New jobs and honors for AHCJ members
Here’s the latest about AHCJ members, from the Spring 2011 issue of HealthBeat. If you have news please let us know by sending it to info@healthjournalism.org.
Marshall Allen joined ProPublica as a reporter. He and Alex Richards have been widely recognized for their series, “Do No Harm,” about preventable errors in hospitals, written when the pair worked at the Las Vegas Sun and partially completed while Allen was on an AHCJ Media Fellowship on Health Performance, supported by The Commonwealth Fund. They have received the 2011 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, the Ursula and Gilbert Farfel Prize and a National Headliner award.
Bianca Alexander won a Chicago Midwest Emmy for “Outstanding On-Camera Performance” as a correspondent on “Soul of Green,” a show about the latest news in the urban health and sustainability movements, airing on WFLD-Chicago.
Emily Baucum is a reporter for KOTV-Tulsa. She previously was with KOLR/KSFX-Springfield, Mo.
Lisa Benton, M.D., M.P.H., of the Ohio Center for Broadcasting won the 2010 Region 4 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for the category television general news reporting by a two-year/community college. She was honored for “Mold After the Flood.”
Seattle Times reporter Michael Berens received the Edgar A. Poe Award from the White House Correspondents’ Association and the 2010 Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism for his “Seniors for Sale” series, which focused on Washington State’s booming adult home industry and the dangers of the regulatory gray area it often seems to fall into. The series prompted a proposed overhaul of state laws on long-term care of elderly adults.
Rachel Boehm, who expects to graduate from American University’s master’s program in journalism and public affairs, will intern this summer at the Bureau of National Affairs.
Karen Brown, of WFCR-FM in Amherst, Mass., won a 2011 Erikson Award for Excellence in Mental Health Media, a national award sponsored by the Austen Riggs Center to honor journalists who have “brought nuance, compassion, and scientific rigor to their coverage of mental illness and recovery.”
Heather J. Chin is a staff reporter and photographer with the Home Reporter and Sunset News and The Brooklyn Spectator in Brooklyn, N.Y. She writes monthly health features in addition to breaking news, education, police, events and profiles.
Carolyn Davis Cockey, editor of Healthy Mom&Baby magazine, has launched an iPad version of the magazine. The magazine also has an expanded suite of social media and syndication for its blogs, including The Momalogues, Cockey’s health and parenting blog.
Paul Goldberg is president of The Cancer Letter Inc., and editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter and The Clinical Cancer Letter. Kirsten Goldberg stepped down as editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter, a position she held since taking her father’s place at the helm 20 years ago. She is a senior program manager in the Communications and Patient Information Department at the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Joe Goldeen, health reporter for The (Stockton, Calif.) Record, was honored by the San Joaquin County Public Health Services for his comprehensive coverage on health issues of importance; thoughtful and thorough presentations, balanced approach and actionable information.
Jamie Hirsh was promoted in December to senior associate editor at Consumer Reports.
“Happy Again! Your New and Meaningful Life after Loss,” the 30th book by Harriet Hodgson, B.S., M.A., will be published by Grief Illustrated Press, a Centering Corporation company.
Lisa Jaffe Hubbell is the editor of Hospital Peer Review, a newsletter published by American Health Consultants. She also is a contributor to HIT Exchange, a new publication on health information technology.
Shereen Jegtvig, M.S., has been accepted into the National Institutes of Health’s Medicine in the Media course at Dartmouth College in July. Jegtvig writes about nutrition for About.com.
Daniel M. Keller, Ph.D., and Eric T. Rosenthal received a bronze award for Best Feature Article Series from the American Society of Healthcare Publication Editors for their five-part Oncology Times series on proton beam radiation therapy.
Joanne Kenen won the American College of Emergency Physicians Journalism of Excellence Award for “We Can’t Save You,” which was published in Slate on Aug. 4, 2010.
Bridget M. Kuehn, Mike Mitka, Joan Stephenson and Rebecca Voelker are writing for the Journal of the American Medical Association’s health news blog.
