title: Local television news reporting of kidney disease.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Local television is the primary news source for the majority of Americans. This study aims to describe how local news reports on kidney disease.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using our searchable database of health-related late local news segments from 2002, we identified stories with the key words kidney, hypertension, blood pressure, or diabetes. This database is a representative sample of the late local news on 122 stations in the 50 largest US media markets, comprising 60% of the population. The content of each identified story was reviewed to determine whether it mentioned: (1) chronic kidney disease (CKD), (2) screening for kidney disease, or (3) kidney disease as a potential complication (for blood pressure- or diabetes-related stories).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Only 2 of 1,799 database news stories (0.11%) included "kidney" as a summary key word; neither referred to CKD, screening, or complications of other diseases. Of 19 stories about hypertension or blood pressure (1.06% of all stories) and the 14 stories about diabetes (0.78% of all stories), none mentioned these criteria.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Despite efforts to increase public awareness of and screening for CKD, local television news (the most important news source for a majority of Americans) did little to help achieve these goals. Further work will be needed to confirm whether this paucity of coverage varies over time and determine why so little attention is given to CKD. Educating physicians and public relations personnel who advocate for kidney disease about journalists' needs may be an important step to help advance public awareness of CKD.
authors.affiliation: University of Wisconsin Medical School, Madison, WI, USA. jbj@medicine.wisc.edu
authors.forename: Jonathan B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Jaffery
authors.forename: Lynn M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Jacobson
authors.forename: Kenneth M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Goldstein
authors.forename: James M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Pribble
mesh_terms: D006266:Health Education / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D051436:Renal Insufficiency, Chronic; D013690:Television / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014922:Wisconsin