The Fellowships are open to professional journalists from print, broadcast or online media in California, including freelancers, who have a passion for health news. We encourage participation from journalists working for the general circulation publications, specialty health care and ethnic media, as well as small and major market broadcast outlets.

December 3 - December 6, 2009 & March 11 - March 14, 2010

In Session 1, Fellows hone their craft, gain new perspectives on health issues and come away with great sources and strategies to deal with complex health data and research reports. Presentations on how to create multimedia reports also broaden Fellows' reporting skills, helping them to reach a wider digital audience.

Session 2 provides an in-depth exposure to the latest thinking about a compelling health issue.  For our 2008 program, the topic was "Healthy Communities"   -- how neighborhood life, work conditions, social inequities, race and education influence health.  

• New fellows are expected to attend Session 1 and Session 2.
• Returning Alumni fellows are only required to 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.

Between the two sessions and for three months after the second session, Fellows are given the opportunity to confer by phone and e-mail with veteran journalists who guide them through work on major Fellowship projects.  During the Fellowship sessions, Fellows get plenty of time to discuss with experts, and with each other, strategies for covering health news with authority and sophistication.

 

• A behind-the-scenes look by 60 Minutes Producer Henry Schuster at the making of his Peabody award-winning documentary Lifeline, which starkly portrays third world conditions for uninsured Americans by following Remote Area Medical, an international medical relief agency that now operates in the U.S.
• A field trip to one of California’s greatest environmental battlegrounds, the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, where local activists fought and won significant reductions in airborne pollution caused by goods transport industries including shipping, railroads and trucking.
• An exploration of the medical, legal and emotional end-of-life issues all families face when caring for a dying loved one, with best-selling author and New York Times columnist Jane Brody, author of “Jane Brody’s Guide to the Great Beyond.” 
• A powerful insider’s expose of the U.S. insurance industry’s effort to derail health reform, with Wendell Potter, a former senior health insurance industry executive who recently testified at a  U.S. Senate committee hearing.
• A nuanced exploration of racial and ethic disparities in health, with Brian Smedley, Vice President and Director of the Health Policy Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C.
• A primer on reporting on medical studies authoritatively, with Erika Franklin Fowler, Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan, whose research tracks the errors medical journalists make through misunderstandings of the numbers.
• An interactive workshop on how to avoid the unhealthy influence of spin masters in the field of health reporting with Robert Davis, author of “The Healthy Skeptic: Cutting Through the Hype about Your Health.”
• A hands-on workshop on strategies for rich multimedia and multi-platform health storytelling with Craig Rosa, Interactive Web Producer for the noted science, environment and nature program QUEST at KQED. Rosa will look at enriching stories with raw, short-form audio, acquired video, slideshows, interactive online maps and more.

Part II: March 11-14, 2010