Newly named NYT editor spoke to AHCJ about health coverage
Jill Abramson, who will become executive editor of The New York Times in September, welcomed health journalists to AHCJ’s 2007 Urban Health Journalism Workshop. At the time (October 2007) she was the paper’s managing editor. In her brief talk, she discussed the importance of health journalism and the Times‘ expanding health coverage (MP3).
Listen to Abramson
She also was among the speakers discussing the future of science journalism at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in April 2009.
Scenes from day one of the conference
The first day of Health Journalism 2011 included workshops on mapping and charting health data, criteria to help reporters accurately report on medical research and tools to add multimedia elements to health stories.
EWA winners include health-related stories
Filed under: Health journalism, Hot Health Headline
The Education Writers Association announced the winners of the 2010 National Awards for Education Reporting yesterday. Since education and health frequently intersect, I took a look at the stories mentioned and found some worth pointing out.
- A special citation went to Courtney Cutright, of The Roanoke Times, for “Autism: Breaking Down the Barriers.”
- Rebecca Catalanello, of the St. Petersburg Times, also earned a special citation for “His pills cause her pain.”
- Ann Dornfeld, of KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio, received a special citation for “Recess Disparities in Seattle Public Schools.”
Related tip sheets
Health and education: Two intersecting beats
Health and education: Reporting resources
Ind. station runs ‘canned’ story about Fla. boy
Jeremy Cox, medical reporter for the Jacksonville (Fla.) Times-Union, calls our attention to a television report about a boy who suffered a stroke and needed a rare surgery to save his life.
The report, which aired Thursday on WNDU-South Bend, Ind., was produced by Ivanhoe Broadcast News, a media company based in the Orlando, Fla., area.
Cox reports that the story, as aired on WNDU, “features the station’s health logo, ‘Maureen’s Medical Moment,’ along with an introduction and voice-over by the reporter Maureen McFadden.”
Critics have raised questions about these so-called “canned” reports in the past, as Cox points out:
Eric Deggans, the television and media critic for the St. Petersburg Times, asked a poignant question about health journalism a couple years ago. Two, actually.
“As a TV viewer, how do you know when reporters are presenting their own work? And does it matter if the format subtly encourages the audience to think a journalist has done work he has not?” he inquired.
Those questions topped a column about local television news reporters’ habit of presenting health stories produced by someone else as their own work. Without giving credit to that “someone else.”
In a 2009 blog post, Gary Schwitzer, an AHCJ member and publisher of HealthNewsReview.org, says that often stories produced in this way are “almost always about a single idea with one spokesman touting it.”
Certainly stories with a single source that lack independent analysis do not meet the standards set forth in AHCJ’s statement of principles, which calls for vigilance in selecting sources, recognition that most stories involve a degree of nuance and complexity that no single source could provide and seek out independent experts.
New project covers health care in Florida
A health journalism project has launched in Tampa, Fla., supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, reports the Tampa Tribune [see second story on the linked page].
The Healthy State Collaborative Local Journalism Center is a two-year project “aimed at strengthening collaboration among six public broadcasting stations geographically centered in Florida,” according to its website. Those stations are WUSF-Tampa, WEDU-Tampa, WMNF-Tampa, WGCU-Fort Myers, WMFE-Orlando and WUFT-Gainesville.
The site will offer health care coverage through audio, text, video, photos, blogs, social networking, dynamic syndication and mobile applications and hopes to engage a younger, well-educated audience.
Jennifer Molina, formerly of Newsweek.com, is the project’s executive editor. Her staff will include a multimedia manager, a community engagement specialist, and five reporters, each assigned to a participating station. According to the Tampa Tribune report, Molina is in the process of hiring reporters.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting issued a call for grant proposals “from groups of 3-6 stations willing to form multi-platform reporting Local Journalism Centers around a single topic or issue that will result in an elevated quality and quantity of journalism.”
In announcing the initiative, Patricia Harrison, CEO and president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said the centers were intended to “enhance public media’s ability to meet the information needs of local communities at a time when access to high quality, original reporting is declining.”
The project is one of seven in the country to develop news coverage of an issue relevant to each region. [Video of the announcement of the programs.]
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.
Majority of bloggers call themselves journalists
On his Journalistics blog, Jeremy Porter assessed a recent PRWeek/PR Newswire survey on blogging and online journalism. Attitudes in both arenas are shifting fast, and this year’s results are markedly different than 2009’s. The highlight is that 52 percent of bloggers now consider themselves journalists. It’s not clear whether that’s because more traditional journalists have blogs or because bloggers are wielding more influence and becoming more established.
Porter tried to tease out what made the two identities different.
… 91 percent of bloggers use blogs and social networks “always” or “sometimes” for research (compared to 35 percent for newspapers). Put differently, most blogs rely on other bloggers — and anybody they find on social networks — as sources. This is part of the reason accurate and misinformation spreads quickly online — many bloggers copy each other.
…
Talking specifics, the study found that 64 percent of bloggers and 36 percent of online reporters use Twitter as a research tool for stories, but only 19 percent of newspaper reporters and 17 percent of print magazine reporters use this social medium as a research. Does this signal a lack of sophistication and comfort with social media among traditional journalists, or do they know something bloggers don’t, like the best sources aren’t found in a sea of tweets? It’s probably a mixture of both.
