ZAGREB, 23.05.2018. – Croatian Journalists’ Association (CJA) branches of journalists dealing with scientific issues and of journalists dealing with health issues strongly condemn the sensation grabbing way portal 100% reports about certain topics. The article about Ena Šarac was published without any declines or expert opinion regarding thesis presented. Even its graphic might inspire parents of children with cancer to stop their treatment and that might have deadly consequences.
The article is especially dubious because it is about young person seriously sick who has become positive model of fighting this sickness and that makes person’s story more reliable. Professional rule says that sickness should be treated with maximum caution and that different opinion (here oncologists’) should be presented too, or to keep critical disengagement from the article thesis. It has not been done in this article.
Story was published on May 5, 2018 at portal 100% and its graphics highlighted Ena Šarac’s statement: „If I had gone through chemotherapy, I would probably had walked today. You have to break rules sometimes because doctors are not superior.“ That statement, coming from the person who is model for many minor children with difficult diagnosis, implied that she should not have taken chemotherapy. That might inspire parents to cancel their children’s treatments without expert being consulted. And that might cause lethal outcomes for children.
CJA branches of journalists dealing with scientific issues and of journalists dealing with health issues call upon all journalists reporting about potentially death threatening diseases to keep critical disengagement from personal stories, to ask for different opinions of relevant experts and to be careful not to highlight something that might be against best interest of readers and their families.
We want to remind you that in September 2015 a boy sick with non-Hodgkin lymphoma died in Rijeka because his parents declined chemotherapy. Because of irresponsible articles stating the treatment was dangerous and nonefficient they decided not to agree with it, although in reality that treatment is successful in 90% of cases.
Portal 100% reporting is just the latest of unconscious and nonprofessional articles that are seriously dangerous for readers’ and their children’s health. Being journalists dealing with specific topics, dedicated to impartial reporting based on proves and researches, we are forced to condemn this kind of reporting.