On May 28, I posted on a story from NBC's TODAY show that told the heartbreaking story of two brothers with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. One, Max, was being treated with an experimental drug and showing marked improvement. The other, Austin, was not getting the drug and was rapidly deteriorating.
Why, I asked, did one brother get the drug while the other didn't? An excerpt from my post:
Did anyone ask the FDA whether the drug could be given to Austin? What did the FDA say? All TODAY seems to care about are the "heartbreak and hope"… and the few seconds in which [reporter Janet] Shamlian asks McNary what will happen to Austin if he does not get the drug. "He will die," she says.
It turns out that Bonnie Rochman of TIME had answered my questions in a piece that was not only much better but which scooped TODAY by three months. If you were intrigued and moved by this story, as I was, and want a better explanation of what's going on and the issues it raises, it's worth your time to go back and read Rochman's story, which you can find here.
This was just a case of TV doing what it often does–playing a story exclusively for the emotional content while leaving the reporting, and the real storytelling, to someone else.
-Paul Raeburn
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