Marcon Alessandro R, Caulfield Timothy, Toews Maeghan
Health Law Institute, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
Adelaide Law School, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
Transplant Direct. 2019 Nov 15;5(12):e508. doi: 10.1097/TXD.0000000000000950. eCollection 2019 Dec.
. Two stories of public solicitation for living liver donors received substantial Canadian media attention in 2015: The Wagner family, with twin toddlers, each needing transplants, and Eugene Melnyk, wealthy owner of a professional hockey team. This study compared the print media coverage of these 2 stories to understand how public solicitation was portrayed and whether coverage differed depending on the individual making the plea.
We conducted a content analysis on 155 relevant Canadian newspaper articles published between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2016. Articles were analyzed for their description of public solicitation, benefits and issues associated with public solicitation, and overall tone with respect to public solicitation.
The foregrounding of public solicitation and associated ethical issues featured heavily in articles focused on Melnyk but were largely absent when discussing the Wagner family. The fairness of Melnyk's solicitation was the most prominent ethical issue raised. Laws and policies surrounding public solicitation also featured in the Melnyk story but not in articles focused on the Wagners. Public solicitation was portrayed more negatively in the Melnyk articles, but overall, was portrayed positively in relation to both Melnyk and the Wagner family.
Public solicitation was generally portrayed as a positive phenomenon in Canadian print media, yet there were stark differences in how these cases were presented. The Wagner story was largely portrayed as a human-interest piece about a family in dire circumstances, whereas Melnyk's wealth, status, and influence raised questions of the fairness of his transplant.
2015年，两起活体肝供者公开招募事件受到了加拿大媒体的广泛关注：瓦格纳一家，家中有一对双胞胎幼儿，两人都需要进行肝脏移植；以及尤金·梅尔尼克，一位职业曲棍球队的富老板。本研究比较了这两起事件在平面媒体上的报道，以了解公开招募是如何被呈现的，以及报道是否因提出请求的个人不同而有所差异。
我们对2015年1月1日至2016年12月31日期间发表的155篇相关加拿大报纸文章进行了内容分析。分析这些文章对公开招募的描述、与公开招募相关的益处和问题，以及对公开招募的总体基调。
在聚焦梅尔尼克的文章中，公开招募及相关伦理问题被重点提及，但在讨论瓦格纳一家时基本没有涉及。梅尔尼克招募行为的公平性是最突出的伦理问题。围绕公开招募的法律和政策也在梅尔尼克的报道中出现，但在聚焦瓦格纳一家的文章中未出现。在关于梅尔尼克的文章中，公开招募被描述得更为负面，但总体而言，与梅尔尼克和瓦格纳一家相关的公开招募都被描述为正面的。
在加拿大平面媒体中，公开招募总体上被描述为一种积极现象，但这些案例的呈现方式存在明显差异。瓦格纳一家的故事主要被描述为关于一个处于困境中的家庭的人情味十足的报道，而梅尔尼克的财富、地位和影响力引发了对其肝脏移植公平性的质疑。
