Nurse Media_3 2/24/11 5:49 PM Page 11
NNU nurses are not waiting around for
mainstream news organizations to
tell our stories. Instead, we're creating our
own outlets for informing, educating,
and entertaining. A STA F F R E P O R T
uick. name the last time you saw a direct-care registered nurse interviewed
on the nightly news about health insurance reform or skyrocketing healthcare
costs.
Or about our national epidemics of obesity and diabetes?
When was the last time you even saw a real, practicing, bedside nurse on television at all? Or heard one on the radio? Or quoted in a national news magazine
besides this one? (Soap operas and fictional programs don't count!)
Probably never, is the answer. Though registered nurses are among the most
knowledgeable, educated, frontline healthcare providers in the country, their voices
are rarely ever heard or consulted by mainstream media organizations. They turn to
Dr. Oz or Dr. Phil, or in the case of healthcare reform, insurance company CEOs, to weigh
in on health and health policy issues.
National Nurses United has been more successful than most organizations in getting
registered nurses presented in the media as healthcare authorities, but it's an uphill climb.
Mainstream media doesn't view our dysfunctional healthcare system from the same perspective that nurses do.
That's why nurses need to take media matters into their own hands. While we'll continue to
influence how the mainstream media covers healthcare issues, National Nurses United is partnering with television and radio producers to create programs in which nurses get star billing,
and to explore other ways of reaching our nation's communities.
JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2011
W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G
N AT I O N A L N U R S E
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