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Program Description
2008 Fellows
Who Can Apply?
The fellowship is open to professional
journalists from print, broadcast or online media in California who
have a passion for health news. We encourage participation from
journalists working for the general circulation, specialty health care
and ethnic media.
How to ApplyThe application period has closed. Future dates to be announced. Please check back for updates or sign up for our mailing list.
Seminar Schedule:Session 1: July 31-August 3, 2008 in Los Angeles
Session 2: October 23-26, 2008 in Los Angeles
Both sessions begin with a keynote dinner on Thursday evening and end midday on the following Sunday.
- New fellows are expected to attend Session 1 and Session 2.
- Returning Alumni fellows attend Session 2 (Session 1 is optional).
- Assigning editors and producers for fellows are strongly encouraged to attend our special fellowship project discussion during Session 2, at our expense.
Program Description:
California fellows attend seminars in two intensive three-day sessions, held three months apart. Fellows have a chance to work on fellowship projects with mentors and to discuss with experts and each other how to cover health news with authority and sophistication.
Session 1
Workshops and seminars will highlight the craft of health care journalism and explore the Fellowship theme, "Healthy Communities." Taught by prize-winning journalists and health care experts, the sessions will include:
- Narrative and Heart: The Craft behind Stories that Resonate with Audiences, a keynote address by Victor Merina, senior fellow at the USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism
- Going Beyond the Fluff: How to Investigate Your Local Hospital, an interactive workshop presented by Charles Ornstein, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Los Angeles Times.
- Understanding Medical Studies and Statistics: A Briefing for Journalists, presented by Erika Franklin Fowler, Ph.D, Robert Wood Johnson Scholar at the University of Michigan
- Context and Balance: Telling the Whole Story in Health News, an interactive workshop presented by Robert J. Davis, Ph.D, MPH, author of The Healthy Skeptic: Cutting Through the Hype About Your Health,
- How to Spot Conflicts of Interest in Health Care
- A Look Behind the Scenes in One of the Nation's Busiest ERs, a discussion and tour led by Edward J. Newton, M.D., head of the ER at LA County-USC Medical Center
- An interactive workshop on “geo mapping,” a multimedia technique that journalists can use to impart valuable demographic, health, and community asset data to their audiences,
- Health Care Reform: Where are we Headed? a talk by Peter Harbage, health policy consultant
Session 2 will provide an in-depth exposure to the latest thinking about
"Healthy Communities" -- how neighborhood life, work conditions, social inequities, race and education influence health. Or, as documentary film maker and program speaker Larry Adelman puts it: "why some of us get sicker more often and die sooner." The new healthy community leaders and public health thinkers, such as Ron Sims, county executive of King County, Washington, aim to quantify and address the shortened life spans and poor health of the underprivileged as well as the "toxic stress" of life in neighborhoods starved of resources and opportunity. The sessions will include:
- A Call to Action: One Community’s Effort to Make Good Health a Right, a keynote address by Ron Sims, the elected county executive of King County, Washington
- Unequal Treatment, Unequal Health Outcomes, a talk by Brian D. Smedley, Ph.D, research director for The Opportunity Agenda.
- Is Inequality Making Us Sick?, a presentation by Larry Adelman, Executive Producer of the PBS Documentary Series Unnatural Causes
2008 California Health Journalism FellowsJennifer Bihm, Los Angeles Sentinel
Suzanne Bohan, Bay Area News Group
Jeanette Borzo, California Lawyer
Kevan Carter, Sacramento Observer Newspaper
Heather Chambers, San Diego Business Journal
Hsing-Huei Chou, Eastern Group Publications
Melissa Evans, The Daily Breeze
Jondi Gumz, Santa Cruz Sentinel
Josh Harkinson, Mother Jones Magazine
Carol Harrison, Eureka Reporter
Eve Hightower, The Modesto Bee
Sandra Hume, Freelancer
Jim Johnson, The Monterey County Herald
Sandy Kleffman, Contra Costa Times
Shatto Light, Asia, The Journal of Culture and Commerce
Shauntel Lowe, Oakland Tribune
Ngoc Nguyen, New America Media
Robin Mangarin Scott, KGET-TV
Debra Sherman, Reuters
Ryan Shih, Sing Tao Newspapers
Liliana Sunn, Enfoque Latino/Nuestra Voz KPFK 90.7 FM
Shaya Tayefe Mohajer, The Associated Press
Laurie Udesky, Mother Jones