Meryl Davids Landau’s women’s novel, “Downward Dog, Upward Fog,” was published in May. ForeWord Reviews calls it “an inspirational gem.”
Euna Lhee was a fellow for the Science Literacy Project workshop developed by SoundVision Productions. She also was the first-place winner of the Mobile Journalist category at the 2011 Florida Associated Press Broadcasters Contest.
Trudy Lieberman received a Fulbright Senior Specialist Award that will allow her to lecture on U.S. health policy to masters’ candidates and academics at Coventry University and other universities in the Midlands area of Great Britain. She will participate in seminars for local journalists and British hospital officials, a European Union consortium on training for health journalists, and a conference for European health care journalists at Coventry University. The grant also provides for her participation in an organizational meeting of an AHCJ London chapter.
Jennifer Meckles of the Missouri School of Journalism won three Region 7 Mark of Excellence Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists. She received first place for “Target 8: Fulton State Hospital” in the television in-depth reporting category; first place for “New Signs for Boomer Eyes” in the television general news reporting and second place for “Adults vs Kids: Texting and Driving” in the television feature category.
AHCJ Board President Charles Ornstein, Tracy Weber and Dan Nguyen of ProPublica, won the Gannett Award for Innovation in Watchdog Journalism in the IRE Awards for their series Dollars for Docs. The judges called it “truly innovative, the work represents the best media can do for the public good.”
André Picard, a health reporter at the Globe and Mail, earned this year’s Hyman Solomon Award for Excellence in Public Policy Journalism. The award is presented by the Public Policy Forum, an independent Canadian nonprofit. It comes on the heels of the 2010 National Newspaper Award that named Picard Canada’s best columnist.
Jennifer Ringler, associate editor of Pharmaceutical Executive/Pharmaceutical Representative, is volunteering for the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association as copy editor and book reviewer.
Ryan Sabalow of The Redding (Calif.) Record Searchlight won a first-place award in the business or financial story category from the California Newspaper Publishers Association. The story covered the local increase in doctors who prescribe medical marijuana to their patients and concerns raised by the community. Sabalow credits AHCJ’s electronic discussion list for helping him write a sidebar about the situation in other states.
Gary Schwitzer, publisher of HealthNewsReview.org, spoke to the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making’s annual forum in Washington, D.C., in January; to former U.S. Sen. David Durenberger’s health policy class at the University of St. Thomas in March; and to a media ethics class at the University of Minnesota in April.
Sibyl Shalo’s article about directly observed therapy for tuberculosis, published in the American Journal of Nursing and inspired by an AHCJ chapter event, was a finalist in the trade category of The 17th Annual NIHCM Foundation Health Care Print Journalism Awards.
Joanne Silberner is living in mossy Seattle, teaching journalism part time at the University of Washington and freelancing for public radio outlets.
Maria Simbra of KDKA-Pittsburgh is a recipient of the Pennsylvania Associated Press Broadcasters Association’s 2010 first-place award for her feature story “Toddler’s News Fingers.”
Michelle Sipics is the content developer/science writer of The History of Vaccines website, which was named a Webby Honoree in the science category, and awarded the honorable mention in the education category of Museums and the Web conference’s “Best of the Web.”
In April, Pat Skerrett gave a talk on covering medical research to 60 Portuguese journalists and health communicators in Lisbon as part of the Harvard Medical School-Portugal Project, which aims to improve the understanding of health, medicine, and biomedical research among Portuguese students and professionals, as well as among the citizens of Portugal. Skerrett is the editor and chief writer of the Harvard Heart Letter.
“Conducting Clinical Research: A Practical Guide for Physicians, Nurses, Study Coordinators, and Investigators,” by Judy Stone, M.D., was released in a revised and expanded second edition, with new sections on the politics and ethics of clinical research and updated information about the rapidly shifting global drug development industry.