And here’s a quick summary of the more interesting survey results. Sentences have been edited for brevity and coherence, but most of it is taken directly from the press release.
- Over 70% of respondents in this year’s survey indicate a heavier workload as compared to last.
- 62% are required to write for online news sections, with 39% contributing to their publication’s blog.
- 37% of U.S. journalists also now must maintain a Twitter feed.
- 31% of respondents indicated that “staff cuts/layoffs” most affected their jobs over the past three years,significantly higher than 2009 (22%).
- When asked if building a personal brand was a consideration in their work, the majority of U.S. (52%) media (60%) responded either “extremely important” or “important.”
- Only 20% of bloggers derive the majority of their income from their blog work; a 4% increase from 2009.
- While 91% of bloggers and 68% of online reporters “always” or “sometimes” use blogs for research, only 35% of newspaper and 38% of print magazine journalists suggested the same.
- Overall, 33% of respondents indicated using social networks for research, but blogger usage (48%) was greater than newspaper (31%) and print magazine (27%).
- PR professionals still consider e-mail to be the most effective means for pitching journalists (74%), 43% of journalists report having being pitched through social networks compared to 31% in 2009.
Reporter’s requests were on behalf of investigators
Filed under: Conflicts of interest, Health journalism
In recent days, news coverage has detailed how a freelance health journalist was hired by a private investigative firm to file Freedom of Information Act requests seeking information on the activities of an official at the Food and Drug Administration. In the requests the reporter filed, the Politico story said, she requested information in her capacity as a journalist and did not mention being paid by the firm.
The journalist, who is not a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists, confirmed to Politico that she filed the request on behalf of the firm, but said “she hoped the FOIAs would yield an interesting story.” AHCJ has not investigated the details of the matter.
AHCJ’s Statement of Principles disapproves of reporters identifying themselves as journalists while working, even in part, for a non-news organization.
The statement calls for independence and integrity. It says: “Health care journalists should remember that their loyalties reside with the truth and with the needs of the community.”
It calls for independence from the “agendas and timetables of journals, advocates, industry and government agencies … We are the eyes and ears of our audiences/readers; we must not be mere mouthpieces for industry, government agencies, researchers or health care providers.”
With layoffs and cutbacks in the news industry, AHCJ President Charles Ornstein said it is understandable that some journalists must seek corporate work to earn money. However, he said, journalists must not use their journalism credentials to seek out information for such non-journalism clients and should always disclose their correct affiliation when soliciting information.
Doctor/blogger: Can’t depend on science reporting
Val Jones, M.D., a blogger at Science-Based Medicine and president and CEO of a health education company, tees off on media coverage of science in a post titled “Why You Can’t Depend On The Press For Science Reporting.”
Jones writes about a recent encounter with a reporter writing about holistic treatments. The reporter interviewed Jones about energy healing and alternative medicine because a local hospital is offering therapeutic touch and Reiki healing treatments.
Jones, who documented the interview – or at least the “essence” of the interview – on the blog, says the final article didn’t include “a single word” of what she said and that the piece is:
full of the usual pseudoscientific arguments: anecdotal evidence, mistrust of scientific methods, a call to “open-mindedness,” an emphasis on “natural” as being synonymous with “safe and effective,” and an “everybody’s doing it, even academic medical centers” rationale for adoption. There was no dissenting opinion – just an unquestioning acceptance of energy medicine.
Jones’ skepticism about journalists’ ability to cover science in a fact- and evidence-based way is clear: “Thank goodness we’re no longer beholden to mainstream media for all our health news and commentary.”
She calls for scientists and health care professionals to “step up to the plate” and contribute to “unedited” outlets such as Science-Based Medicine because “Waiting for reporters to include us in the discourse could take a very long time…”
The comments on the post – now up to 30 – are interesting, with many reinforcing Jones’ view that journalists in general do a poor job. But there are some, such as one from “Fifi” that points out this particular reporter was probably not a science or health writer and was probably writing a “fluff” piece for a lifestyles section. Other commenters point out that it really does depend on who the reporter is.
So, Covering Health readers, what would you tell Jones about how you report science and health news? Do you see the same problems she does or is her generalization unfair?
Petit: Less variety seen in science news
The Poynter Insitute’s Mallary Jean Tenore writes about the disappearing science beat.
She talks to Natalie Angier, who writes about various science-related topics for The News York Times. Tenore writes that Angier is struggling with many of the questions that other reporters are asking, including how news organizations can continue to cover science with few resources.
Tenore also talks to Charles Petit of the Knight Science Journalism Tracker; NASW President Mariette DiChristina, editor of Scientific American; and David Perlman, the science editor at the San Francisco Chronicle.
Petit points to The Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer as outlets that are “doing a good job of reporting on complicated scientific developments.”
-
Join us in Atlanta
for Health Journalism 2012
Fellowship applications
due Feb. 27
New at HealthJournalism.org
- Data gives depth to investigation of patient safety
- What reporters should know about Alzheimer’s and related dementias
- Apply for fellowships to attend Health Journalism 2012
- AHCJ asks Supreme Court to permit broadcast of arguments in health reform case
- Tips for print, online journalists to embrace broadcast opportunities
- Numbers reveal how often, or how rarely, states check doctors’ disciplinary records
- How I did it: Falsified charts in nursing homes linked to patient care
- Access Denied: Looking at a lack of health care availability
- Transparency & medical errors: Public reporting of patient harm is a potent force
