Article Analysis
Millennium Laboratories’ case is a complex investigation conducted in tribunals for two charges, different, but linked in the same time. The company was sued by former employees for misconduct and intimidation, but is also facing a health care fraud allegation. The journalistic analysis conducted by Duff Wilson in a Reuters material reflected the case somehow biased, accusing the company, and this because there is little reference to how Millennium defended its case. Nonetheless, this situation can be explained, because the company has declined to comment on the allegations or on the various accusations for mistreatment, intimidation or bribery, which indicates that the firm wants to handle everything in the court, and does not want to give any information that might be misinterpreted or used against in in the court. On the other hand, this puts the company in a negative light until that moment comes.
Because the material is mostly following the diverse lawsuits in which Millennium Laboratories has been involved, it is in general a reflection of these lawsuits, which implies that the journalistic investigation was reduced to simply presenting the facts. The investigative article responds to the five “W” (What, Who, Where, When, Why) and the “H” (How) questions:
What: the investigation of Millennium Laboratories from San Diego for health care fraud and for mistreatment and intimidation of the former employees;
Who: The company that is being under allegation is Millennium Laboratories (the accusations are mostly directed to its management formed from Edward Slattery, the founder of Millenium, Howard Appel, the president of the firm and Martin Price, the general counsel of the company); the accusers are former employees and the investigator is Susan Winkler.
Where: the jury of Boston is investigating this case, therefore, the place is United States of America, Boston.
When: this aspect is not very transparently presented. The reader has to put the facts together for coming up with a clearer timeline, and there can be sensed the need for further information to fill the blanks for the happenings in this case. For instance, there is no indication about when the health care allegation started, the article only mentions that the company was founded in 2007 and the company has given some research incentives for Washington University, Duke University and a program developed by the state of Florida, for investigating and studying pain, to track the prescription drug or to organize a summit on the ethical practices from the health care, especially medication industry. Other accidental information are provided regarding the f=different lawsuits and allegations of former employees.
For finding the answer for the “why” question there is also needed an in – depth research of the article. The author states at one point that the pain drug market has grown in an alarming rhythm from 30 million to 180 million a year in United States. This has given a free road to market speculations and exploitations. Hence, as other companies that senses the potential of this market, Millennium started to exploit this market, which has a great potential, because it is a new field and the profits can be very good.
The last question, “How” finds its answer in the actual procedures of selling the urine test and intimidating the employees. The former employees state that they were presented corporate materials as their training on how to sell the products, which included references on how to convince and persuade doctors to buy the Millennium Laboratories’ products, as they would have to gain upon this: “a $15 payment to test for one drug could balloon to about $800,000 a year if 20 people a day were tested and each urine sample was tested for 11 drugs, the chart said” (Wilson, “A Federal Grand Jury”). Therefore, this answers for the “how” was the company committing fraud within the health care system. Regarding the intimidation of the employees, the company described in a company presentation, as its corporate value that “who is not with us is against us”, by showing a former employee as a corpse in a body bag. Because the current employees of the company avoided to give any comment on this issue, this was interpreted as an act of intimidation. A former employee, Strain, states that he took this as a warning sign for what might happen to people going against “Millennium family” (Wilson, “A Federal Grand Jury”).
Although the facts are not visibly presented in a hierarchical order, and even if the article does not have a clear lead (answering shortly, in a single paragraph to the W & H questions) (Kolodzy, 159), the fact that it illustrates background information and that it provides relevant data about the medication industry (which determines the newsworthiness and its proximity), makes this material an engaging investigation article.
The author of this article considered important to put some light upon the owner of Millennium Laboratories and his associates. As such, Wilson presents short bios of Edward Slattery, the founder of Millennium, Howard Appel, the president of the firm and Martin Price, which indicates the nature of their former experience and of their relationships. Out of these information, however, there cannot be traced any sign of misconduct in the previous experiences of the three men. This aspect reflects the fact that the investigation was conducted in an objective manner, looking not to accuse and condemn, but to explain the facts. As additional information, there could have been mentioned and used data retrieved from the Millennium Laboratories’ website (milleniumlabs.com). Information about the company’s profile, its stakeholders and shareholders and other important data could have been quoted from this website, enriching also the quality of the sources within this material.
Scholars describe the newsworthiness as a criteria that determines the relevance of a news material, which refers to the following aspects: celebrity, proximity, public recognition, importance and interest (Ryan 31; Weaver & Wilhoit 126). The analyzed article has newsworthiness, because it discusses about a general interest subject the health care. It raises a concern regarding how the health care system can be manipulated by actors who are searching to exploit its weaknesses. The fact that the pain killers is growing, allowing for a rapid development of drug addiction, determines the necessity for stopping this addiction by testing the patients, in order to observe if they have taken drug pains. However, the drug pain testing is an emerging market that has got out of control, threatening the stability of the health care system.
The news has prominence, based on the importance of the sources that it used (Cotter 69; DeWerth Pallmeyer 54), sources such as Daniel Richman, former federal prosecutor, and current teacher of criminal law at Columbia University) and proximity, because it concerns all the people that are connected to the American medical system and it also generates impact and interest for this group of people.
Another article that investigated this case referred to “Sabine Pilot” a procedure applied in Texas, which denies the employers the right to fire employees because they refuse to commit illegal acts (“Edward Zicari, Former Regional Sales Manager Sues Millennium Laboratories”). The studies article could have made use of this act for giving more substance to the investigation.
Works Cited
Cotter, Colleen. News Talk: Investigating the Language of Journalism. Cambridge University Press. New York. 2010. Print.
DeWerth Pallmeyer, Dwight. The Audience in News CL. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. New Jersey. 1997. Print.
Edward Zicari Former Regional Sales Manager, Sues Millennium Laboratories. Accessed on 25 December 2012, retrieved from . 2012. Web.
Hugh Weaver, David & Wilhoit, Cleveland, G. The American Journalist: A Portrait of U.S. News People and Their Work. Indiana University Press. Indiana. 1991. Print.
Kolodzy, Janet. Convergence Journalism: Writing and Reporting Across the News Media. Rowman & Littlefield Publisher, Inc. Oxford. 2006. Print.
Millennium Laboratories. Millennium Laboratories. Accessed on 25 December 2012, retrieved from . N.d. Web.
Ryan, Charlotte. Prime Time Activism: Media Strategies for Grassroots Organizing. South End Press. Boston. 1996. Print.
Wilson, Duff. Exclusive: U.S. Drug Testing Firm Probed for Alleged Fraud, Intimidation. Accessed on 25 December 2012, retrieved from . 2012. Web.
