AGENDA 11/25/2025
Media Relations/Marketing Affinity Group
CMCA Housekeeping
- Logins for CMCAConnect.org
- Membership dues must be current
- Affinity Group Forum and Group
- CMCA Session Brainstorm: Non-Traditional Media Roundtable Discussion
New York Times: What Are Clinical Trials, and How Do They Work?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/well/what-are-clinical-trials-and-how-do-they-work.html
Clinical trials are rigorous, highly regulated studies that test new medical interventions through controlled, randomized, and often blinded designs to determine whether they are safe and effective. Because they include multiple layers of oversight, transparency requirements, and structured phases of testing, they are considered the most reliable form of medical evidence and play a critical role in advancing treatments, screening, and disease prevention.
- How do we explain clinical trials simply and clearly? — Discuss strategies for conveying randomization, control groups, and blinding in ways the public can easily understand without oversimplifying.
- Building trust and transparency — How can cancer centers better communicate oversight, ethics review, and conflict-of-interest safeguards to help patients and audiences feel confident in trial results?
- When is a trial newsworthy? — Reflect on criteria aligned with the article (e.g., Phase 3 data, practice-changing findings, large population relevance) and how to guide researchers on when results are ready for media outreach.
- Patient experience and messaging — How can we help media and the public understand that participation is voluntary, informed, safe, and increasingly patient-centered — not experimental or risky in the way the term “trial” may imply?
- Positioning clinical trials as care, not a last resort — How can communication teams shift narratives so trials are viewed as access to cutting-edge treatment and medical progress, particularly in cancer care?
Cancer-Focused Podcasts
- We’ll be compiling a list of worthwhile podcast opportunities for cancer experts
Open Discussion