Review History
Newspaper coverage of biobanks

Thank you for thoughtfully addressing the reviewers' concerns regarding the original submission. There may be a typographical error or two that you will want to correct prior to publication.

Generally, the reviewers had a positive opinion of the research topic, but they both noted some areas that need attention before this manuscript could be acceptable for publication at PeerJ. Here I will provide for you some specific feedback to highlight some issues the two reviewers raised and some additional suggestions to assist you in your revisions.

Basic Reporting:
1) A minor issue is that Box 1 appears in the reviewing .pdf as a Table. It is unclear why a distinction is made between “box” and “table,” but I think this would be better labeled as Table.

2) Table 1 does not provide Kappa scores, but the main text indicates that it would. Please revise Table 1 to reflect the text’s promise that those would be there. It also would be useful to draw stronger connections between the main text and what is presented in the table.

3) It would be useful to include the citations for the 163 articles analyzed. Perhaps this could be done in a table or as supplemental material.

4) An additional table reporting the results of the statistical analyses may be useful to readers.

5) The manuscript could be improved by engaging with additional and more recent relevant literature. The reviewers suggested that there may be important works post-2003 that have not been adequately considered.

Experimental Design:
1) While the methods are clear in explaining the rationale for temporal limitations on the second search, there is no explanation as to why July 16, 2006 was selected as an appropriate cut-off date. Also, how would the results for the first search have been altered if it were similarly restricted?

2) It would be useful to clarify a number of research design considerations, including how you arrived at the search terms used and how those selections may bias the results. For example, the use of the term “biobank” may not be the term used by authors who are considering the issues you report as having been given “limited emphasis.” Additional design questions that could deserve clarification is whether, when noting attribution of quotes to a particular stakeholder type, you encountered quoted individuals who wear multiple hats and, if so, how overlap was reconciled (e.g. when the quote came from someone who has multiple roles such as academic researcher and clinician, how was that person identified?).

3) It is noted that authors of the articles analyzed were coded by type of author, but I did not see any indication as to whether one author may have written multiple articles. Given newspapers often have the same author cover a particular topic (e.g. Amy Harmon and Nicholas Wade frequently write in the area of science & health for the New York Times), it is possible that a few authors are influencing any trends you may find with such a search. To what extent in your study were there authors of multiple articles? In instances when a single author wrote multiple pieces on the subject, how does the author’s portfolio bias your findings (e.g., earlier work may affect the content of the subsequent pieces written if the author wants to avoid repetition of the same information)? If this was not encountered, it still may be important to discuss.

4) It is unclear from the coding frame which biobanks mentioned in the analyzed articles were classified as population and clinical and if how that determination was made. The reviewers suggest that the research design might be more appropriate if analysis of articles referring to each type of biobank were analyzed separately.

Validity of Findings
1) You indicate that there is a “cycle of hype” (Line 277) and that your findings suggest a contributing role of researchers; however, you provide no citations for evidence of the “cycle of hype” and the data reported here do not speak to that in any obvious way. If you have data substantiating a “cycle of hype” (merely talking about issues in a positive light does not necessarily mean that there have been exaggerated or extravagant claims made), perhaps consider reporting it here. If data are available directly on this issue (which would be somewhat surprising since the abstract indicates “media of biobanks has been absent” from existing literature), please provide citations to that for your readers. Otherwise, revision of the text would be necessary.

2) There seems to be no basis from the data reported here to indicate media reports are contributing to “therapeutic or diagnostic misconception” with regard to biobanks. If you have data that address this, report it. If opining, that speculation should be clearly identified as such. Similarly, there is no basis from the data reported in the current draft to indicate a “sensationalist focus” (Line 328). If such data exist, they should be reported and explained. Currently, however, the phrasing leaves the work open to criticism that preconceived notions of the three coders might have biased the analysis (even if the coding was consistent between the three coders). Identifying which authors performed the coding would provide transparency and revising the manuscript either to eliminate altogether the conclusions not directly supported by the data or to clarify when you are speculating or opining would improve the manuscript.

3) You conclude that social and ethical considerations may “not have gained traction or visibility” (Lines 347-349). There were a sizable proportion of articles (roughly 40% of them as per Lines 215-216) that discussed ELSI matters. It is not clear as stated whether those articles that did mention risks and other ELSI were evenly distributed over the time period analyzed or, perhaps, clustered in some way that would undermine your interpretation. For example, if those articles are clustered toward the beginning of the period analyzed, it might suggest media or public have weighed the risks to be minimal relative to the perceived benefits to society and no longer interesting to discuss. Alternatively, if those articles are clustered toward the end of the period analyzed, it might suggest that -to the contrary of your assertion - that the ethical considerations are gaining traction despite having received little attention earlier in biobank discussions. The validity of your findings and interpretation depends on information not currently included in your manuscript.

Impact is not among the criteria used at PeerJ for accepting manuscripts for publication, but the authors agree that this is an important study that would make a nice contribution to the field. In most instances, the requested revisions would be adequately addressed by making clarifications in the manuscript text; however, there is the possibility that some would require additional research.