Here is a great guide to how to comunicate with a columnist about their column:
Sept. 7, 2004
Notes on Reader Feedback
Sunday's column was my annual look back at the past year's reviews, focusing on some of the key developments that occurred in everything from digital music to Internet telephony to the Service Pack 2 upgrade to Windows XP. The purpose, as I noted in print, is to revisit some of the bigger issues facing technology consumers and see if any of my earlier thoughts are in need of revisiting. Check out the column here.
For the next week, I'll be doing something unnatural but thoroughly necessary: Taking my hands off the keyboard while enjoying a belated, badly needed vacation.
I expect to pay for this with a backlog of e-mail messages. Knowing how I work, I will read all of them and answer most of them in one way or another. It's just part of the job. I can't consider any review truly complete until I've heard from readers who have tried the same product; if their experiences depart radically from mine, I might have to take a second look to see what I missed.
I can't imagine doing this job without that kind of feedback -- the only really bad column is the one that gets no reader response at all.
However ... how can I put this politely? Not all of the mail I get is equally helpful. What I'd like to offer here is some advice, based on my own thoroughly unscientific and subjective experience, on how to communicate effectively with reporters -- or at least me.
First, the basics: Use a subject header that clearly communicates a) what you're writing about, and b) that you're not just another spammer. In other words, don't use a blank header, don't type in all caps or all lower case, and please don't use multiple exclamation points. I'd hate to trash your message by mistake, or have my mail program do that for me.
* If you're writing to say "great job:"
I won't complain! But don't be surprised if these e-mails get the briefest of replies: "thanks for the kind words" or "you're welcome." Time's short, and messages that don't invite an argument or request further information are the most likely to get a generic response. (That's right; I'll spend more time dealing with a hostile reply than a friendly one. Sick, eh?)
If you're writing a letter to the editor and are just cc'ing me on it, I'm probably not going to reply. Nothing personal -- just trying to conserve my time.
* If you're writing to say what an uninformed hack I am:
Hey, go right ahead. No reporter likes being told that he or she got it wrong, but if nobody told us that, the error would never get corrected. It'd live on in databases and the Web site to lead readers -- and other reporters -- astray for all time. Not good karma.
Obviously, if you can do this without gratuitously insulting my intelligence or ethics, I will be better able to deal with the substance of your message. Bonus points if you can point me to a source that proves what the story should have said -- a Web page or a story elsewhere.
On the other hand, messages that only consist of generic insults won't get any kind of a constructive response. And if a message looks like it's part of a letter-writing campaign, it's hard for me to give it much credibility. If somebody can't spent more than a minute to craft a concise note, I probably can't either.
Finally, you're welcome to vent to me about how our Web site looks or works, but I don't work there and I have no special influence on the people who do. All I can do is point you to washingtonpost.com's extensive help/reader feedback page.
* If you're writing to ask me a question:
Please realize that some queries are answer-proof. Asking me "what's a good computer for a student" is like asking our restaurant critic "what's a good restaurant in Fairfax County." Those are impossibly vague questions -- I can't begin to answer it without quizzing you at great length over what you're looking to do with that computer, what your preferences are like and so on.
The more specific your question, the better. If you're looking for advice on which of two different models of laptop to buy, I can probably provide some worthwhile guidance. If you cite the exact text of the error message you see, I've got a better shot at figuring out what might have gone wrong. If you tell me what you want to do with a particular gadget and how much you want to spend, I can offer more useful advice.
I try to answer mail as quickly as I can, but if you need a response immediately you're probably not going to get it from me. Sorry. Answering e-mail is something I do when time permits, not in place of reporting, writing and editing. For about the same reason, I'm less likely to answer a second or third e-mail from a reader on the same subject if—as always seems the case -- I have 30 other messages from other people to answer.
Anything I left out? Stop by next week for my next Web chat, or drop me an e-mail at the address below.
-- Rob Pegoraro (rob@twp.com)
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Let's talk about spin in the first class back. What does spin mean. I'll try and get the video "Wag the Dog" to help demonstrate the concept and you should read the following:
All the President's Spin
By Ben Fritz and Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyhan, AlterNet. Posted September 7, 2004.
A new book studies the way that the Bush administration has dedicated itself to transforming the press from a watchdog to a mouthpiece for its spin.
Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from 'All the President's Spin,' by Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyhan.
Bush’s White House has broken new ground in its press relations strategy, exploiting the weaknesses and failings of the political media more systematically than any of its predecessors. The administration combines tight message discipline and image management – Reagan’s trademarks – with the artful use of half- or partial truths and elaborate news management – Clinton’s specialties – in a combination that is near-lethal for the press.
These techniques are effective precisely because they prey on four key weaknesses of contemporary journalism. First and foremost, reporters are constrained by the norm of objectivity, which frequently causes them to avoid evaluating the truth of politicians’ statements. In addition, because reporters are dependent upon the White House for news, the administration can shape the coverage it receives by restricting the flow of information to the press. The media are also vulnerable to political pressure and reprisal, which the Bush White House has aggressively dished out against critical journalists. Finally, the press’ unending pursuit of scandal and entertaining news often blinds it to serious issues of public policy.
By aggressively deploying its communications strategy against a media establishment wary of giving credence to charges of liberal bias and fearful of challenging a self-described “war president” after Sept. 11, Bush has successfully dissembled about public policy on a far more consistent basis than his predecessors. Do President Bush’s tax cuts primarily benefit the wealthy or the middle class? Was there clear evidence that Iraq was attempting to produce nuclear weapons or was connected to al Qaeda? What role have tax cuts played in the recent growth of federal budget deficits? There are answers to all of these questions, but the media are frequently reluctant to point out the misinformation in Bush’s statements about such controversial policy issues. By using every advantage it can muster against the media, the Bush administration has dedicated itself to transforming the press from a watchdog to a mouthpiece for its spin.