Miriam E. Tucker, a senior writer at Elsevier/International Medical News Group, was featured in a Huffington Post piece about “16 Health Experts To Check Out On Twitter,” co-written by Barbara Ficarra.
Laurie Udesky is now an assistant editor position at FairWarning, a nonprofit online investigative news organization that focuses on news of safety, health and corporate conduct.
David Wahlberg of the Wisconsin State Journal won a Sigma Delta Chi Awards for non-deadline reporting by smaller newspapers for his series on “The Rural Health Care Gap.”
Kelley Weiss has joined the California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting as a broadcast reporter. She will expand the organization’s work in the broadcast arena, particularly in public radio. Weiss was a 2007-08 Midwest Health Reporting Program Fellow.
AHCJ makes changes to membership rules
The board of the Association of Health Care Journalists has amended the organization’s membership guidelines, completing a process first begun in early 2010. The adjustments are an effort to make membership rules more consistent and ensure AHCJ is first and foremost an organization of and for journalists.
The changes will have no effect on most current members, says board member Phil Galewitz, chair of the Membership Committee. Journalists working for publications of health companies or health advocacy organizations, however, will be shifted into the associate member category, if they are not already there, he said.
While AHCJ has long required that journalists from these organizations’ publications work independently of lobbying and public relations staffers, it has been increasingly difficult to judge their independence based on employer. This will allow them to continue taking advantage of most member benefits, including the electronic discussion list and website resources, but will exclude them from running for board positions or voting for board members.
Read more about the changes and review AHCJ’s membership categories. Learn more about AHCJ membership.
AHCJ members provide context for reporter’s medical marijuana story
This is a guest post written at our request by Ryan Sabalow of the Redding (Calif.) Record-Searchlight.
I knew I was on the trail of a good health-business story one afternoon last summer when I switched over to Redding’s hip-hop radio station and heard a doctor advertising that for a mere $149, she’d evaluate a patient for medical marijuana use.
Ryan Sabalow
The story that emerged took a look at how a growing number of doctors in California are giving up traditional practices to make easy cash selling medical marijuana recommendations to just about anyone who wants one.
The story ended up winning a first-place award for best business story in the California Newspaper Publishers Association Better Newspapers contest.
The story wouldn’t have turned out so well without the help of members of the Association of Health Care Journalists, who helped me find ideas for a sidebar that explored how other states were handling the medical marijuana issue.
As I was researching the story, I asked AHCJ members on the organization’s electronic discussion list for pointers.
Within a few hours, I got a number of helpful tips and links to stories. One was about “cannabis caravans” in Montana.
In Colorado, a reporter suggested I get in touch with a source who criticized the fact that five doctors in that state account for half of all recommendations given to the state’s medical marijuana patients.
Those perspectives proved invaluable. And it’s fair to say the story wouldn’t have had the same context and impact without AHCJ’s help.
I’d suggest any reporter working on a local health story first shoot a note out on the list asking for some national perspectives.
I know I will.
Thanks, AHCJ.
[Editor's note: We also suggest that AHCJ members search the list's archive, which contains all of the messages that have been exchanged on the list since its 2001 inception. It's a great way to tap the wisdom of our members.]
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust awards $1.1 million grant to support health journalists
The Center for Excellence in Health Care Journalism, the educational arm of the Association of Health Care Journalists, has been awarded a grant of nearly $1.1 million to improve training resources for health journalists.
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust made the three-year grant of $1,097,000 to the Missouri-based center to increase the range of training opportunities for current journalists and to help develop new health journalists across the country.
“The real stories on the state of health care can be found at the local level,” said Len Bruzzese, executive director of AHCJ. “The Helmsley Trust’s generous support will allow us to expand our training in underserved geographic areas and in underreported topic areas to better assist local reporters in telling those stories.”
The funding will support the annual conference of the association, starting with Health Journalism 2011 this spring in Philadelphia; regional workshops on niche health topics; an annual rural health journalism workshop; and three conference fellowship programs assisting ethnic media, rural reporters and journalists on non-health beats who routinely face health-related stories, such as education, environment, business and government.
