From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

Brooke Gladstone is out, probably not writing her book this week.

I'm Bob Garfield.

Network morning chat shows are seldom regarded as a matter of life and death.

But man, do they love the subject.

Good Morning America, today, and the early show are perpetually digging

into the latest health and medical breakthroughs, from heart disease to spinal paralysis to cancer

to the old reliable weight loss miracle. Those stories overflow with optimism and excitement,

offering hope for millions. What they don't overflow with is and excitement, offering hope for millions.

What they don't overflow with is accuracy, context, and journalistic responsibility.

Or so concludes University of Minnesota's Gary Schweitzer, publisher of health newsreview.org.

In September, Schweitzer announced that his team will no longer be reviewing every single medical

item on TV.

The reason, despite health news reviews, years of reporting on the reporting and publishing

the results, TV health pieces consistently failed to adhere to basic standards.

We every day apply 10 set criteria to the review of every story.

And how you do on those 10 criteria is translated into a star score, like a movie review rating of 0 to 5 stars.

And after three and a half years and 220-some stories, television news had an average

star score of only two stars out of five. All right. So let's get to some specifics. So I'm going to

play you a little clip here from an ABC Good Morning America piece about a breakthrough obesity drug.

This is from late July.

A new weight loss drug that works by cutting cravings for food may be available by early next year.

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