PubMed1999
Italian media are very attentive to health and medicine issues. They face them--nonetheless--without any critical approach. Clinically tested medicine and "alternative" practices are presented as if they were both part of the same context. Such a lack of critical sense is no longer a question connected with sole medicine. It applies also to several different fields: from economics to foreign politics. The above situation is the result of a deep and radical change in the work organisation of the Italian mass media system. This change induced experienced professionals to leave their editorial offices--in so doing media critical esprit was no longer nourished. This change was the (avoidable) consequence of the exceptional increase in "infos" reaching the editorial offices through new telematics. The new situation led to a new conception of job organization and hierarchical structure. Where once small top managers' groups lived next to numerous specialised journalists, now editorial offices are composed by over 60 percent of staff concerned only with selection of news incoming through press agencies.