Guest guest Posted May 19, 2003 Report Share Posted May 19, 2003 > http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/07/business/media/07DRUG.html > A Respected Face, but Is It News or an Ad? > > > WALTER CRONKITE said through his lawyer that he agreed to do the videos > after being told that they would be educational and would not promote > products. > > > > MORLEY SAFER has appeared in hundreds of promotion videos but has > concluded, according to a " 60 Minutes " spokesman, that the work does not > meet the standards of CBS News. > > > > AARON BROWN, the CNN anchor, has not yet appeared in a video paid for > by health care companies. The network said it was reviewing its decision > to allow him to participate. > > > > > > By MELODY PETERSEN > > > aron Brown of CNN, Walter Cronkite and other broadcast journalists have > been hired to appear in videos resembling newscasts that are actually > paid for by drug makers and other health care companies, blurring the > line between journalism and advertising. > > Mr. Brown and Mr. Cronkite, the former CBS News anchor, are the new > hosts of video " news breaks " produced by a Boca Raton, Fla., company > called WJMK Inc. that are shown on local public television stations > between regular programs. They are replacing Morley Safer of CBS, who > has appeared in hundreds of the videos but has concluded, according to a > " 60 Minutes " spokesman, that the work does not meet the standards of CBS > News. > > Based on information that it received yesterday, CNN said it was > reviewing its decision to allow the participation of Mr. Brown, who has > not yet appeared in a video. > > The hosts of the videos, standing on an elaborate news-style set, > provide a general introduction to segments that profile health care > companies or their products. According to WJMK documents, the companies > pay WJMK about $15,000 in connection with the segments and other > services and are allowed to edit and approve the videos, which are two > to five minutes long. > > Similarly, a drug marketing company called Healthology hires journalists > from local television and radio stations to appear in video Webcasts. > The Healthology programs are available through the Web sites of many > large newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia > Inquirer and The Miami Herald. Drug makers pay for the Webcasts, which > feature the journalists interviewing doctors and patients about their > products. > > For years, local news stations, as part of their newscasts, have > broadcast videos created by drug companies' public relations agencies - > a practice that critics equate to publishing unedited press releases. > Now, production companies are expanding that marketing tactic to public > television and the Web and using celebrity journalists to add to the > videos' credibility. > > Government officials said that the new programming might run afoul of > federal drug regulations, which prohibit drug makers from advertising > experimental medicines or promoting drugs for ailments that they have > not been approved to treat. Communications lawyers said that the WJMK > programs might fail to meet public broadcasting rules, which require the > disclosure of corporate sponsorship. > > Critics of the news media say that the videos mislead viewers by > packaging promotional material to look like news. Dr. Joseph Turow, a > professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of > Pennsylvania, said that he had seen similar videos in the past that > tried to imitate news but never ones featuring working journalists, let > alone such prominent ones as Mr. Safer and Mr. Brown. > > " They are buying credibility, " he said of the health care companies that > pay for the appearances. > > One executive working for a company that was solicited by WJMK said that > WJMK's employees had told him that Mr. Safer was paid " six figures " for > one day in the studio. > > Kevin Tedesco, a spokesman for " 60 Minutes " on CBS, said that Mr. Safer > had agreed to work for WJMK four years ago, thinking that the work > complied with the network's standards. " After doing it, he realized it > did not square with CBS News standards, " Mr. Tedesco said. " Some of that > work that he did back then continues to appear now. I don't think there > is anything we can do about that. " > > Ronald Konecky, Mr. Cronkite's lawyer, said his client had agreed to > work for WJMK after being told that the videos would be educational and > would not promote products. He said that Mr. Cronkite would resign if he > found that was not the case. > > In one WJMK video where Mr. Safer appeared as host, executives at > Innapharma, a small pharmaceutical company, promoted the company's > experimental antidepressant nemifitide. " Patients rapidly get well and > they stay well for months or years, " Dr. John P. Feighner, the company's > president, says in the video. " I've never seen anything that compares. " > > Last month, Innapharma filed for bankruptcy protection after the Food > and Drug Administration ordered it to stop human trials of the drug > because a study showed it was toxic to beagles. Dr. Feighner said this > week that the company still hoped to sell nemifitide and was planning > studies to try to show that the toxicity is limited to dogs. > > Dr. Feighner said that he thought that regulators would consider the > video to be appropriate because the medicine was still years from > approval when the video was produced three years ago. > > The Innapharma video was part of a series called the American Medical > Review, which is produced by WJMK. WJMK hired John Stossel of " 20/20 " on > ABC in 1998 to serve as the host of the series. Mr. Stossel asked WJMK > to release him from his contract in August 1999. > > " Neither John nor ABC News were comfortable with the ultimate > arrangement, " said Jeffrey W. Schneider, vice president of ABC News. The > network has asked WJMK to remove Mr. Stossel's photo from its Web site. > > Mark Kielar, the president of WJMK, said the videos were educational, > not promotional. He said that the companies did not pay for the videos > that are shown by local public television stations and that the > companies had no control over content. > > But a review of several written contracts between WJMK and the companies > shows that they have paid $14,900 to have their products or services > featured in American Medical Review videos and have them provided for > use on public television stations. According to WJMK documents, the > production company's staff writes a script