The media acts as an important filter through which opinion-shaping information is disseminated to the key stakeholders of the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry.

Senior executives across the sector recognise the importance of the media filter; however they may possess varying levels of insight into what the media really thinks about their products, their companies and their industry.

What does the media really know about pharmaceutical and healthcare companies and the environment in which they operate? What do journalists concerned with healthcare reporting want from these companies and what do they see as the challenges facing the industry?

For the first time in Australia, quantitative research has examined the attitudes of leading healthcare journalists, news directors and editors towards pharmaceutical and healthcare companies in an effort to identify and quantify the issues that impact and influence their reporting.

Ethical Strategies engaged leading research firm Galaxy Research to establish and measure not just media attitudes to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry but the factors that influence how, when and why the media reports on the industry, its companies and products. Download a copy of Reporting Medicine in Australia: Media Attitudes to the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Industry.

The results of this research provide clear insights into how pharmaceutical and healthcare companies can more effectively communicate with the media and understand how the industry is perceived by these gatekepers of public opinion.

Some of the key findings of the research include: 

• There exists concerning sentiment among nine out of 10 journalists that pharmaceutical companies regularly manipulate or suppress news to maximise sales.
• The commercial interest of companies was considered the primary barrier to reporting on medications and healthcare products by 84 per cent of journalists.
• The level of trust journalists believe the pharmaceutical sector has earned in Australia varies greatly, with around one third regarding the industry as trustworthy, a third regarding it to be untrustworthy and a third claiming it is neither trustworthy nor untrustworthy. Interestingly, the more journalists deal with the industry, the less trustworthy they perceive it to be.
• As media reporting would suggest, 87 per cent of journalists believe pharmaceutical and healthcare companies are primarily concerned with profits. However, around a third also agree that these companies are concerned with improving patients' health.
• More than 60 per cent of journalists are unaware of any philanthropic undertakings by pharmaceutical companies in Australia.
• 79 per cent of repondents believe that Australians receive good value for their medication through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

It takes skilled practitioners to navigate this minefield in order to successfully influence, educate and inform, not just the media filter, but all industry stakeholders.
 

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