The Weaknesses of “Objective” Journalism
The gold standard of American journalism has long been “objective” reporting. Journalists at news outlets are expected to present the public with an unbiased account of the facts rather than their own views on the issue at hand. This is a laudable goal, but the expectation that reporters will present both sides of the story too often translates into the mistaken belief that they should refuse to sort out competing factual claims. This is the media’s greatest weakness in dealing with political dishonesty.
While the press generally does a reasonable job of pointing out the most blatant instances of political deception, reporters attempting to remain objective often fail to evaluate claims that are misleading but not obviously wrong. This is especially true when it comes to politicians who are generally seen as honest. As a result, Bush has frequently gotten away with misleading claims and language. Perversely, this strategy of dissembling and denial leaves journalists in the position of appearing to be “taking sides” if they point out deception.
The pressure to remain objective frequently reduces reporters to little more than stenographers transcribing the latest spin from politicians. Rather than sort out competing factual claims, they typically give equal play to both sides – even if one is misleading. This “he said/she said” form of journalism allows politicians to enter deceptive statements into the public record and leaves citizens with little or no basis to evaluate the truth of the matter at hand.
Coverage of the debate over the war in Iraq provides a particularly telling example of this sort of thinking. New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who has come under fire for her generally credulous reporting about the Bush administration’s case for war, told Michael Massing of the New York Review of Books, “My job isn’t to assess the government’s information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of the New York Times what the government thought about Iraq’s arsenal.” (Miller later claimed in a letter to the editor that she had actually stated, “I could not be an independent intelligence agency.” Massing disputed that claim, stating he read Miller her quote for approval and the reporter signed off.)
In a May 12, 2004, interview on MSNBC’s Hardball, veteran journalist Jim Lehrer, the host of PBS’ The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, expressed similar deference to the claims of government leaders. When asked by host Chris Matthews whether journalists had explored the issue of how Iraqis would respond to Americans running their country after the war, he responded, “The word ‘occupation,’ keep in mind, Chris, was never mentioned in the run-up to the war. It was ‘liberation.’ This was a war of liberation, not a war of occupation. So as a consequence, those of us in journalism never even looked at the issue of occupation.” When Matthews asked why reporters weren’t able to go beyond the Bush administration’s framing of the war as one of “liberation,” the answer was astonishing: “It just didn’t occur to us,” Lehrer said. “We weren’t smart enough to do it.”
In fact, Miller and Lehrer’s job (and the job of other reporters) is to go beyond government claims and uncover the truth. Their statements demonstrate an all-too-typical reluctance to sort out the facts for readers and a deference to authority that is troubling coming from any reporter, let alone two at prestigious national news outlets.
Reporters’ Dependence on the White House
The nature of the White House beat is that reporters depend on the officials they cover for access and information. If the administration decides to stonewall them, there is often little they can do. By controlling the flow of information available to the press, the White House can shape news coverage. Despite the media’s tendency to focus on negative stories, the absence of damaging information usually preempts critical coverage and creates a news vacuum that reporters must fill. If they are offered nothing other than the White House’s chosen message of the day, coverage tends to focus on that message.
To fill the news vacuum, the Bush administration offers reporters an unending supply of carefully scripted talking points, a standard public relations tactic that the White House has elevated to an art. When talking points are all officials will repeat, it gives reporters literally nothing else to quote.
For instance, during the July 2003 controversy over Bush’s claim that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and her deputy Stephen Hadley pounded the spin point that the statement in question was only “sixteen words” long, repeating it six times each during an interview on CNN and a press briefing, respectively. This focus on a scripted message often defeats reporters’ attempts to provide coverage of topics other than administration talking points.
Two internal memos from the Treasury Department’s public affairs staff to Secretary Paul O’Neill graphically illustrate the disciplined message that the administration tries to enforce.
First, to prepare O’Neill for a February 2001 press conference announcing the President’s fiscal year 2002 budget, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Public Affairs Michele Davis wrote a memo telling O’Neill, “This event, more than anything you’ve participated in to date, requires that you be monotonously on-message.” Her advice was frank: “Roll-out events like this are the clearest examples of when staying on message is absolutely crucial. Any deviation during the unveiling of the budget will change the way coverage plays out from tomorrow forward. . . . Your remarks should be very focused and your answers during the Q and A should only repeat your remarks.” Davis’ comments demonstrate the strategic approach the Bush administration takes to its public statements.
The memo clearly had the desired effect on the often spontaneous O’Neill. During the press conference, the Secretary largely stuck to his message save for a testy exchange with reporters over the percentage of the tax cut going to the wealthiest Americans.
In a second memo to O’Neill, Davis gave him advice for a Jan. 6, 2002 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. This time, she encouraged him to aggressively insert the administration’s talking points into the interview. Davis advised O’Neill to disregard host Tim Russert almost entirely: “first answer, no matter the question: We must act to ensure our economy recovers and people get back to work.” She later stated that “You need to interject the President’s message, even if the question has nothing to do with that.”
As she predicted, Russert’s first question concerned the state of the economy, not Bush’s agenda. When the host asked, “How bad is this recession?” O’Neill gave a short answer before turning to his talking points as Davis suggested, saying, “We need to get people back to work in this economy.” The memo also listed “key lines” and “word choices,” such as “economic security” (a phrase O’Neill used five times), and advised him to say that “the terrorist attacks and the recession caused the deficit,” which he did. In this way, the administration turned the interview from a spontaneous exchange into something closer to a prepared speech.
The Bush White House’s philosophy that the media serve no particular democratic function guides its relationship with journalists. Because it sees them as a hostile force in search of the next headline, the administration has no reservations about employing an arsenal of public relations and news management tools to try to shape coverage. These include half-truths and strategically ambiguous language that are difficult for “objective” reporters to expose, relentless message discipline, restrictions on press interaction with Bush, direct pressure on journalists, and dishonesty about policy issues that the media find boring. By wielding these tactics against reporters reluctant to criticize the President after Sept. 11, Bush was able to neuter the press corps for most of his first three years in office.
Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer, and Brendan Nyhan are founder-editors of Spinsanity.com, a nonpartisan watchdog dedicated to unspinning misleading claims from politicians, pundits and the press.
All the President's Spin
By Ben Fritz and Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyhan, AlterNet. Posted September 7, 2004.
A new book studies the way that the Bush administration has dedicated itself to transforming the press from a watchdog to a mouthpiece for its spin.
Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from 'All the President's Spin,' by Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyhan.
Bush’s White House has broken new ground in its press relations strategy, exploiting the weaknesses and failings of the political media more systematically than any of its predecessors. The administration combines tight message discipline and image management – Reagan’s trademarks – with the artful use of half- or partial truths and elaborate news management – Clinton’s specialties – in a combination that is near-lethal for the press.
These techniques are effective precisely because they prey on four key weaknesses of contemporary journalism. First and foremost, reporters are constrained by the norm of objectivity, which frequently causes them to avoid evaluating the truth of politicians’ statements. In addition, because reporters are dependent upon the White House for news, the administration can shape the coverage it receives by restricting the flow of information to the press. The media are also vulnerable to political pressure and reprisal, which the Bush White House has aggressively dished out against critical journalists. Finally, the press’ unending pursuit of scandal and entertaining news often blinds it to serious issues of public policy.
By aggressively deploying its communications strategy against a media establishment wary of giving credence to charges of liberal bias and fearful of challenging a self-described “war president” after Sept. 11, Bush has successfully dissembled about public policy on a far more consistent basis than his predecessors. Do President Bush’s tax cuts primarily benefit the wealthy or the middle class? Was there clear evidence that Iraq was attempting to produce nuclear weapons or was connected to al Qaeda? What role have tax cuts played in the recent growth of federal budget deficits? There are answers to all of these questions, but the media are frequently reluctant to point out the misinformation in Bush’s statements about such controversial policy issues. By using every advantage it can muster against the media, the Bush administration has dedicated itself to transforming the press from a watchdog to a mouthpiece for its spin.
The Weaknesses of “Objective” Journalism
The gold standard of American journalism has long been “objective” reporting. Journalists at news outlets are expected to present the public with an unbiased account of the facts rather than their own views on the issue at hand. This is a laudable goal, but the expectation that reporters will present both sides of the story too often translates into the mistaken belief that they should refuse to sort out competing factual claims. This is the media’s greatest weakness in dealing with political dishonesty.
While the press generally does a reasonable job of pointing out the most blatant instances of political deception, reporters attempting to remain objective often fail to evaluate claims that are misleading but not obviously wrong. This is especially true when it comes to politicians who are generally seen as honest. As a result, Bush has frequently gotten away with misleading claims and language. Perversely, this strategy of dissembling and denial leaves journalists in the position of appearing to be “taking sides” if they point out deception.
The pressure to remain objective frequently reduces reporters to little more than stenographers transcribing the latest spin from politicians. Rather than sort out competing factual claims, they typically give equal play to both sides – even if one is misleading. This “he said/she said” form of journalism allows politicians to enter deceptive statements into the public record and leaves citizens with little or no basis to evaluate the truth of the matter at hand.
Coverage of the debate over the war in Iraq provides a particularly telling example of this sort of thinking. New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who has come under fire for her generally credulous reporting about the Bush administration’s case for war, told Michael Massing of the New York Review of Books, “My job isn’t to assess the government’s information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of the New York Times what the government thought about Iraq’s arsenal.” (Miller later claimed in a letter to the editor that she had actually stated, “I could not be an independent intelligence agency.” Massing disputed that claim, stating he read Miller her quote for approval and the reporter signed off.)
In a May 12, 2004, interview on MSNBC’s Hardball, veteran journalist Jim Lehrer, the host of PBS’ The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, expressed similar deference to the claims of government leaders. When asked by host Chris Matthews whether journalists had explored the issue of how Iraqis would respond to Americans running their country after the war, he responded, “The word ‘occupation,’ keep in mind, Chris, was never mentioned in the run-up to the war. It was ‘liberation.’ This was a war of liberation, not a war of occupation. So as a consequence, those of us in journalism never even looked at the issue of occupation.” When Matthews asked why reporters weren’t able to go beyond the Bush administration’s framing of the war as one of “liberation,” the answer was astonishing: “It just didn’t occur to us,” Lehrer said. “We weren’t smart enough to do it.”
In fact, Miller and Lehrer’s job (and the job of other reporters) is to go beyond government claims and uncover the truth. Their statements demonstrate an all-too-typical reluctance to sort out the facts for readers and a deference to authority that is troubling coming from any reporter, let alone two at prestigious national news outlets.
Reporters’ Dependence on the White House
The nature of the White House beat is that reporters depend on the officials they cover for access and information. If the administration decides to stonewall them, there is often little they can do. By controlling the flow of information available to the press, the White House can shape news coverage. Despite the media’s tendency to focus on negative stories, the absence of damaging information usually preempts critical coverage and creates a news vacuum that reporters must fill. If they are offered nothing other than the White House’s chosen message of the day, coverage tends to focus on that message.
To fill the news vacuum, the Bush administration offers reporters an unending supply of carefully scripted talking points, a standard public relations tactic that the White House has elevated to an art. When talking points are all officials will repeat, it gives reporters literally nothing else to quote.
For instance, during the July 2003 controversy over Bush’s claim that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and her deputy Stephen Hadley pounded the spin point that the statement in question was only “sixteen words” long, repeating it six times each during an interview on CNN and a press briefing, respectively. This focus on a scripted message often defeats reporters’ attempts to provide coverage of topics other than administration talking points.
Two internal memos from the Treasury Department’s public affairs staff to Secretary Paul O’Neill graphically illustrate the disciplined message that the administration tries to enforce.
