BRIAN WILLIAMS If you watch this newscast with any frequency, then you’ve seen it – this ad … for a medication for something called restless leg syndrome. A lot of us had frankly never heard of the condition but we figured people must suffer terribly from it for there to be a medication to treat it. And so,motivated by a commercial by one of our own sponsors, we asked … Josh Mankiewicz to do some checking.I‘d never heard of disease mongering either until I read Public Eye‘s story on Restless Leg Syndrome. Which I’d also never heard of.

Of course, if I watched NBC‘s Nightly News I would be very familiar with RLS from the ad breaks, and also – it transpires – from the reporting. Disease mongering is an accusation laid at the door of drugs companies, who advertise to bring attention to ‘ailments’ they can actually cure. Or as NBC News anchor Brian Williams put it:

We commissioned last night’s story, as we explained on the air, when the commercials started running advertising a medication to treat it. Back then we were flooded with questions about what “it” was – now we know

1) what it is,
2) what to take for it,
3) who has it (including loved ones who we didn’t know had it) and
4) we don’t have to do that story again for a while.

The entire episode proved a thesis of the piece: having a medication on the market, with an advertising campaign, gave the condition a “name” for many of those who either thought it was just them, or never complained about it, or both.

So a case of restless curiosity? As comments on Williams’ blog made clear, some viewers weren’t convinced.

This time you’ve really crossed the fine line between journalism and advertising, and you owe your viewers an explanation and an apology.

Brian, You said “We commissioned last night’s story…” And with whom did you commission that biased story?

RLS is a syndrome in name only, and created exclusively for marketing purposes…The drug may in fact relieve some of the symptoms, but so may aspirin, and possibly exercise.

…the majority of writers were upset (as was I) about the blatant commercial you ran…

Looks like news mongering and disease mongering don’t mix.