Making the cut

The volume of new clinical studies published in medical journals has grown by more than 400 per cent over the past 30 years, overwhelming the ability of any individual reporter to  survey the medical landscape fully. To adapt, reporters are using a new set of techniques to deal with the sudden surge of information. This has profound implications for communicators who must rethink their interactions with the press to take into account this changing reality.

For medical journalists, there has long been a sense that information overload was getting out of control. In September, however, a new study in the journal PLoS Medicine made clear exactly how large a deluge reporters were facing. The journal article carried the plaintive title ‘How will we ever keep up?’ and found that, on average, 75 new clinical trials were being published every day, a steady flow of data that was dumping 25,000 unique findings into medical journals every year, representing a five-fold increase since 1979.

Rapid evolution
The figure of 75 studies a day is only the tip of the iceberg. The authors said there were 11 systematic reviews hitting the literature every day. And that’s just the clinical research. Preclinical work, medical meeting presentations and top-line findings disseminated by press release weren’t considered. Even the shortcuts reporters rely upon have become nearly impossible to handle: the popular daily Eurekalert listing of science- and medicine-related releases often contains more than 100 items; too much for any one person to read in full and still hold down a job.

The medical press is adapting; every outlet and every reporter has had to change their approach to information-gathering and writing to take into account the mixed blessing of endless information, endlessly updated. As communicators, our challenge is to evolve as the media does.

Media are specialising
Media are specialising, so PR must become more targeted. The quickest and easiest way for journalists to deal with the information issue is to focus only on a small subset of studies, narrowing them by therapeutic area. At a time when many media outlets are contracting, there is a renaissance going on in disease-specific trades. The American Society for Clinical Oncology launched its own publication, dense and informative, this summer. Ditto the Massachusetts Medical Society, which is seeing success with CardioExchange, an invitation-only cardiology news-and-networking site.

For communications, this means more attention to parts of the publishing world that might have once been considered too ‘niche’. Those specialised publications are turning out high-quality, laser-focused content which is, in turn, attracting savvy readers. In a world of distracted reporters, targeted trade publications have the attention required to craft compelling stories.

“Bloggers and trades are becoming more relevant,” says Jack Cox, senior director, public affairs and media relations at sanofi-aventis. “The trades have more time and expertise in our topics, so we’re spending more time with them and providing more senior executives than we did in the past, because it’s important to get quality coverage there."

Media are synthesising
Media are synthesising, so we must help them spot trends.  At high-profile national media outlets, the emphasis on breaking news has been waning for some time. No matter how fast a newspaper jumps on the study du jour, the print reporters will be trailing behind a small army of wire and online reporters. But while experienced reporters can’t win on speed, they can offer readers more thoughtful reporting that draws on past experiences and locates patterns among the hundreds of research reports raining down. Indeed, most of the award-winning pieces of medical journalism over the past few years have been works of synthesis, not speed.

This means that outreach cannot consist of simply sending a reporter a press release or reciting a summary of a paper over the phone. The job of communicators is now much more complicated: we must understand the context of each piece of research. We have to know where it fits into the historical literature and how it relates to other, ongoing research, and we must offer perspective on where our new information can be placed in a larger narrative. If we cannot articulate the trends that are driving the information we’re promoting, we cannot provide value to time-starved reporters.

“We still do the good old-fashioned face-to-face relationship-building level, and they come back to us for trend stories,” Cox says.  “When I do call, they know that I’m not going to try to sell them something that isn’t really news.”

Media are triaging
Media are triaging, so we must get them information when and where they need it. For better or for worse, medical communications is a world ruled by embargoes, formal agreements in which a journalist receives early access to information in return for a promise not to publish before a certain time. Reporters would be unable to schedule their professional lives if every new trial required immediate attention, immediate analysis and immediate coverage. They depend on the embargo system to allow them to sift through information, gather background and prepare stories.

Embargoes are still a source of anxiety and dread for communicators, however. A broken embargo can do extensive damage to professional relationships and and reputations, and for that reason and others, embargoed outreach is often shunned. But waiting until information is public puts great strain on journalists and leads to less-robust coverage. Common-sense policies, including written confirmation that a reporter will abide by a given embargo, can ameliorate the risk. The earlier journalists can be educated, the better the results.

Media are ignoring some studies
Media are ignoring some studies, so we must tell those stories through other channels. Given the sheer volume of information circulating, the press may simply begin ignoring studies that don’t meet certain criteria, such as publication in a top-tier journal or late-stage research. In these cases, no amount of outreach and no number of phone calls is going to turn an uninterested reporter into a willing scribe. A decade ago, a lacklustre response from the press corps would have spelled doom for an effective communications campaign. But now, every company, every university and even every individual has the tools to self-publish.

It starts with press releases, which are no longer just a means to communicate with the press. The modern release, if properly written and formatted, can be effectively syndicated broadly across the web, hitting key stakeholders directly. Beyond that, a bevy of new media tools allows other ways to touch people who should know about a given study: slides can be posted to SlideShare, summaries can be blogged, key quotes can be sent via Twitter, and video interviews and graphics can be uploaded to YouTube.

Looking at the growth of published clinical studies, there are no signs that the trend is abating. The record-setting total reached in 2010 will undoubtedly be exceeded in 2011. But reporters are ambivalent about the wave of information. While there has never been as much information to process, there has also never been as much information available. Many are rejoicing at the fact that so much data is only a click away. Those data geeks, whether they are focused on drilling down in a specific area or drawing together disparate threads of research into a single narrative, are the future of journalism. The ability to serve those reporters, then, is the future of medical communications.

The Author
Brian Reid, Director, WCG, can be reached at breid@wcgworld.com or (212) 257-6725