The power of the front page of The New York Times
Marshall, E.
Science 280(5366): 996-997
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0036-8075 PMID: 9616089 Document Number: 493554
Media coverage of a new cancer therapy recently created a frenzy among cancer patients and provoked a surge of negative reports. In the May 3 New York Times, veteran Times reporter Gina Kolata reported that research carried out by Judah Folkman and colleagues on antiangiogenesis compounds had shown promise in treating cancer in mice. Although the story warned that the therapy had not been tested on humans, the message was given an optimistic spin by enthusiastic quotes from Nobel Prize-winner James Watson and National Cancer Institute director Richard Klausner. As U.S. cancer clinics were swamped with phone calls from desperate patients, the Times was forced to publish a critical front page story on the lack of clinical data on the new treatment, a qualifying letter by Watson, and a correction of "an imprecise paraphrase" of Klausner's comments.