First, to prepare O’Neill for a February 2001 press conference announcing the President’s fiscal year 2002 budget, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Public Affairs Michele Davis wrote a memo telling O’Neill, “This event, more than anything you’ve participated in to date, requires that you be monotonously on-message.” Her advice was frank: “Roll-out events like this are the clearest examples of when staying on message is absolutely crucial. Any deviation during the unveiling of the budget will change the way coverage plays out from tomorrow forward. . . . Your remarks should be very focused and your answers during the Q and A should only repeat your remarks.” Davis’ comments demonstrate the strategic approach the Bush administration takes to its public statements.
The memo clearly had the desired effect on the often spontaneous O’Neill. During the press conference, the Secretary largely stuck to his message save for a testy exchange with reporters over the percentage of the tax cut going to the wealthiest Americans.
In a second memo to O’Neill, Davis gave him advice for a Jan. 6, 2002 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. This time, she encouraged him to aggressively insert the administration’s talking points into the interview. Davis advised O’Neill to disregard host Tim Russert almost entirely: “first answer, no matter the question: We must act to ensure our economy recovers and people get back to work.” She later stated that “You need to interject the President’s message, even if the question has nothing to do with that.”
As she predicted, Russert’s first question concerned the state of the economy, not Bush’s agenda. When the host asked, “How bad is this recession?” O’Neill gave a short answer before turning to his talking points as Davis suggested, saying, “We need to get people back to work in this economy.” The memo also listed “key lines” and “word choices,” such as “economic security” (a phrase O’Neill used five times), and advised him to say that “the terrorist attacks and the recession caused the deficit,” which he did. In this way, the administration turned the interview from a spontaneous exchange into something closer to a prepared speech.
The Bush White House’s philosophy that the media serve no particular democratic function guides its relationship with journalists. Because it sees them as a hostile force in search of the next headline, the administration has no reservations about employing an arsenal of public relations and news management tools to try to shape coverage. These include half-truths and strategically ambiguous language that are difficult for “objective” reporters to expose, relentless message discipline, restrictions on press interaction with Bush, direct pressure on journalists, and dishonesty about policy issues that the media find boring. By wielding these tactics against reporters reluctant to criticize the President after Sept. 11, Bush was able to neuter the press corps for most of his first three years in office.
Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer, and Brendan Nyhan are founder-editors of Spinsanity.com, a nonpartisan watchdog dedicated to unspinning misleading claims from politicians, pundits and the press.
Monday, September 06, 2004
Journalists are responsible for freedom:Plan to Tame Journalists Just Stirs Them Up in Brazil
By LARRY ROHTER
Under the plan, a national journalists' council would be
empowered to "orient, discipline and monitor" journalists.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/06/international/americas/06brazil.html?th
If everyday ordinary people cannot get the real story their freedoms are jeprodized. See you in a few weeks. Clark
By LARRY ROHTER
Under the plan, a national journalists' council would be
empowered to "orient, discipline and monitor" journalists.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/06/international/americas/06brazil.html?th
If everyday ordinary people cannot get the real story their freedoms are jeprodized. See you in a few weeks. Clark
Sunday, September 05, 2004
Specialized Journalism:Doctors Without Behavioral Borders
THE pilot episode of "Medical Investigation," NBC's new medical science series, retells a famous old New York story about a rare type of food poisoning that produces blue patients. (The pilot will be broadcast on Thursday night at 10 Eastern; the following night at the same time, the show will assume its regular slot). Though its source isn't credited, the episode (written by Jason Horwitch) is an homage to "Eleven Blue Men," the great medical journalist Berton Roueché's classic account of a mysterious food poisoning that literally turned 11 New York City alcoholics blue.
Well, perhaps "homage" isn't the right term. Roueché's account, first published in The New Yorker in 1947, is careful and understated. As the narrator, he solicits the facts retrospectively from two seasoned, courteous investigators from the New York City public health department who seem to be competing for a modesty award. They have obviously done a clever, systematic and ultimately revealing investigation, working in collegial fashion with the doctors and nurses caring for the patients. And they succeeded: all but one patient survived, and the two sleuths traced the source of the toxic substance to bowls of oatmeal and a single salt shaker that contained sodium nitrite (rather than regular sodium chloride) from a mislabeled package. But the detectives also admit, with humility, to a few loose ends to their story; the survivors were discharged from the hospital before they could verify that they had eaten at the same table and used the salt shaker vigorously. In Roueché's account, as in real-life medicine, good investigators are left with a few nagging doubts.
The pilot's first departure from its source material is its setting. "Medical Investigation" features doctors from an elite (and fictional) unit of the National Institutes of Health. The producers say that the show is meant to celebrate the agency, and indeed, the opening credits mention that N.I.H. has spent more than 100 years improving the world's health.
However, contrary to the premise of "Medical Investigation," that work does not include flying off in helicopters to investigate outbreaks of bizarre maladies. As the millions who saw the film "Outbreak" could probably tell you, such work traditionally belongs in the domain of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the agency that local hospitals and city health departments turn to when they are stymied by medical mysteries. (I know this, because aside from having seen "Outbreak," I spent six years as the director of the National Institutes of Health). The N.I.H., through its government labs and grant recipients, does medical research on diseases and basic biological problems in laboratories and hospitals; it does not organize the immediate response to medical emergencies: outbreaks of unexplained illnesses, seasonal epidemics, or evidence of bioterrorism. (Later in the season, the show's producers say, "Medical Investigation" will depict clinical tests of new therapies, which is closer to the institutes' actual work.)
