News Media Vessel for Hospital Propaganda
This is an interesting article written in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, addressing the problem with hospitals getting in bed with the news media:
"Local television stations are now making deals with hospitals to air their propaganda disguised as news. Frankly, I don't understand this new development, as based on over 30 years of closely observing the local television scene, local stations have often run the propaganda of hospitals disguised as news. Here's how that long-standing scenario works: The local medical reporter gets cozy with the hospitals who feed the station what the hospital would like to think are the latest medical advances or other medical news of interest. The hospital comes up with the happy patients, the doctors who treated them and the hospital backdrop for shooting the story. The reporter puts the hospital's sales pitch on the air, and everyone is happy. The reporter gets a flow of medical stories that are easy to shoot and produce and the hospital gets free advertising."