Local hospital makes shrinking newsrooms work to its advantage

Jonathan Potts reports that Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is finding it a lot easier to build up its patient count through fluffy features in the local media now that local newsrooms have mostly gotten rid of dedicated health reporters.

For example, Beth Israel's hand surgery numbers had been down, so Mann pitched a four- to five-minute segment on carpal tunnel syndrome, making one of the hospital’s surgeon available to talk about the condition. Now, every month or so, the station brings in someone from Beth Israel to present common health tips. Doing so fills time and gives anchors a topic to promote for the next day.

One must wonder, however, if all that balances out the reporting and opining local media continue to do about the hospital CEO.

Via Dave Copeland.