Medicine is going through another phase of consolidation, much like what we saw in the 1980s. Journalism, on the other hand, is going through an unprecedented era of decentralization. Now, according to the Association of Healthcare Journalists, more health journalists are freelancers than are employed, salaried journalists. This is a good thing.
Freelance journalists are freer to write stories that appeal to them. Health media outlets, now more reliant on freelance journalists, will select stories they believe might resonate more strongly with the public. The market of ideas ultimately wins. When journalists are employed, they’re more beholden to the editorial biases of their employers. Whether or not these biases are consciously imposed is irrelevant. They’re a natural outcrop of any bureaucratic structure.
It’s a common thread lining both medicine and journalism. It’s just as damaging to both fields. Many see the rise in freelance journalism as a negative bellwether for journalism. It’s quite the opposite. With smaller media outlets and more independent journalists, the market of ideas has less shackles. Ideas can flow across more media outlets and through more platforms – some tradition and some more innovative.
In recent months, some of the most esteemed media outlets underwent job cuts. Some of the more savvy journalists didn’t miss a beat. One day they’re writing in their featured column. The next day they’re writing on their own media platform. Other than the veneer of old-timey newspaper establishment, the difference is negligible. The ideas still shine through: Sometimes even more so.
Free markets are decentralized. Journalism is the market of ideas. The more decentralized, the more ideas can spread. Health journalists should see the movement toward freelance journalism as a sign that the market force is the idea, or more plainly stated, the content itself. Before, health journalism was relegated to a particular section of newspapers. Only the most high profile health news stories became mainstream topics.
Now the funnel has been blown wide open. The public now demands more wide-ranging stories and more diverse perspectives on those stories. The market is saturated with cookie-cutter stories about basic health news or trite pieces on clinical do’s and don’ts.
The public wants something more substantial. In the post-pandemic world of healthcare, the public craves contrarian perspectives. They’re predisposed to disbelieve, so when they see a novel take on something, they’re more likely to pay attention. That should be music to the ears of any savvy freelance health journalist. After all, the relationship between readers and writers is symbiotic. One cannot exist without the other.
All of which is to say: Health journalists should prioritize novel ideas and perspectives more than ever before. The bureaucratic infrastructure of journalism, the political dynamism that defines the editorial room, has never been weaker.
Rather than try to pitch the same ideas to the same media outlets – now as a freelancer instead of as a former employee – is no longer necessary. The public wants new takes because they find those takes more trustworthy.
As a physician with a growing patient population, I sense a pervasive distrust with the familiar. It’s contrary to what every behavioral economist would tell you. Normally, what’s familiar is what’s favored. Not in modern medicine. Novelty is preferred, particularly among my patients.
What a physician sees in a patient often reflects what a health journalist sees across swaths of patient populations. Healthcare is a fractal. The trends found at an individual level often replicate at a larger level. Health journalism is reflective of the broader ethos seen among individual patients in the doctor’s office.
So when I see my patients challenge the paradigm of established medicine, I sense the public is looking for novel perspectives on healthcare. Freelance health journalists should see this as their opportunity to tap into a new, fast-growing sector of the reading public. The market is wide open. May the best ideas win.
