Evidence, Evidence, Evidence

Last week, I had the pleasure of listening to Trudy Lieberman speak about medical journalism during a presentation at Red River College that was put on by the Evidence Network.

 
She touched on many issues surrounding the coverage of ObamaCare, how to deal with PR people, and properly vetting “experts”. But everything she said followed the same message: the evidence doesn’t lie.

Lieberman, who works as a critic for the Columbia Journalism Review, used several real-life examples to illustrate her points. She also held an hour long Q&A session that was both interesting and informative. One of the greatest parts of the program I’m taking is the fact I get opportunities to not only listen to people like Lieberman but talk with them afterwards and ask questions. 

During the Q&A session, she said that anecdotes are a staple of reporting. And they shouldn’t. The problem with them is how do you know they are true? Is it based off experience, third-hand information, or a real life example? There is no way of truly knowing how factually correct they are.

Fox News’ Sean Hannity ran a segment on his show this month ripping ObamaCare using personal anecdotes. Salon ran a fact check on the stories told and at the very least, the segment is misleading. A paragraph in the story by Eric Stern speaks directly to what Lieberman talked to us about: 

“...will we truly have the same freedom to choose a physician that we have now? Will a surplus of insured patients require a scaling back (or “rationing,” as some call it) of provided healthcare services?  Will doctors be able to spend as much time with patients? These are all valid, unanswered questions. The problem is that people like Sean Hannity have decided to answer them now, without evidence. Or worse, with fake evidence."

Balance that with another story from Reuters about ObamaCare that uses evidence through out. By using facts that can be checked and confirmed by anyone, the story has to be given more validity over ones that don’t use evidence. 

You can agree, disagree, like, or dislike a story for a number of reasons. But by using evidence and the cold hard facts, there is one thing someone can’t call your story: untruthful.

The evidence is there.