RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL TO DETERMINE THE EFFECT OF PRESS RELEASES FROM A GENERAL MEDICAL JOURNAL ON THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF PRESS COVERAGE
Diana Bozalis,1 Vikki Entwistle,2 and Richard Smith3
1Lupus Genetics Study, 9817 Ashley Place, Oklahoma City, OK 73120, USA; 2University of York, York, UK; 3BMJ, London, UK
Objective: To see if press releases describing scientific papers from the BMJ increase the quantity and quality of coverage in the lay international press.
Design: The BMJ each week sends a press release that covers 3 to 5 papers to more than 200 journalists worldwide. Each week for 28 weeks the description of 1 of
the papers was randomly withdrawn from the press release. A researcher blind to what had been in the press release searched 3 electronic databases (Datastar, Profile, and Dialogue)
covering 44 newspapers for stories emanating from the BMJ. The length and position of the news stories was recorded. In addition, 2 researchers blind to what had been included in the
press releases independently scored all news stories for quality using a validated instrument. The null hypothesis was that mention in a press release would have no effect on the number,
length, position, and quality of news stories. We made a comparison between the stories produced from those papers included in the press release and those withdrawn.
Results: The BMJ articles in the 28 weeks of the study led to 348 stories in the newspapers. Data on the length, position, and quality of the news stories are currently being collected.
The results will be available for presentation.
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