Significantly, the funding will allow the continuation - and expansion - of an intense regional fellowship program that has trained dozens of journalists in Kansas and Missouri over the past four years. Each year, the new AHCJ-Regional Health Journalism Fellowships program will select 10-12 reporters, editors and producers from a different region of the country for customized training. The yearlong fellowships are meant to improve abilities to provide meaningful coverage of critical issues and assist and motivate fellows to increase such coverage.
The funding also will allow updates to the technology used to produce the association’s website, www.healthjournalism.org, and to increase the resources available there. The site assists reporters working on health-related stories with tip sheets, reporting guides, government data, training presentations and resource links.
“As America struggles with access and the rising cost of health care, it is important that the information on choice and cost is available to the consumers. New technology allows consumers to manage their healthcare closer to home and at less cost. Giving journalists access to information on those technologies is important to the Helmsley Charitable Trust,” noted Rural Healthcare Program Director Shelley Stingley. Read more
Journalists to provide input in talks on information released in public health emergencies
Filed under: Health journalism, Public health, Public records
Local, state and federal health officials from around the country will gather Friday with journalists to start developing guidelines on how much information health officials should release about deaths during a public health emergency or outbreak.
The meeting springs from concerns that AHCJ raised last year about the wide variations in the type of information disclosed when people died from H1N1.
Health officials in some states revealed such details as age and town of residence. Others merely acknowledged that someone somewhere had died. The discrepancies became the topic of news reports and may have led to public distrust of health authorities.
AHCJ approached the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, which agreed to sponsor a meeting. ASTHO invited representatives from the federal government, state health departments, county and municipal health departments, and public information officers, along with AHCJ. Fifteen people are expected to participate.
At the meeting, to be held at ASTHO headquarters in Crystal City, Va., participants plan to discuss the reasons for withholding and releasing certain types of information, and will try to agree on guiding principles for health officers as they face such decisions in the future.
“We are grateful to ASTHO for organizing and hosting this meeting,” said Charles Ornstein, AHCJ president. “We hope that it will lead to establishing minimum standards for what information should be released during public health emergencies or outbreaks, and that will result in better information for the public when it is most needed.”
AHCJ will be represented by Ornstein; Felice J. Freyer, AHCJ Right to Know Committee chair; and Rose Hoban of North Carolina Public Radio. Dr. Nicole Lurie, assistant secretary for preparedness and response, is scheduled to attend, and Gretchen Michael, ASPR director of communications, will lead the discussion.
Have you been denied information from your local or state health department during an outbreak or emergency? AHCJ wants to know so these issues can be raised during the meeting. Send your stories to felice.freyer@cox.net.
Fellow, veteran reporter is ‘miles ahead’ after day 1
He’s only been in New York for a day, and David Gulliver, already appears to be a big fan of the AHCJ Media Fellowships on Health Performance which took him (and three other AHCJ members) there. “I’m already miles ahead of where I was as a healthcare reporter,” Gulliver writes on his local health site, Sarasota Health News.
Today we met with some of the sharpest people analyzing and leading the efforts to improve the nation’s health care. I’ve already developed a dozen ideas for new stories or ways to improve what I’m doing — and, more importantly, found people willing to volunteer their time and expertise on future projects.
The fellowships are supported by The Commonwealth Fund, and are designed to give mid-career journalists an opportunity to learn about examples of high-performing health care systems, to focus on innovations in care delivery, and to explore a system or its significant parts to determine what makes that system effective or ineffective. Fellows will be able to examine providers of care, insurers, regulators and policymakers.
NAMC folds, qualified members invited to AHCJ
The National Association of Medical Communicators, an organization for medical broadcasters, writers, organizational spokespersons and health professionals who communicate with the public on a regular basis, has disbanded.
