Evidence based reporting

So this week, the journalism majors learned about evidence based reporting. Dr. Noralou Roos from the University of Manitoba visited our class and taught us about the Evidence Network. We learned that evidence reporting is essential for journalists in order to get the real story out. If one writes a story without adequate research or evidence, the story lacks depth, credibility, accuracy, and validity, especially for stories related to health care.

As an exercise, I took a health care related topic and searched articles about it written on the internet to see what I found. My topic was “patient financing of health care.”

I was astonished to find that in most of the journalistic articles I found, there was little evidence used as a reference or reported. Most of the stories were about the benefits of patients paying for their own health care (privatization in Canada).

Interestingly, by reading up about this topic through research from the Evidence Network, I found that in actuality, based on research and evidence done, it was found that for many patients, privatization is a bad thing.

Dr. Noralou Roos said that many patients are unaware of when they need to go to the doctor in the first place, when it’s really necessary, so when they do, if there is a user fee, it tends to discourage care for the people who really need it.

"In Saskatchewan, in a study done on user fees in health care, it has been found that people who need to be at the doctor’s office who avoid going because of user fees often end up even more sick and in the hospital because they didn’t go the doctor earlier as they could not afford the fees,” she said.

Roos said that it has been found through research that many people may not go to the doctor even if they need to because of the fees.

“Most people who are at the doctor’s office aren’t there because they enjoy being there,” she said. “People in the office are usually sick and need to be there. They need the care.”

I was shocked to see the results I found from the Evidence Network on this topic.

Through the search I did on patient financing of health care, it seemed that many people were in favour of patients’ paying because it would lead to better quality health care.

I see how for a journalist, it is essential to learn about your topic not just through stories and anecdotes or interviews, but to review research on your topic. Otherwise you could end up making a journalist’s biggest sin, not doing justice to the story.