes. (This is a general problem with Public Health issues.) Mostly, they talked really fast and sounded like they hadn't thought through what it takes to get across a complex issue in what was essentially a sound bite.

That said, Dr. Kimberleydawn Wisdom, Michigan State Surgeon General, was eloquent and concise and got every one of her points across. Being the first such position in the United States, she has been busy defining the post, educating state and local agencies and institutions, and selling its services. She has by now a couple years of experience fitting impossible complexity into sound bites short enough to be heard by busy politicians and overworked agency staff.

Susan Wood, currently teaching at Rutgers University, advertized as a keynote speaker (but still allowed only 10 minutes to talk!) is the former head of the Department of Women's Health, US Food and Drug Administration. She resigned in August of this year because she was wholly committed to making the FDA a trustworthy source of information for the public -- and felt that increasingly, policy decisions were being made that left science and medical evidence out of the process when such conflicted from political agendas.

Marcia Inhorn, currently Director of the University of Michigan Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, and an expert on contraceptive use among Muslim women, is an anthropologist specializing in non-Western women. Her biggest concern is the way journalism in the US in particular, seems to focus on exotic issues instead of real and more common ones. This gives a skewed view of what daily life is like for most Moslem women, and contributes to negative stereotypes. By showing them as victims, real issues of economy and public health (especially those that cross religious and geographic boundaries and point to much larger worldwide issues) are ignored.

Another comment she made was that while academia is doing a much better job collecting information -- over a 100 medical ethnographies have been completed that provide a great deal of accurate data -- there needs to be a more accessible way to get the word out. The average ethnograph runs to 400 pages, and few journalists have the time for that, let alone politicians. Such complexity just doesn't fit into a 30 second sound bite!

Cynthia Pearson, Executive Director of the US National Women's Health Network, related that the news media were very helpful in the beginning of the women's movement in the 1970s US. However, the media are now so entangled in marketing, both for products and for the media themselves, that the public can no longer trust the information and opinion provided. Often, the stories come unedited from the product manufacturers or others with vested interests. For instance, we now have a number of illnesses that never existed before medication or treatment was invented for them.

Vivian Pinn, Director of the office of Research on Women's Health, US National Institutes of Health, is particularly concerned with this problem of providing the news media (and the public) with accurate information, as least biased as possible. Often, she maintains, 'medical' experts are NOT the best source for balanced coverage of an issue: activist groups can be.

This can be a challenge because it requires researching the backgrounds of the many activist organisations out there to find reputable ones (meaning that they weren't invented to cater to specific product or political interest). Such an activist group, such as the Breast Cancer Coalition, work hard to read all the studies and ethnographic papers and interview the experts, and both analyse and synthesize as balanced a picture as possible. That saves the journalist or politician time and could prevent some of the more egregious misinformation presented to the public as 'fact.'

Frances Visco, breast cancer survior and currently President of the US National Breast Cancer Coalition: "Wearing a pink ribbon is not what it's about!" She decries the fact that people -- particularly those who could influence policy, legislation and behavior -- pin on a pink ribbon and feel they've contributed to the solution without having to do anything else. And the news media seem much more likely to chase after a celebrity photo op than to report on or demand real action and results.

Myrna Blyth, author of Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness and Liberalism to the Women of America, says journalists need to ask better questions, instead of parroting whatever 'expert' is currently politically correct.

Gina Kolata, Science and Medical Journalist, The New York Times: "It doesn't matter how good your questions and how accurate the answers you write. As a journalist, you are limited by what your editors decide to publish. Editors listen to what readers pay for...so readers must demand better coverage of issues they are interested in."

Joann Ellison Rodgers, Director of Media Relations, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, says she has been on both sides of the communication divide between journalists and academics, as she was a reporter for many years before joining Johns Hopkins. Public health is not the sort of simple story that can fit into either the headline news or the agenda of a busy policy maker or legislator. Neither the public nor their elected and appointed representatives (or even their physicians) have the time to research in depth every issue that crosses their desks. Especially those which have far reaching origins and downstream effects.

Consumers need a filter to assist them in sorting out facts from agenda, opinions from evidence. The public needs to be educated, not only on the issues, but also in judgement: how to make choices for themselves.

Joanne Silberner, Health Policy Correspondent for US National Public Radio, points out that journalism is no longer confined to newspapers, radio and TV. An increasing amount of information is being published on the Internet. This information is not edited or peer reviewed in the same way that conventional journalism can be. People no longer trust the media to tell them the truth, or at least to provide information that isn't mainly marketing for products or ideas or special interests, but turning to the ocean of 'information' presently surging across the electronic highway isn't necessarily more reliable.
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I feel that as a public, those of us in the United States at least, have less and less education in how to think critically. Our schools no longer spend time on analytical or logical processes for decision making. We are taught to memorize what the teacher says and answer that way on a test, irrespective of whether there is even a definitive right or wrong answer to any question.

Such an education may produce good consumers, but it will not assist us to make creative use of the massive amount of information in either a library or on the Internet. I'm no longer depressed that our children won't see any purpose in being able to read and write -- because they are out there journaling on the Web in increasing numbers -- now I'm worried that these technology savvy young people don't have the skills they need to judge what they are reading in all those weblogs out there.

How to filter, how to make educated decisions, how to take increasingly complex social issues (like women's health worldwide) and make them accessible to everyone -- these were the concerns expressed by each of the speakers at this conference.

These are concerns for all of us.

"The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom ... and neglect it not ... By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor..."
- Bahá'u'lláh, The Hidden Words, p. 4