The NY Daily News has a short profile of Dr. Richard Besser, the former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control turned correspondent, and his H1N1 coverage. He joined the ABC News staff as Senior Health and Medical Editor in July. Besser described to the Daily News some of his problems with medical news coverage:
“One of the things we have to watch out for in the media is giving a platform to the fringe perspective,” Besser says. “You may have an issue that splits in the medical community 90 to 10.” But, he says, when that gets on air, the dramatic differences of opinion may be evened out in the presentation.
Good thing he doesn’t have to cover politics.
Apparently, ABC was very accommodating when he came on board. They even installed new furniture: “I’m freakishly tall…On the ‘Good Morning America’ set, they have these little lounge chairs for the interviews. I looked like Gulliver. So they very quickly built new furniture.”