The standards of health reporting in the United States are higher than ever before, according to AHCJ Vice President Karl Stark.
Stark, the health and science editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, is in England for “Health in the Headlines,” a European conference on health journalism co-sponsored by AHCJ and Coventry University.
While there, he was a guest on “FT Science with Clive Cookson,” a Financial Times podcast.
Stark said this is a time of great opportunity and great foment in U.S. health journalism. When asked about covering pharmaceutical companies, Stark acknowledged that is a challenge and requires training to penetrate and learn the language.
Stark used an analogy about sports preferences in the United States (high scoring) and Europe (low scoring) to explain the differences in how people in the two places view health care.
It’s worth listening to Stark’s segment; it’s about six and half minutes long at the beginning of the podcast.
