Like any institution, the media must balance the interests of several constituents whose interests often conflict.  A democratic society, however, requires media that place the public interest first.  When the press places corporate interests ahead of the public’s, democracy suffers from a distorted supply of information.  Yet the media’s refusal to acknowledge the public health risks of an advertiser’s product has even more serious implications than its effect on public policy: it endangers lives.  And the number of lives affected by psychotropic drugs is substantial and growing—one study estimates that six percent of Americans have taken Prozac alone.  Society needs the media to act as a watchdog: to provide factual information that counteracts the billions of dollars corporations spend promoting potentially dangerous products.  Instead, the media too often respond to the economic pressure to protect advertisers. 

The Littleton shootings provided an important test of the media’s ability to fend off advertiser influence: a teenager who shot and killed several classmates had been taking a drug that The Clinical Handbook of Psychotropic Drugs itself warns may cause violent behavior.  Despite the widespread availability of this information, the media largely ignored it in favor of less verifiable explanations.  Because so few publications discussed Luvox at all, a direct link between advertising and poor coverage eludes statistical validation.  Advertiser influence, however, remains the most likely explanation in the context of greater pharmaceutical advertising corresponding to more positive coverage as the 1990s progressed.  A system in which lessened the media’s financial dependence on advertisers would do much to alleviate these pressures.  This analysis suggests not only democracy, but public health is at stake as pharmaceutical companies unleash ever more “wonder drugs” on the market without divulging the risks. 

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