Health education on the six-o'clock news. Motivating television coverage of news in medicine
R. M. Davis
Office on Smoking and Health, Centers for Disease Control, Rockville, MD 20857.
Prepackaged video news releases are being increasingly used to motivate
television stations to cover stories in medicine and public health in their
news programs. On Feb 26, 1987, the Office on Smoking and Health, US
Department of Health and Human Services, distributed a prepackaged video
news release to television stations across the country, calling attention
to the new health warnings required on smokeless tobacco packages and
advertisements. The video was sent by satellite as well as by overnight
mail to selected stations. To assess the use of the video, we surveyed 76
stations that had been targeted by special intervention. These stations
were in major metropolitan areas in states with a higher prevalence of
smokeless tobacco use. Seventeen (22.4%) of the stations aired the story
using our video during the six days following the satellite feed, reaching
an estimated 2.8 million households. Another 20 stations reported that they
were holding the video for use in the near future or for file footage. We
conclude that the distribution of prepackaged video news stories can be an
effective, relatively inexpensive technique to communicate health
information to a large audience.
