Health content in local television news: a current appraisal

While local television news remains an important channel for the dissemination of health information, there has been little systematic examination of health content on those newscasts. This study, designed to update and expand upon earlier efforts, examined 1,382.5 hours of newscasts that aired on seven channels in four markets between December 2004 and June 2005. The four markets were a major-, a large-, a medium-, and a small-size market in the Midwestern United States. In total, 40,112 news stories were coded. About 8.1% of the news stories were devoted to health content. Health stories covered a large array of topics. Physical illnesses/diseases and healthy living issues received the most frequent coverage, while mental health and aging-related content were covered least frequently. Most health stories were neutral in tone and rather brief, with an average duration of less than 1 minute. One in eight (12.4%) health stories provided follow-up options. This is primarily due to an increase in the number of health news stories presented with a website URL compared to previous findings. Market differences emerged, although, interestingly, stations in the larger markets were not the leaders in health coverage.