Unlike the quietly competent municipal employees who solved the case on which the pilot is based, the staff in "Medical Investigation" looks and sounds like a terrorism response team from a military unit. The doctors have no charm, no uncertainty, and less modesty. The lead investigator, Stephen Connor (played by Neal McDonough), has admittedly useful qualities: extensive medical knowledge and a determination to cure the sick. With angry energy and unremitting focus, he gets the job done. But the trait that overwhelms the viewer, as Connor barks intimidating orders to associates and insults to local hospital personnel, is the man's insupportable arrogance. He marches into the hospital, commandeers the staff and upbraids the seemingly reasonable physician in charge by suggesting that contesting his authority would place eight million lives at risk. One of the producers, Laurence Andries, says the Connor character satisfies the American public's "aching for heroes." But has our fear of terrorism and outbreaks become so great that viewers will accept such uncooperative behavior as anything other than obnoxious?
he other members of Connor's team are not much more likable than he is — which says something about Hollywood's idea of a competent federal agent. Connor's female co-investigator is also his apologist (Connor "suffers from a bad case of high expectations," she says). An African-American technician portentously places Connor in historical context ("the unreasonable man makes the world adapt.") A public relations staffer teases, harasses and temporarily imprisons a reporter who is on to the mystery, successfully suppressing the story until it is solved. (According to Mr. Horwitch, this is supposed to be "comic relief," but it comes off as mean-spirited, lacking in purpose and even unethical.)
As in the original "Eleven Blue Men," the symptoms lead the investigators to a poisonous salt mistakenly placed in a single shaker at a busy diner. But the victims have changed along with the investigators. Instead of an outcast population of old alcoholic men — from whom viewers might feel disengaged — the patients are varied by age and gender. The only one we get to know is a middle-aged man who develops his symptoms as he walks through Midtown Manhattan talking smugly on his cellphone about Amgen shares and Martha Stewart. He's a good personality match for Connor.
Amid all the hectic helicoptering and hectoring behavior, there are a couple of moments of solid medical detective work. Connor tests the contents of the salt shakers by mixing them with drops of his blood in spoons; in one case the blood dramatically darkens. This is more fun to watch and, according to Dr. Robert Hoffman of the New York City Poison Control Center, more credible than the fancy analytic machine that earlier flashed "nitrate, nitrate" when processing the patients' blood. The show also briefly illuminates how a good epidemiologist might think when it portrays Connor reconstructing events: in a waking dream, he imagines the restaurant full of patrons, only a few of whom become the unlucky patients who sat at the wrong table and shook the contaminated salt onto their food.
Unfortunately, such moments are few, and the dominant impression is that epidemiology is about screaming, not about useful, difficult scientific work. It's hardly surprising: unlike the movies, in which scientists have made decent showings (think of the climatologist in "Day After Tomorrow" or the rocket engineers in "Apollo 13"), scientists have rarely if ever made it to prime time network television intact. In its better days, "E.R." used to create dramatic situations that displayed the scientific issues underlying treatment of H.I.V., drug abuse or organ transplantation. But television's efforts to portray medical scientists at work usually involve geeky sidekicks or connivers trying to boost their reputations or salaries with dishonest scientific practices. With its aggravating characters, distorted picture of the role of federal agencies and limited portrayal of medical investigation, this new show seems destined to be just another failure to present scientific work in a smart and appealing way.
If the producers wanted to convey a more realistic atmosphere of threatened terrorism, while sticking with chemically induced cyanosis, they might have scuttled the ambiguous tribute to Roueché and taken their cue from a case recently reported in the Centers for Disease Control's weekly online journal by Dr. Hoffman and his many co-workers. In 2002, five adults of Middle Eastern descent were poisoned in Yonkers by ingestion of sodium nitrite taken from a bag plainly labeled Table Salt. Was this a mix-up or a criminal act? Were other contaminated bags distributed around the country? You will have to read the article (online at www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm5129.pdf) to find out. When you do, you'll notice that the public health experts treated all five patients successfully before knowing the cause of cyanosis; Connor's team waited for his spoon test before treating his blue patients, therefore losing a patient. Which is just one more reason you might not want to entrust your Friday night — let alone your medical care — to a doctor like him.
Harold Varmus, president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, shared a Nobel Prize for studies of cancer viruses.
THE pilot episode of "Medical Investigation," NBC's new medical science series, retells a famous old New York story about a rare type of food poisoning that produces blue patients. (The pilot will be broadcast on Thursday night at 10 Eastern; the following night at the same time, the show will assume its regular slot). Though its source isn't credited, the episode (written by Jason Horwitch) is an homage to "Eleven Blue Men," the great medical journalist Berton Roueché's classic account of a mysterious food poisoning that literally turned 11 New York City alcoholics blue.
Well, perhaps "homage" isn't the right term. Roueché's account, first published in The New Yorker in 1947, is careful and understated. As the narrator, he solicits the facts retrospectively from two seasoned, courteous investigators from the New York City public health department who seem to be competing for a modesty award. They have obviously done a clever, systematic and ultimately revealing investigation, working in collegial fashion with the doctors and nurses caring for the patients. And they succeeded: all but one patient survived, and the two sleuths traced the source of the toxic substance to bowls of oatmeal and a single salt shaker that contained sodium nitrite (rather than regular sodium chloride) from a mislabeled package. But the detectives also admit, with humility, to a few loose ends to their story; the survivors were discharged from the hospital before they could verify that they had eaten at the same table and used the salt shaker vigorously. In Roueché's account, as in real-life medicine, good investigators are left with a few nagging doubts.
The pilot's first departure from its source material is its setting. "Medical Investigation" features doctors from an elite (and fictional) unit of the National Institutes of Health. The producers say that the show is meant to celebrate the agency, and indeed, the opening credits mention that N.I.H. has spent more than 100 years improving the world's health.
However, contrary to the premise of "Medical Investigation," that work does not include flying off in helicopters to investigate outbreaks of bizarre maladies. As the millions who saw the film "Outbreak" could probably tell you, such work traditionally belongs in the domain of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the agency that local hospitals and city health departments turn to when they are stymied by medical mysteries. (I know this, because aside from having seen "Outbreak," I spent six years as the director of the National Institutes of Health). The N.I.H., through its government labs and grant recipients, does medical research on diseases and basic biological problems in laboratories and hospitals; it does not organize the immediate response to medical emergencies: outbreaks of unexplained illnesses, seasonal epidemics, or evidence of bioterrorism. (Later in the season, the show's producers say, "Medical Investigation" will depict clinical tests of new therapies, which is closer to the institutes' actual work.)
