text_1: New Stomach Stapling Procedure: No Surgery, Less Recovery Time
text_2: This extremely brief television news segment about a non-surgical treatment for morbid obesity manages to describe the procedure, contrast it with conventional treatment, and indicate that it is being studied and not yet available. Yet as the ratings here show, both the brevity of the story and the way the time is used leave the story short of journalistic best practices. At the very least, the report should have:   included an interview with a dispassionate observer mentioned the possible harms and shortcomings of the procedure  stated more plainly that the procedure may never be approved in the U.S., and  disclosed that the owner of the procedure’s patent is funding the research   Ideally it also would have explained a bit more about the findings so far–which patients have been helped the most, what the side effects have been, whether there have been any surgical complications and so on. These findings should have been compared to what is known about conventional gastric bypass surgery.