Whether you’re a health reporting specialist or a general
assignment reporter who is just picking up the health beat for
the first time, covering a medical study can be a bit daunting.
Most reporters got into journalism to nurse a love of words,
after all. But reporters who cover medical research need to know
as much about math as they do about language and storytelling.
Often, the story is in the numbers. Good health reporters are
also translators, turning the jargon-filled shorthand of science
and research into language that average readers can grasp. As
dry and formal as medical studies may seem, they also have
beating hearts. There are the researchers who may spend months
or years conducting trials and tabulating and interpreting
results to produce the final paper. There are patients who
participated in clinical trials. There are the readers who will
be affected by the information we communicate. There are doctors
who have to figure out whether or even how to integrate new
findings into patient care. Pame