Unlike the quietly competent municipal employees who solved the case on which the pilot is based, the staff in "Medical Investigation" looks and sounds like a terrorism response team from a military unit. The doctors have no charm, no uncertainty, and less modesty. The lead investigator, Stephen Connor (played by Neal McDonough), has admittedly useful qualities: extensive medical knowledge and a determination to cure the sick. With angry energy and unremitting focus, he gets the job done. But the trait that overwhelms the viewer, as Connor barks intimidating orders to associates and insults to local hospital personnel, is the man's insupportable arrogance. He marches into the hospital, commandeers the staff and upbraids the seemingly reasonable physician in charge by suggesting that contesting his authority would place eight million lives at risk. One of the producers, Laurence Andries, says the Connor character satisfies the American public's "aching for heroes." But has our fear of terrorism and outbreaks become so great that viewers will accept such uncooperative behavior as anything other than obnoxious?
he other members of Connor's team are not much more likable than he is — which says something about Hollywood's idea of a competent federal agent. Connor's female co-investigator is also his apologist (Connor "suffers from a bad case of high expectations," she says). An African-American technician portentously places Connor in historical context ("the unreasonable man makes the world adapt.") A public relations staffer teases, harasses and temporarily imprisons a reporter who is on to the mystery, successfully suppressing the story until it is solved. (According to Mr. Horwitch, this is supposed to be "comic relief," but it comes off as mean-spirited, lacking in purpose and even unethical.)
As in the original "Eleven Blue Men," the symptoms lead the investigators to a poisonous salt mistakenly placed in a single shaker at a busy diner. But the victims have changed along with the investigators. Instead of an outcast population of old alcoholic men — from whom viewers might feel disengaged — the patients are varied by age and gender. The only one we get to know is a middle-aged man who develops his symptoms as he walks through Midtown Manhattan talking smugly on his cellphone about Amgen shares and Martha Stewart. He's a good personality match for Connor.
Amid all the hectic helicoptering and hectoring behavior, there are a couple of moments of solid medical detective work. Connor tests the contents of the salt shakers by mixing them with drops of his blood in spoons; in one case the blood dramatically darkens. This is more fun to watch and, according to Dr. Robert Hoffman of the New York City Poison Control Center, more credible than the fancy analytic machine that earlier flashed "nitrate, nitrate" when processing the patients' blood. The show also briefly illuminates how a good epidemiologist might think when it portrays Connor reconstructing events: in a waking dream, he imagines the restaurant full of patrons, only a few of whom become the unlucky patients who sat at the wrong table and shook the contaminated salt onto their food.
Unfortunately, such moments are few, and the dominant impression is that epidemiology is about screaming, not about useful, difficult scientific work. It's hardly surprising: unlike the movies, in which scientists have made decent showings (think of the climatologist in "Day After Tomorrow" or the rocket engineers in "Apollo 13"), scientists have rarely if ever made it to prime time network television intact. In its better days, "E.R." used to create dramatic situations that displayed the scientific issues underlying treatment of H.I.V., drug abuse or organ transplantation. But television's efforts to portray medical scientists at work usually involve geeky sidekicks or connivers trying to boost their reputations or salaries with dishonest scientific practices. With its aggravating characters, distorted picture of the role of federal agencies and limited portrayal of medical investigation, this new show seems destined to be just another failure to present scientific work in a smart and appealing way.
If the producers wanted to convey a more realistic atmosphere of threatened terrorism, while sticking with chemically induced cyanosis, they might have scuttled the ambiguous tribute to Roueché and taken their cue from a case recently reported in the Centers for Disease Control's weekly online journal by Dr. Hoffman and his many co-workers. In 2002, five adults of Middle Eastern descent were poisoned in Yonkers by ingestion of sodium nitrite taken from a bag plainly labeled Table Salt. Was this a mix-up or a criminal act? Were other contaminated bags distributed around the country? You will have to read the article (online at www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm5129.pdf) to find out. When you do, you'll notice that the public health experts treated all five patients successfully before knowing the cause of cyanosis; Connor's team waited for his spoon test before treating his blue patients, therefore losing a patient. Which is just one more reason you might not want to entrust your Friday night — let alone your medical care — to a doctor like him.
Harold Varmus, president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, shared a Nobel Prize for studies of cancer viruses.
Specialized Journalism:Doctors Without Behavioral Borders
THE pilot episode of "Medical Investigation," NBC's new medical science series, retells a famous old New York story about a rare type of food poisoning that produces blue patients. (The pilot will be broadcast on Thursday night at 10 Eastern; the following night at the same time, the show will assume its regular slot). Though its source isn't credited, the episode (written by Jason Horwitch) is an homage to "Eleven Blue Men," the great medical journalist Berton Roueché's classic account of a mysterious food poisoning that literally turned 11 New York City alcoholics blue.
Well, perhaps "homage" isn't the right term. Roueché's account, first published in The New Yorker in 1947, is careful and understated. As the narrator, he solicits the facts retrospectively from two seasoned, courteous investigators from the New York City public health department who seem to be competing for a modesty award. They have obviously done a clever, systematic and ultimately revealing investigation, working in collegial fashion with the doctors and nurses caring for the patients. And they succeeded: all but one patient survived, and the two sleuths traced the source of the toxic substance to bowls of oatmeal and a single salt shaker that contained sodium nitrite (rather than regular sodium chloride) from a mislabeled package. But the detectives also admit, with humility, to a few loose ends to their story; the survivors were discharged from the hospital before they could verify that they had eaten at the same table and used the salt shaker vigorously. In Roueché's account, as in real-life medicine, good investigators are left with a few nagging doubts.
