This article offers an analysis of the process of construction of scientific sections in the French generalist media between the beginning of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1980s. Using the specific case of medicine, it shows that this type of information occupied a singular position because it was relatively well-controlled by medical institutions with the collaboration of a small group of specialised journalists. The historic comparison emphasises the fact that the news coverage of medicine was more consensual than today because the scientific discourse was not controversial.