Journalistic Framing of the Food and Drug Administration: How Do Our Nation’s Most Respected Newspapers Report About the FDA?

Abstract

The Food and Drug Administration is committed to serving the public interest by approving drugs that have to be both safe and effective. Yet, the FDA is not just doing its job in a vacuum. Due to the nature of food and drug issues and their important implications for health, every FDA decision is put under intense scrutiny by the political figures in government, pharmaceutical and public interest groups, and, finally, by the consumers themselves. This paper explores how the FDA is represented in three major newspapers across the country. The aim of the paper is to discern whether any of the newspapers show a bias towards the FDA through negative or positive reporting and, similarly, whether some discrepancies among the newspapers might be explained by liberal or conservative tendencies. The paper begins with an overview of framing within the news media, explaining just how important news reporting can be for public perception of the FDA. It then addresses research methodology and research questions. Next, it analyzes, in detail, the newspaper reporting styles and possible bias of each newspaper individually. It concludes with a comparison of the three newspapers by testing this analysis against the original hypothesis and offering possible explanations for discrepancies.