based on information from the > health care companies, including a questionnaire where the companies are > asked what is superior about their products. They are then allowed to > edit the script and give their final approval, according to WJMK > documents. > > Mr. Kielar said the $14,900 was charged solely for a related " corporate > demo tape " that WJMK also created for the companies and that they could > use on their Web sites and for other promotional purposes. He said he > had created a second company so that one company produces the segments > for public television and another company creates the promotional tape. > > But groups and companies that WJMK asked to pay for the videos disagree > with Mr. Kielar's description. " They were selling PBS and they were > selling Morley Safer, " said Jeff Cronin, spokesman for the Center for > Science in the Public Interest. The group declined to participate, Mr. > Cronin said, after a WJMK salesman called late last year. > > WJMK's clients, according to its Web site, include the big > pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, > Novartis and others. They also include small companies like Sleep Angel, > which sells a device to keep the mouth closed during sleep to stop > snoring. The company has a link to the WJMK video on its Web site, > saying that the device was " featured and seen around the world " on > " Morley Safer's American Medical Review. " > > The American Medical Review videos are distributed to local public > television stations, which can show them free. Mr. Kielar claims that 30 > million households see each one. > > But several stations said they had declined to air them because of their > promotional nature. Steven Weisberg, program director at WLRN in Miami, > said the station did not run the videos because the content was paid for > by the companies that were profiled. > > But Suzi Stone at KSMQ in Austin, Minn., said she broadcast most of the > dozens of videos that WJMK produced every month. Ms. Stone said she did > not know that companies paid fees to WJMK. " They offer them to us for > free, " she said, " so I don't go digging around for any other > information. " > > The videos do not mention that the companies paid WJMK to produce them - > which may violate federal communications law. > > John Crigler, a lawyer in Washington, said that under federal law, both > the video producer and the public television stations that broadcast the > segments must make sure that any corporate sponsor is disclosed. > > Healthology, which is based in Manhattan, uses the Web to distribute the > videos that it creates for drug companies. To help make the videos look > like news, it hires local television reporters, including some who cover > health-related stories for their stations, like Dr. David Marks of WNBC > in New York. > > In a recent Healthology Webcast, Dr. Marks interviews a doctor about a > medicine for multiple sclerosis called Avonex. When asked what drug a > patient should take, the doctor tells viewers that Avonex has fewer side > effects than competing medicines and may be more effective. > > The physician, Dr. James Miller, says that about a quarter of patients > given a competing medicine develop antibodies that work against it. > While Dr. Miller is careful to say that these antibodies " may " make > these other medicines ineffective, a full-screen graphic appears while > he speaks, stating that the antibodies " block " the other medicines' > effectiveness. > > The F.D.A. has warned Avonex's maker, Biogen, not to make such > statements because they are not supported by scientific evidence. > > Viewers are also told that the Avonex video was paid for by MS Active > Source. They are not told that MS Active Source is a Web site created by > Biogen to help market Avonex. They are also not told that Dr. Miller has > been paid by Biogen in the past for other work or that he was paid by > Healthology for the Avonex video. > > Mary A. Malarkey, director of the case management division at the > F.D.A.'s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said that if drug > companies pay for the videos, they could be considered to be > advertising. " We would be interested in taking a look, " she said. > > Timothy D. Hunt, a spokesman for Biogen, said that Healthology had > independent control of the video's content. > > Dr. Marks, who appears frequently on WNBC, said that he did not know > that Biogen had paid for the video. He said he had done his own research > on the medicines and asked his own questions. > > " I was never told what to say or what questions to ask, " he said. > > Liz Fischer, a spokeswoman for WNBC, said the station questioned the way > Healthology packaged its Webcasts but did not question their content. > > Dr. Miller said that Healthology executives had asked him to talk about > antibodies but had not told him specifically what to say. > > Dr. Steven Haimowitz, the president of Healthology, said that drug > companies did not write or edit the videos' script. The drug makers pay > for the videos and suggest the topics, he said, but Healthology's > medical experts take over from there. > > " All the Webcasts are fair and balanced, " he said. " They are editorial > in nature. " > > Dr. Haimowitz, who worked as an executive at a Madison Avenue ad agency > before creating Healthology, said that the drug makers also do not > suggest which doctors should be hired to appear in the videos. He said > that in some medical specialities, like multiple sclerosis, almost all > doctors do some kind of consulting work for the pharmaceutical > companies. > > Healthology promotes itself as an effective marketer of prescription > drugs directly to the consumer. As consumers watch the videos, they have > several opportunities to press buttons and be transferred to Web sites > maintained by the sponsoring drug company, where they may be asked to > provide detailed personal information and whether they want to be sent > further information about the drug company's product. > > Some of the Healthology videos are about how a medicine can be used for > a condition that has not yet been approved by the F.D.A. For example, > Pharmacia paid for a video about how pain relievers known as cox-2 > inhibitors, including its product, Celebrex, could be used to treat lung > cancer. > > Susan J. Yarin, a spokeswoman for Pfizer, which bought Pharmacia, said > the company had no control over that video's content. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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