The pilot's first departure from its source material is its setting. "Medical Investigation" features doctors from an elite (and fictional) unit of the National Institutes of Health. The producers say that the show is meant to celebrate the agency, and indeed, the opening credits mention that N.I.H. has spent more than 100 years improving the world's health.
However, contrary to the premise of "Medical Investigation," that work does not include flying off in helicopters to investigate outbreaks of bizarre maladies. As the millions who saw the film "Outbreak" could probably tell you, such work traditionally belongs in the domain of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the agency that local hospitals and city health departments turn to when they are stymied by medical mysteries. (I know this, because aside from having seen "Outbreak," I spent six years as the director of the National Institutes of Health). The N.I.H., through its government labs and grant recipients, does medical research on diseases and basic biological problems in laboratories and hospitals; it does not organize the immediate response to medical emergencies: outbreaks of unexplained illnesses, seasonal epidemics, or evidence of bioterrorism. (Later in the season, the show's producers say, "Medical Investigation" will depict clinical tests of new therapies, which is closer to the institutes' actual work.)
Unlike the quietly competent municipal employees who solved the case on which the pilot is based, the staff in "Medical Investigation" looks and sounds like a terrorism response team from a military unit. The doctors have no charm, no uncertainty, and less modesty. The lead investigator, Stephen Connor (played by Neal McDonough), has admittedly useful qualities: extensive medical knowledge and a determination to cure the sick. With angry energy and unremitting focus, he gets the job done. But the trait that overwhelms the viewer, as Connor barks intimidating orders to associates and insults to local hospital personnel, is the man's insupportable arrogance. He marches into the hospital, commandeers the staff and upbraids the seemingly reasonable physician in charge by suggesting that contesting his authority would place eight million lives at risk. One of the producers, Laurence Andries, says the Connor character satisfies the American public's "aching for heroes." But has our fear of terrorism and outbreaks become so great that viewers will accept such uncooperative behavior as anything other than obnoxious?
he other members of Connor's team are not much more likable than he is — which says something about Hollywood's idea of a competent federal agent. Connor's female co-investigator is also his apologist (Connor "suffers from a bad case of high expectations," she says). An African-American technician portentously places Connor in historical context ("the unreasonable man makes the world adapt.") A public relations staffer teases, harasses and temporarily imprisons a reporter who is on to the mystery, successfully suppressing the story until it is solved. (According to Mr. Horwitch, this is supposed to be "comic relief," but it comes off as mean-spirited, lacking in purpose and even unethical.)
As in the original "Eleven Blue Men," the symptoms lead the investigators to a poisonous salt mistakenly placed in a single shaker at a busy diner. But the victims have changed along with the investigators. Instead of an outcast population of old alcoholic men — from whom viewers might feel disengaged — the patients are varied by age and gender. The only one we get to know is a middle-aged man who develops his symptoms as he walks through Midtown Manhattan talking smugly on his cellphone about Amgen shares and Martha Stewart. He's a good personality match for Connor.
Amid all the hectic helicoptering and hectoring behavior, there are a couple of moments of solid medical detective work. Connor tests the contents of the salt shakers by mixing them with drops of his blood in spoons; in one case the blood dramatically darkens. This is more fun to watch and, according to Dr. Robert Hoffman of the New York City Poison Control Center, more credible than the fancy analytic machine that earlier flashed "nitrate, nitrate" when processing the patients' blood. The show also briefly illuminates how a good epidemiologist might think when it portrays Connor reconstructing events: in a waking dream, he imagines the restaurant full of patrons, only a few of whom become the unlucky patients who sat at the wrong table and shook the contaminated salt onto their food.
Unfortunately, such moments are few, and the dominant impression is that epidemiology is about screaming, not about useful, difficult scientific work. It's hardly surprising: unlike the movies, in which scientists have made decent showings (think of the climatologist in "Day After Tomorrow" or the rocket engineers in "Apollo 13"), scientists have rarely if ever made it to prime time network television intact. In its better days, "E.R." used to create dramatic situations that displayed the scientific issues underlying treatment of H.I.V., drug abuse or organ transplantation. But television's efforts to portray medical scientists at work usually involve geeky sidekicks or connivers trying to boost their reputations or salaries with dishonest scientific practices. With its aggravating characters, distorted picture of the role of federal agencies and limited portrayal of medical investigation, this new show seems destined to be just another failure to present scientific work in a smart and appealing way.
If the producers wanted to convey a more realistic atmosphere of threatened terrorism, while sticking with chemically induced cyanosis, they might have scuttled the ambiguous tribute to Roueché and taken their cue from a case recently reported in the Centers for Disease Control's weekly online journal by Dr. Hoffman and his many co-workers. In 2002, five adults of Middle Eastern descent were poisoned in Yonkers by ingestion of sodium nitrite taken from a bag plainly labeled Table Salt. Was this a mix-up or a criminal act? Were other contaminated bags distributed around the country? You will have to read the article (online at www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm5129.pdf) to find out. When you do, you'll notice that the public health experts treated all five patients successfully before knowing the cause of cyanosis; Connor's team waited for his spoon test before treating his blue patients, therefore losing a patient. Which is just one more reason you might not want to entrust your Friday night — let alone your medical care — to a doctor like him.
Harold Varmus, president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, shared a Nobel Prize for studies of cancer viruses.
THE pilot episode of "Medical Investigation," NBC's new medical science series, retells a famous old New York story about a rare type of food poisoning that produces blue patients. (The pilot will be broadcast on Thursday night at 10 Eastern; the following night at the same time, the show will assume its regular slot). Though its source isn't credited, the episode (written by Jason Horwitch) is an homage to "Eleven Blue Men," the great medical journalist Berton Roueché's classic account of a mysterious food poisoning that literally turned 11 New York City alcoholics blue.
