The grant competition is open to all journalist members of the Web community at ReportingonHealth.org, including print, broadcast and new media, and to all past fellows of the USC Annenberg/California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships Program. All journalists are eligible to join ReportingonHealth.org.

October 4 - October 9, 2009

The Dennis A. Hunt Memorial Fund for Health Journalism honors Dennis' legacy by providing financial support for ambitious investigative and explanatory journalism projects on community health and health policy issues.

The grant competition is open to all journalist members of ReportingonHealth.org, a Web 2.0 community built by The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships. 

Print, broadcast and new media journalists from anywhere in the United States are eligible to apply, as are all past fellows of the USC Annenberg/California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships. Joint projects between mainstream and ethnic media are given special priority. The grant is designed to cover reporting and publishing-related costs such as travel, Web development, database acquisition, translation services, and a journalist’s otherwise uncompensated time. Both freelancers and news outlet employees are eligible to apply.

The Dennis A. Hunt Fund seeks proposals for stories or multimedia projects that illuminate or expose critical community health or community health policy issues. Proposals can focus on a specific health topic or delve into a confluence of circumstances and conditions that impact health, including environment; social class; crime and violence; urban development; access to health resources or the lack thereof; school absenteeism; transportation or city planning, and  and disparities in health. Topics that would NOT be eligible would include clinical trials, medical research, or the latest treatments for a disease or any project involving a population outside of the United States.

The fund is financed by memorial contributions from Hunt's friends and colleagues. Grantees will be selected by a committee of journalists and communications and public policy experts.  Grants will be awarded for three years, beginning in 2009. Eighty percent of the amount of each grant will be paid at the outset of the project, with the remaining 20 percent to be paid upon publication or broadcast. Stories must be published or broadcast within one year of grant awards. Grantees also are automatically awarded acceptance in the all-expenses-paid National Fellowships of The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships (October 4-9, 2009 in Los Angeles) and are strongly encouraged to attend.

Click here for an application and more details about what's required. The application for the Hunt grants is the same as for The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships, although more detail is required in the personal statement.   For more information, contact Martha Shirk at cahealth@usc.edu.