Promoting Global Health


CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, who received the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications’s Mickey Leland Humanitarian Award at last week’s NAMIC Conference in Denver, recently spoke with Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead about the honor, as well as his analysis of the media’s coverage of major health stories such as the outbreak of the H1N1 virus.


MCN: First, congratulations on being named as NAMIC’s 2009 Mickey Leland Humanitarian Award honoree. What does the award mean to you?

Sanjay Gupta: Thank you. Anytime you win an award like this, it makes you reflect on stories that you’ve done over the last several years. … Part of the reason that I got into this line of work was because I recognized that talking about global heath issues does make a difference.

I think health is one of those great common denominators across cultures and geography, so when I go and tell this story and give recognition like this, it’s very meaningful to me. The fact that journalism can be considered as a type of humanitarian work, I think, is just terrific, and it’s a real honor.


MCN: How well do you think the television industry and the news organizations are reporting on the health issues of today?

SG: I think that those are some of the more challenging stories that we do. I don’t know the answer to that, because you hear different points of view: There are some people who say that the media is creating hysteria and there are some people who say that the media isn’t doing enough to remind people of the importance of vaccinations and other things.

What I think is important is to be very objective about these things. For example, we know that more kids have died of H1N1 already this flu season, in October, than die from seasonal flu in any given year. And we also know that a third of those children were healthy before they got infected and died. So, I assume, leave it up to the viewer: Does that make you worry more about it or not? Soon they start asking questions and becoming more informed and that becomes a process. That’s what I think we try to do.


MCN: Actually you’ve experienced H1N1 up close and personally, having contracted it.

SG: Yes … actually, I feel great. I was in Afghanistan when it happened. I had been reporting on H1N1 — I was in Mexico in May — and had been reporting on it throughout the summer. Then, I go to Afghanistan thinking that I’m doing a totally different story for a while and, sure enough, H1N1 catches up with me there. You can’t get away from it.


MCN: Do you recommend most folks get the H1N1 vaccine, having had the virus yourself?

SG: I’m recommending it for my family. I tell people before I recommend something for my family I’d like to have four or five years worth of safety data on everything. But the issue with the flu is that the strain changes every year, so you have to come up with a new vaccine every year. The H1N1 virus is made on the same chassis, if you will, as seasonal flu vaccine, so I think it’s a good idea. The statistic that I told you about earlier, healthy children dying, is a concern for me.


MCN: Going forward, what are you looking to accomplish in media?

SG: I think the biggest thing for me in media, in general, including dot-com and some of the digital stuff we do, is that there are some relatively easy and smart ways to individualize some of our content.

What I mean by that is that right now there’s something happening in the world that could benefit you — it could make your life better; it could make your life longer. The problem is you don’t know what it is, but I often do because I figure those things out for a living.

The problem is how do I get the information to only you? Because Steve isn’t going to be as interested in what benefits you. So, I’m starting to focus a lot of my attention on ways that I can use media overall, television included but also other outlets, to try to start to individualize some health knowledge. It’s a lot of fun because its ends up providing a much more immediate result to my viewers.


MCN: Do you have any regrets about not pursuing the U.S. Surgeon General’s position?

SG: No regrets. I have served as a public servant before, and greatly believe in its virtues, but the timing just wasn’t right for me and my family. And I love what I do professionally at CNN, at Emory and practicing neurosurgery at Grady Memorial Hospital.

R. Thomas Umstead

R. Thomas Umstead serves as senior content producer, programming for Multichannel News, Broadcasting + Cable and Next TV. During his more than 30-year career as a print and online journalist, Umstead has written articles on a variety of subjects ranging from TV technology, marketing and sports production to content distribution and development. He has provided expert commentary on television issues and trends for such TV, print, radio and streaming outlets as Fox News, CNBC, the Today show, USA Today, The New York Times and National Public Radio. Umstead has also filmed, produced and edited more than 100 original video interviews, profiles and news reports featuring key cable television executives as well as entertainers and celebrity personalities.