Presenting on Health Journalism 2009's "Explaining costs in health stories" panel, Gary Schwitzer (health journalism professor, University of Minnesota; publisher, HealthNewsReview.org) focused on the financial side of health reporting, asking why, when health care makes up 16 percent of the GDP, do only 28 percent of health stories cover costs. Schwitzer discussed his website's findings over three years of reviewing and criticized the overly-rosy picture of health care painted by all too many stories. He provided examples of good and bad reporting and urged journalists to create more examples of the former.