Well, perhaps "homage" isn't the right term. Roueché's account, first published in The New Yorker in 1947, is careful and understated. As the narrator, he solicits the facts retrospectively from two seasoned, courteous investigators from the New York City public health department who seem to be competing for a modesty award. They have obviously done a clever, systematic and ultimately revealing investigation, working in collegial fashion with the doctors and nurses caring for the patients. And they succeeded: all but one patient survived, and the two sleuths traced the source of the toxic substance to bowls of oatmeal and a single salt shaker that contained sodium nitrite (rather than regular sodium chloride) from a mislabeled package. But the detectives also admit, with humility, to a few loose ends to their story; the survivors were discharged from the hospital before they could verify that they had eaten at the same table and used the salt shaker vigorously. In Roueché's account, as in real-life medicine, good investigators are left with a few nagging doubts.
The pilot's first departure from its source material is its setting. "Medical Investigation" features doctors from an elite (and fictional) unit of the National Institutes of Health. The producers say that the show is meant to celebrate the agency, and indeed, the opening credits mention that N.I.H. has spent more than 100 years improving the world's health.
However, contrary to the premise of "Medical Investigation," that work does not include flying off in helicopters to investigate outbreaks of bizarre maladies. As the millions who saw the film "Outbreak" could probably tell you, such work traditionally belongs in the domain of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the agency that local hospitals and city health departments turn to when they are stymied by medical mysteries. (I know this, because aside from having seen "Outbreak," I spent six years as the director of the National Institutes of Health). The N.I.H., through its government labs and grant recipients, does medical research on diseases and basic biological problems in laboratories and hospitals; it does not organize the immediate response to medical emergencies: outbreaks of unexplained illnesses, seasonal epidemics, or evidence of bioterrorism. (Later in the season, the show's producers say, "Medical Investigation" will depict clinical tests of new therapies, which is closer to the institutes' actual work.)
Unlike the quietly competent municipal employees who solved the case on which the pilot is based, the staff in "Medical Investigation" looks and sounds like a terrorism response team from a military unit. The doctors have no charm, no uncertainty, and less modesty. The lead investigator, Stephen Connor (played by Neal McDonough), has admittedly useful qualities: extensive medical knowledge and a determination to cure the sick. With angry energy and unremitting focus, he gets the job done. But the trait that overwhelms the viewer, as Connor barks intimidating orders to associates and insults to local hospital personnel, is the man's insupportable arrogance. He marches into the hospital, commandeers the staff and upbraids the seemingly reasonable physician in charge by suggesting that contesting his authority would place eight million lives at risk. One of the producers, Laurence Andries, says the Connor character satisfies the American public's "aching for heroes." But has our fear of terrorism and outbreaks become so great that viewers will accept such uncooperative behavior as anything other than obnoxious?
he other members of Connor's team are not much more likable than he is — which says something about Hollywood's idea of a competent federal agent. Connor's female co-investigator is also his apologist (Connor "suffers from a bad case of high expectations," she says). An African-American technician portentously places Connor in historical context ("the unreasonable man makes the world adapt.") A public relations staffer teases, harasses and temporarily imprisons a reporter who is on to the mystery, successfully suppressing the story until it is solved. (According to Mr. Horwitch, this is supposed to be "comic relief," but it comes off as mean-spirited, lacking in purpose and even unethical.)
As in the original "Eleven Blue Men," the symptoms lead the investigators to a poisonous salt mistakenly placed in a single shaker at a busy diner. But the victims have changed along with the investigators. Instead of an outcast population of old alcoholic men — from whom viewers might feel disengaged — the patients are varied by age and gender. The only one we get to know is a middle-aged man who develops his symptoms as he walks through Midtown Manhattan talking smugly on his cellphone about Amgen shares and Martha Stewart. He's a good personality match for Connor.
Amid all the hectic helicoptering and hectoring behavior, there are a couple of moments of solid medical detective work. Connor tests the contents of the salt shakers by mixing them with drops of his blood in spoons; in one case the blood dramatically darkens. This is more fun to watch and, according to Dr. Robert Hoffman of the New York City Poison Control Center, more credible than the fancy analytic machine that earlier flashed "nitrate, nitrate" when processing the patients' blood. The show also briefly illuminates how a good epidemiologist might think when it portrays Connor reconstructing events: in a waking dream, he imagines the restaurant full of patrons, only a few of whom become the unlucky patients who sat at the wrong table and shook the contaminated salt onto their food.
Unfortunately, such moments are few, and the dominant impression is that epidemiology is about screaming, not about useful, difficult scientific work. It's hardly surprising: unlike the movies, in which scientists have made decent showings (think of the climatologist in "Day After Tomorrow" or the rocket engineers in "Apollo 13"), scientists have rarely if ever made it to prime time network television intact. In its better days, "E.R." used to create dramatic situations that displayed the scientific issues underlying treatment of H.I.V., drug abuse or organ transplantation. But television's efforts to portray medical scientists at work usually involve geeky sidekicks or connivers trying to boost their reputations or salaries with dishonest scientific practices. With its aggravating characters, distorted picture of the role of federal agencies and limited portrayal of medical investigation, this new show seems destined to be just another failure to present scientific work in a smart and appealing way.
If the producers wanted to convey a more realistic atmosphere of threatened terrorism, while sticking with chemically induced cyanosis, they might have scuttled the ambiguous tribute to Roueché and taken their cue from a case recently reported in the Centers for Disease Control's weekly online journal by Dr. Hoffman and his many co-workers. In 2002, five adults of Middle Eastern descent were poisoned in Yonkers by ingestion of sodium nitrite taken from a bag plainly labeled Table Salt. Was this a mix-up or a criminal act? Were other contaminated bags distributed around the country? You will have to read the article (online at www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm5129.pdf) to find out. When you do, you'll notice that the public health experts treated all five patients successfully before knowing the cause of cyanosis; Connor's team waited for his spoon test before treating his blue patients, therefore losing a patient. Which is just one more reason you might not want to entrust your Friday night — let alone your medical care — to a doctor like him.
Harold Varmus, president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, shared a Nobel Prize for studies of cancer viruses.
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