A Respected Face, but Is It News or an Ad?

[Guest guest]

We already had news disguised as a commercial sales tool. Now we get a

commercial sales tool disguised as news. For most major media, they were pretty

much the same thing anyway. F.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/07/business/media/07DRUG.html?ex=1053276529 & ei=1 & \

en=178cb1461f05f6ff 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.

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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.

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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.

 

 

 

 

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