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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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1990-09-19
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ETHICS, Page 71Free Advice
When a big story breaks, the first thing reporters do is get
the news. The next thing, usually, is to round up a few experts to
say what it all means. Too often, what gets experts quoted -- and
called again the next time news relates to their specialty -- is
not specific knowledge of a case but crisp, piquant opinion. The
expert enjoys the publicity; the journalist enlivens a story. The
losers are the public, who get ill-informed speculation
masquerading as analysis, and the news subjects, who are assessed
in intimate, knowing terms by strangers.
Many health professionals refuse to dispense such pseudo
expertise, saying if it is wrong to discuss patients about whom
they know something, it cannot be right to diagnose people they
have never met. Yet even hard-liners were startled last week when
the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Psychologists opened an
investigation of four practitioners -- a procedure that could end
in revoking their right to practice -- because of interviews they
gave the Boston Globe about the emotional problems of Kitty
Dukakis, wife of Governor Michael Dukakis. An acknowledged
recovering alcoholic and amphetamine addict, she was hospitalized
Nov. 5 after drinking rubbing alcohol.
None of the therapists had treated her. Yet they speculated,
according to the Globe, that Mrs. Dukakis' difficulties resulted
from "taking on her husband's emotional burdens as well as her
own"; they implied that the Governor is repressed and in effect
made him the culprit in her illness. The psychologists also said
he too needed therapy to help his wife. One even suggested that
Dukakis resign his office (his term runs through 1990) to aid his
wife's recovery. After the board acted, some of the psychologists
said they had been misquoted or their remarks had been taken out
of context, which the Globe denies.
The state inquiry impinges on press freedom and is politically
awkward: registry-board members are appointed by the Governor. A
better idea would be to shame media and "experts" into ending the
practice. Says George Annas, professor of medical ethics at Boston
University: "The board shouldn't regulate this. It calls for
self-restraint on the part of journalists and professionals, and
that is very hard."