The Human Genome Project and the Media

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Human Genome Project and the Media

Newspapers, magazines, news programs and commercials have only seconds, if not only tenths of seconds, to catch our attention, to sell us an idea or product, or to convey the most up-to-the-minute information about society, technology and health. To attract viewers, readers, and customers, individual media sources must be among the best at capturing our attention, which means they must convince us that we need the information they have, or the product they wish to sell. When the media report on breakthrough biomedical technology their goal is the same: to capture our attention and make us feel that we should listen.

When it came to reporting the breakthrough achievement of the Human Genome Project - the mapping of the human genome - it wasn't hard for the media to find a captive audience. Scientists had, supposedly, found exactly "what we were made of." According to the media, scientists were now on the edge of eliminating disease, explaining our differences, and giving us options to engineer future generations. If scientists were about to solve all of our problems through this discovery, they were also opening a new arena for discrimination in the workplace and insurance coverage. The media brought all of these issues to the public eye, making us aware of the power, both for good and evil, that scientists had unleashed. Various television news reports from directly after the announcement of the genome mapping allow us to analyze how the media presents these arguments, what information they convey and leave out, whom they are targeting, and how they target them.

The morning after Francis Collins, NIH Human Genome Research Institute Head Scientist, and Craig Venter, President of Celera Genomics, announced that they had both separately completed the mapping of the entire human genome, they appeared together on CBS News' The Early Show with Bryant Gumble(1). The Early Show airs when many people are getting ready for work in the mornings to an audience that is assumedly, by their interest in morning news shows, more well-informed than the general public. Therefore, Venter and Collins did not discuss the technical details of their findings, but addressed the issues of concern to the informed, though not necessarily scientifically competent, consumer.

In answer to Gumble's request, Collins completed the statement: "The mapping of the human genetic code is important because.

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