“ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION” NEWS ON THE PRESS

The primary field of application for medicine is to increase the quality of life for human beings, and to ensure the continued health and wellbeing of individuals. At times, an organ may require treatment and the treatment may require the replacement of this organ through an organ transplant. This process increases the quality of life for the patient, however the quality of life for the donor must also be considered. There are various national and international legal regulations with various approaches to the matter. Some examples for these regulations are as follows: the principles passed at the 37th General Assembly of the World Medical Association, the Ethical Proclamation Regarding Organ Transplants by the Turkish Medical Association, and the Organ and Tissue Transplate Services Code published in the Official Gazette No. 24066. Despite the fact that the medical world has accepted that the publication of the names of recipients and donors could significantly influence the quality of life for both parties in a negative manner, this study could prove to be beneficial as it studies the degree to which this is followed in the news media. This descriptive study aims to analyze news articles regarding “organ transplants” in the Turkish press through content analysis and evaluate the articles based on the principles of vocational ethics. In this study, based on the media follow-up company data, from the health-themed content published in Turkish newspapers (mainstream, regional, local) in the period of Jan.1st-Dec.31st 2010, "organ transplantation" news items were identified and from these total items, determining 256 news items through random sampling, under the guidance of subquestions and within the framework of 13 main categories, these 256 items were analyzed. Of the 256 news items, 73,8% were affirming, accepting, approving and praising; 16% were criticizing it by underscoring the problems and the inadequacy of organ transplantations/donations. That in the 11,3% of the news no source was mentioned, leads us to think that their reliability needs to be re-questioned. As a result, when it is considered that the reporter and the news source are obliged to take into account the ethical regulations in their fields in the preparation of health news, the necessity of hiring professionals that have been trained in health journalism is evident. Even more important is the apparent urgency for determining and adopting what kind of ethical principles need to be heeded in health journalism, specifically in the reporting of "organ transplantation" news.