JOURNALISTIC USE OF EXEMPLARS TO HUMANIZE HEALTH NEWS

Health journalists often use personal stories to put a "face" on a health issue. This research uses a sociology-of-news approach, based on data collected from 42 in-depth interviews and three surveys with health journalists and editors [national (N = 774), state (N = 55), and purposive (N = 180)], to provide a first look at how important journalists think exemplars are to their stories. Results show journalists select exemplars to inform, inspire, and/or sensationalize a health issue. Some of the strategies journalists use to locate exemplars pose ethical concerns. Further, journalists rank the use of exemplars lower in aiding audience understanding compared with the use of experts, data and statistics, and definitions of technical terms.