Dump the big needle.
This tiny disk offers a painless flu vaccine. Wouldn't it be great to learn that on tv.ku.edu?Courtesy:Harvinder Gill
- Getting your flu vaccine from a painless skin patch instead of a big needle?
- Implanting "radioactive seeds" that are smaller than a grain of rice to eliminate breast tumors?
- Getting damaged cells in organs like your heart and kidneys to repair or replace themselves, thanks in part, to research at KU Med Center?
When I was producing newscasts, we'd jump on stories like these. Health news sells. We'd see it in increased ratings, in viewer calls/letters, and also in surveys conducted by our consultants. Fast forward a decade and it's still true. Some of the hottest stories on tv.ku.edu are on health and medical topics. The problem is that we just don't offer very many.
It's time we changed that. Putting more cutting-edge medical stories on tv.ku.edu is a sure way to bring more hits to our site.
What's more - we have a great resource that we're not taking advantage of: KU Medical Center. Researchers in both Kansas City and Lawrence are consistantly working on medical project after medical project. Why can't tv.ku.edu be among the first to get a stab at bringing that cutting-edge health news to the public? Right now, we wait until it is published somewhere else and jump on the bandwagon. The stories are out there for the catching. We just need to have one of our folks doing the fishing.
Each semester, we need to assign someone to the KU Med Center beat. Getting the latest buzz from the PR folks is a start and would provide us with the newest content sooner, but that won't be enough to get the good stuff. To do that, the beat reporter needs to get to know those in charge of reserach. Usually these people perceive what they do every day as "business as usual." But a researcher's "business as usual" can often contain what readers would describe as a "medical breakthrough". Sometimes just asking the question "What's new?" can lead great unpublished information.
KU Med isn't the only source for popular health information. For example, the flu mist has been around for several years, yet this year, we've seen plenty of hits on both tv.ku.edu and YouTube for our basic story on flu mist. So keeping our eyes on health and medical trends outside of the university is a great source of story ideas too.
When I was in TV, we subscribed to a "Medical Breakthroughs" service. It gave us fresh stories each day about hot topic medical and health issues. Now you can get a free, weekly e-mail called "First to Know" with highlights on its new reports. The one featured right now talks about what you should do if you want to be part of the fastest growing age group in the U.S. - the 100+ crowd.
What's more - Internet users who find us looking for a story like that could end up being loyal tv.ku.edu viewers for a long, long time.