Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 27, 1993                   TAG: 9307270166
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SCIENTISTS SAY NEWS REPORTS ON CANCER RISKS MISS MARK

Man-made chemicals, tobacco, food additives, pollution, radiation, pesticides and hormone treatments were reported on most often by nine major news outlets between 1972 and 1992, according to the researchers.

Cancer researchers, when asked to rank environmental risks on a scale from 1 to 10, argued strongly for tobacco. But they also cited sunlight, diet and asbestos as the major environmental causes of cancer.

The report - by media researchers Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman and Mark Mills - was funded by the Sarah Scaife Foundation, Earhart Foundation and William H. Donner Foundation.

"Journalists and scientists look at reality in different ways," said Lichter, director of the Center for Media and Public Affairs. "Science as news looks different from science as science. . . . Health risks get trumpeted and later you get the story that they were overblown."

The study examined 1,147 stories on cancer causation from 1972 through 1992 in Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts.

Separately, 401 members of the American Association for Cancer Research were surveyed by the Roper Center for Public Opinion.

While dioxin, EDB, radon, DDT, Alar and artificial sweeteners have received substantial publicity, the scientists rated them as only minor cancer risks.

In a subjective part of the survey, a majority of the cancer experts said the media overstate the cancer risks associated with nuclear power, pollution and food additives, but said coverage of sunlight, tobacco and radon was accurate. Pluralities said the risk of pesticides and natural chemicals in food also is exaggerated.

Nicholas Wade, The New York Times' science editor, said the press often functions as a "passive conduit" for environmental critics.

"Often we're just doing our duty in following the activism of environmentalists, who make an issue of radon in houses or abandoned Superfund sites," he said. "Then it gets taken up in Congress and we have to cover it. . . . We try to give the usual caveats and put things in perspective, but the the public doesn't pay much attention to caveats."

Curt Suplee, The Washington Post's science editor, said some carcinogens are simply less newsworthy because their danger is widely accepted.

"We report what other people do in studies," he said. "If you're a doctor, you don't get funding to report that asbestos causes cancer."

Suplee suggests news stories might include an "obligatory paragraph" putting each newly reported risk in perspective by comparing it to known hazards. "It would be annoying to read, but perhaps it's something we owe our readers."

While nearly three-quarters of the researchers rated the New England Journal of Medicine a "very reliable" source of information on environmental causes of cancer, only 22 percent had such confidence in The New York Times, 9 percent in newsmagazines and 6 percent in television network news.