Why STAT News doesn’t cover health awareness days or months

Torie Bosch, the editor of First Opinion at STAT News, writes about why the health care site does not cover health awareness days/weeks/months.

Bosch writes, “We probably do need to pay more attention to colorectal cancer. But an article arguing that, timed to a month arguing that, is not compelling reading for the average STAT audience member.

“This is in keeping with STAT’s own policy of not covering such awareness days/weeks/months, an approach that dates back to the publication’s early days. When I checked with managing editors Jason Ukman and Gideon Gil, who have both been at STAT from the start, they told me that original thinking was that STAT is a news site, and such occasions are not news. Fundamentally, these days/weeks/months are about marketing.

“Sometimes it’s hard to turn down these pieces! I too want to raise awareness. But awareness alone is very rarely a compelling argument.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.