[Thread of 9 tweets to follow!] Media coverage of maternity issues regularly raises concern. I'm currently thinking about a recent piece and, in particular, whether there is a specific problem with opinion pieces, and the way in which social media works to highlight these.
The inclusion of opinion pieces in national newspapers arguably works to open up author access to the platform, and might be seen as beneficial (assuming that editors ensure that a diverse range of views are published). But how does this work out in the age of social media?
I'm often wrongfooted by circulated articles that *look* like journalism but that are opinion pieces. I find it difficult to identify their status. Especially when they sit so close to the newspaper's symbolically powerful masthead, with their authoritative looking headlines
I think - because of their presentation - that my brain simply finds it difficult to immediately identify that they are opinion pieces (despite them being labelled as such).
My current example is an opinion piece related to the Shrewsbury events. The sub-heading is as follows: 'The Shrewsbury maternity scandal is in part explained by a fetish for ‘natural birth’.' The opinion piece itself offers no clear justification for this sub-heading.
Indeed the piece as a whole doesn't seem to me to be one that represents accurately our collective understanding of the current state of UK maternity services and the many issues it faces. Eg it suggests that systemic over-intervention in childbirth is not an issue right now.
Whereas it's increasingly accepted that UK maternity services will significantly improve only if we tackle BOTH 'too much too soon' AND 'too little too late'. In that context, is it problematic for a national daily to platform the opinion that only one side of the problem exists?
Do we need a process in the UK in which maternity service improvement activists and newspapers come together to discuss these issues, and perhaps work out some key principles of maternity reporting? I can imagine a busy and constructive agenda.
My sense is that media coverage of maternity issues needn't inherently regularly raise concerns amongst maternity service improvement activists. But we need to do some work together to get to that point. Is this plan of action simply idealistic? Or is it worth pursuing?
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