ABSTRACT
When I first began covering medicine for a daily newspaper, back in 1989, I immediately felt that I had stumbled into unfamiliar journalistic terrain. The rules for doing the job well seemed quite different from when you report on politics, business, or general-assignment news. As a medical reporter, you interview physicians and researchers who are “experts” in their field – there is an implied deference in that word that is absent when you interview a politician or a businessperson. You are then expected to get the expert to “explain” a medical finding and write about it in a manner that is “intelligible” and “interesting” to lay readers. It is almost as though a medical reporter is expected to put aside investigative reporting skills and instead become an able “translator” of information.
