Current Status of Health Reporting in Nepali Press

Journal of Asian and African Studies, 2023

In order to explore the intricacies that influence and inform health reportage in India, this study examines the ethical challenges posed to health reporters using qualitative research methods. The research findings highlight the seen and unseen influences on health reporters and probe whether they are able to adhere to ethical practices in their work and, if not, what are the impediments. The study also illuminates how journalists deal with a range of issues in delivering their professional responsibility of reporting matters relating to health and allied themes. The issues include, among others ethical dilemmas, gender discrimination in and outside the newsroom, conflict of interest, risk of breaching privacy and confidentiality while reporting on sensitive subjects pertaining to the public, especially marginalised groups.

Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences, 2016

It has been recognised that the media can affect our perceptions, views and tastes on a wide-range of issues. The mass media in it various forms (newspapers, television & radio, the internet and Twitter) and formats, have a far reaching influence through, for example news programmes, documentaries, advertising and entertainment. At the same time the media can also be seen as a channel for agencies responsible for public health to get their messages across to the population. Public health agencies are always searching for ways to disseminate health information and messages to their intended audiences. These are, of course, global concerns, but as both public health and the media are part of the society in which they operate there will be locally specific issues and considerations. To date most of the research into the media and public health has been conducted in high-income countries, and there has been very little research in Nepal on the interaction of public health and health pr...

Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research & Reviews, 2020

Background and aims: Communication plays an important role in advancing public health goals as well as in greater appreciation of underlying science and public policies. It is critical at all times, be it promoting health benefits of immunisation, importance of hand hygiene or taking personal measures for prevention of non-communicable diseases. Communication assumes even greater importance in the time of emergencies like the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. A primary vehicle for health communication is mass media like television channels, newspapers and radio channels. Methods: An analysis of current trends shows that the messages emerging from mass media are getting further amplified and dispersed through digital outlets and social media platforms which have become immensely popular. This has also given rise to a new phenomenon called infodemic or overabundance of information e both genuine and fake. Results: The article examines role of mass media in health communication in times of pandemic and the context of infodemic. Conclusions: The analysis points to the need for improvement in health journalism to improve its quality, credibility as well as relevance in a country like India where mass media consumption is high and health literacy is low.

This paper examines the print media projection to Health related news of Aligarh. This study also tries to find out the extent of coverage and treatment given to Health news. Health and Hygiene is always being primary subject in government agenda. The newspapers of Aligarh do not publish the rural news in a proper manner. They avoid publishing the Health related stories due to policy and market constraint. Through content analysis the researcher tries to find out the coverage of rural news in two Hindi dailies of Aligarh with comparative analysis. Print media specially the newspaper could be one the important tool to communicate the Health related information among the common people but the scenario is totally different. The two leading newspaper of Aligarh do not give proper treatment to health area to cover the development stories and news related to health. It is recommended through this paper that the maximum news item should be published in the newspapers of Aligarh. The research based articles and editorials should be published in Hindi newspapers on regular interval. With this, Health assignment should be given to the reporters to cover the development stories by the newspapers organisation and news agencies.

Concern for public health is considered to be of crucial societal value for the national policy of every democratic government. As usually happens, the status and changes to social policy may be widely communicated by the media in every country in various ways, either in favor of or against government planning, depending on different factors. Such media saturation can result in deep concern in the area of health issues. Add the current economic crisis, especially as depicted in certain countries of Southern Europe, to such concerns, and reporting on health issues becomes an interesting challenge for the media outlets in these countries. This paper presents a comparative study concerning the press coverage of health issues in the Republic of Cyprus. The study is divided in two parts; the first part was conducted before and the second part after the banking crisis became evident in the local society. The aim of this paper is to examine whether health reporting in the national press was altered after the crisis, and, if so, in which ways.

Communicating Dissaster, 2021

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has adversely affected the Nepali media sector similarly, to other sectors. But its impact is however varying. After the first lockdown, some of the scholars tried to come up with a quick assessment of COVID-19's impact on the Nepali journalism sector. However, its effect on the Nepali media sector in recent days remains to be studied. This paper highlights the characteristics of COVID-19 in Nepali journalism. It attempts to narrate the changing practices and the prevailing trends. Since the journalism sector should always be ready to face disasters, further study and research should be carried out earnestly in this field. This step can help pave the way for bringing forth communication policy reformation on disaster issues.

Impact of Covid-19 on journalism in Nepal, 2020

This bilingual rapid response report presents findings from a national survey undertaken to ascertain the impact of Covid-19 on Nepali journalists and their working conditions. Covid-19 spread as Nepal was approaching the fifth anniversary of the devastating 2015 earthquakes, the effects of which can still be felt in the nation. As such, Nepal faces additional economic, cultural, and social pressures because of the global pandemic. This report outlines how national and regional journalists, and news organisations responded to the pandemic, and identifies the training and capacity building requirements of Nepali journalists to strengthen future disaster resilience.

Health Science Reports, 2022

Background: Sensible media reporting of suicide is a population-based suicide prevention strategy. However, the quality of media reporting of suicide has not been assessed in Nepal. Objectives: We aimed to assess the newspaper reporting status of suicide in Nepal with reference to World Health Organization (WHO) media guidelines for suicide reporting. Method: We retrospectively searched eight major newspapers in Nepal between January 2020 and May 2021 and assessed 167 news reports against WHO suicide reporting guidelines. Results: Potentially harmful characteristics were found to be reported in both the title and main text of the reports. About half of them mentioned sex (48.5%) and 38.3% mentioned the location of suicide in the title. Of the 167 reports, 74.3%, 95.2%, 34.7%, 92.2%, 98.8%, and 52.7% mentioned the name, sex, occupation, method of suicide, the location of suicide, and life events, respectively, in their main content. On the other hand, only 6% and 2.4% of reports mentioned linkage of suicides with mental illness and substance abuse, respectively. While lesser than 1% of reports narrated educative information regarding suicide prevention, none mentioned contact information for helpseeking for the vulnerable. Conclusion: Newspaper reporting of suicide in Nepal poorly adheres to WHO guidelines, substantiated by the high presence of potentially harmful characteristics and negligible presence of potentially helpful characteristics.

Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences, 2023

Objective: The specific objectives of this study were to identify the ethical issues in reporting of health-related events in media and suggest ways to improve it.

International Journal of Engineering Science Invention (IJESI), 2020

Health status in SouthEast Asian countries vary considerably as they are at different stages of development and have different political structure. At the same time, all the countries are reforming their health system according to the way it is financed and organized (Phua,2002; Chongsuivatwong et al,2011, Malaysia health system review,2013). Health Communication has a significant role to inform and educate both the health practitioners and the public to play their active role in the health care system. Therefore, this working paper examines the focus of health issues in four English national dailies in India and Malaysia in line with the seven areas of gender mainstreaming suggested by WHO and Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies (India)which points towards creation of healthy living context for women and also to promote maternal health and its preparedness. This study used quantitative content analysis to classify the frames that depicted gendered health news stories from city editions of prominent Indian and Malaysian English news dailies. The comparative analysis of the two reveals that the Indian and Malaysian urban print media reporting has a significant difference in the representation of health content. Most of the health-based communication in Malaysian dailies reflect health goals of communicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer which seem to fit into the national health agenda. The Indian media focused on crime in health field, health scam, health facilities in private health sector and new innovations. The second large frames of stories are on gender equity in Indian context. The paper also reveals the ownership of the media and their preference of news frames.