In a blog post about the decision, Barbara Ficarra, who was an NAMC board member and is a member of AHCJ, cites cutbacks from pharmaceutical sponsors and changes in the broadcast world. Ficarra, who says “I couldn’t walk away with trying to find a home for [NAMC's] members,” has suggested that people involved with NAMC consider joining AHCJ.
“We’re all sorry to hear about NAMC’s difficult decision to disband,” said Charles Ornstein, AHCJ’s president. “For those NAMC members who write or broadcast health news and still seek the camaraderie of a professional home, AHCJ is a terrific hub for networking, learning, sharing and friendship. We have broadcast members from throughout the country and are always looking to offer additional opportunities in this area.”
Ornstein encouraged journalists to check out AHCJ’s membership categories.
Under AHCJ’s new membership guidelines approved earlier this year, some, but not all, NAMC members could qualify for professional or associate membership. At the same time, the guidelines reinforce the prohibition on people who do public relations work or pitch stories to journalists.
Health Journalism 2011 set for Philadelphia
Filed under: Health journalism, Member news, Studies
Put AHCJ’s annual conference on your calendar: April 14-17, 2011, in Philadelphia.
The program will include dozens of panels, field trips, newsmaker briefings, Freelance Pitchfest, world-class speakers, 2010 Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism luncheon and a number of other special events. Expect sessions on covering health care, health research, public health, health policy, consumer health and the business of health.
Local and national planning committees have begun gathering conference ideas for review. The organization has negotiated a a discounted hotel rate of $149 a night at the Sheraton Society Hill.
More details will be available in the weeks ahead, but set these days aside now for the best annual training event in health journalism.
New AHCJ board seated for 2010-11
Andy Miller, longtime health care journalist, joined five incumbents in being seated on the Association of Health Care Journalists’ board of directors.
Andy Miller
Incumbents starting a new two-year term include Julie Appleby and Phil Galewitz of Kaiser Health News; Ivan Oransky of Reuters Health; Trudy Lieberman of Columbia Journalism Review; and freelancer Irene Wielawski. The six journalists were the only ones to register in time to run for the six open spots, precluding the need for an election. Board member Mike Stobbe of The Associated Press chose not to run for re-election.
Each year, AHCJ conducts an election to pick people to serve on the association’s board of directors. Six of the 12 positions come up for election each year for two-year terms. Board members take on committee duties and contribute to association activities, including fundraising, advocacy, training events, membership outreach and the newsletter. They may be asked to play a role in association projects, such as writing, editing or fact-checking resource guides or online teaching modules.
AHCJ’s own featured as journalist to follow
A bow to AHCJ’s own Pia Christensen, featured in the May/June SPJ Quill as part of a “Journalists to Follow” feature. She runs this blog and the AHCJ website, among many other jobs.
The magazine featured “questions with a bunch of cool journalists and innovators. … These are people in the industry we think have great ideas and hold great potential. In short, you should pay attention to them — not only on Twitter, but in the wider industry. See what they do. Interact with them. Learn. Engage.”
The article gives Christensen’s insight into journalism’s struggle to move into its next successful business model and what future journalists might consider about the industry. “I hope we will be able to look back on this as a transformative time in journalism,” she said. “Without discounting the turbulence in the industry and the many jobs that have been lost, I think this period will be marked by new ways of reporting and telling stories in a variety of formats.”
Plus, she talked about the best practices of journalists using resources such as crowdsourcing and social media and how citizen journalists and “user-generated content” can fit into mainstream media.
Christensen manages the AHCJ website and oversaw its redesign; she developed the blog Covering Health. She also assists with the editing and production of AHCJ’s publications, including books, conference programs and the quarterly newsletter.
She previously was publications coordinator for Investigative Reporters and Editors, where she oversaw website content, edited IRE publications and assisted advertisers. She worked as a copy editor and an interactive producer at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, a producer for Tribune Interactive, a sports copy editor for the Marin (Calif.) Independent Journal, and was job and internship coordinator at the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism in San Francisco. She telecommutes from Oklahoma.
Follow her on Twitter via AHCJ_Pia.
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