Immunization as depicted by the British national press.

Abstract

Articles about immunization and related diseases from eight British national daily newspapers and eight Sunday newspapers were content analysed. The results indicated that the majority of articles covered events and were accompanied by very little information about the issue. There was little evidence of events acting as a trigger for the presentation of informed and balanced discussion of the issue. Reports, however, were not inaccurate nor were they generally sensationalized, despite showing the traditional criteria of newsworthiness, i.e. more commonly concerning concrete cases of rare, negative events. The Sunday newspapers were found to present less event-orientated articles and to give marginally better information. The effect of the different strategies of the daily and Sunday newspapers is discussed with relation to the superior reporting of the Sunday press.