By Olivia Niland Student Writer

USC Annenberg's Norman Lear Center was featured on Marketplace radio.

 

American Public Media's Marketplace radio aired a segment Oct. 10 about the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center's recent $500,000 grant from The California Endowment. Hollywood Health & Society, a program with the Norman Lear Center, received the 18-month grant to help incorporate story lines around the Affordable Care Act into television. In the Marketplace interview, Martin Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center and Norman Lear Professor of Entertainment, Media and Society at USC Annenberg, explained the reason behind the program and the grant: "Why try to get your public health message into fictional story lines? People learn from TV," said Kaplan. "Even if they know it is fiction, even if they know if writers can make stuff up, especially in the realm of medicine and public health, if a doctor says something to a patient, people tend to think that someone has checked that, that it’s true.” Hollywood Health & Society was created to ensure the accuracy of health and climate change information on scripted television. Half of the $500,000 grant is dedicated to Spanish-language television. The award was also covered by Deadline on Oct. 9 in an article which noted that among Hollywood Health & Society's Advisory Board are Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, Hostages' co-EP Jennifer Cecil and Disney Junior's Chris Nee.