The Globe and Mail's Andre Picard, an award-winning public health journalist and author, has written a useful article on how to make medical reporting better.

However, substitute the word  'health' or 'medical' for virtually another other beat, and the advice would still be valid.

An excerpt:

This is a time of year for resolution and reflection. It's a fitting time to turn the tables and, instead of casting a critical eye on a specific aspects of the health system, to look at how well (or poorly) the media report on health news.

In a recent edition of the British Medical Journal, Gary Schwitzer, a former medical correspondent at CNN and now a professor of journalism at the University of Minnesota, presented his "10 troublesome trends in TV health news."

While the list is too narrowly focused on TV, it serves as a good jumping-off point.

Mr. Schwitzer makes the important point that most people today get their health information from the media, and from TV in particular. This puts heavy responsibility on journalists. But, in his estimation, health reporting has many shortcomings, which he summarized like this:

1) Too brief to matter. The brevity of stories -- they rarely exceed one minute on TV or 500 words in print -- means they lack context and significant details.

2) No full-time health journalists. Networks such as CBC and CTV and newspapers such as The Globe and Mail have full-time beat reporters, but they are the exceptions. Most media outlets operate on the wrong-headed assumption that any reporter can jump effortlessly from covering city hall to the intricacies of cyclo-oxygenase-2 inhibitors.

3) No data to back up sensational claims. Far too many unproven -- and at times frankly ridiculous -- claims get aired or printed without even the most cursory examination of data.