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Board members and Center staff will take part in two table discussions over lunch – one focused on our program offerings and ideas for innovation and the other on new sustainability models for the Center to consider.
Discussion Leader: Bob Ortega, Senior Writer, CNN Investigates
The Center for Health Journalism helps reporters and newsrooms do ambitious reporting on health -- with a successful Fellowship model as well as an array of other programs. Should we be diving deeper with current offerings, which include our recent work on "engaged journalism" and "news collaboratives?" Should we explore new models and consider new initiatives, either to address continued newsroom challenges or to take advantage of new opportunities, new journalism innovations or training ideas?
In thinking about next steps, it will be important to consider the impact on the news ecosystem of the dwindling number of health beat reporters and reporters in newsrooms overall as well as an increasing number of American communities with no local news outlet. How can we grow and evolve as a center and continue to best serve journalists in a changing landscape?
A recent article indicated that online media jobs have now surpassed all other media jobs, with newspapers facing the steepest declines – 47 percent since 2008. Should we be coming up with different storytelling strategies for the growing number of online news reporters, whose audiences may have shorter attention spans? Or should we consider ways to address the polarization of today's era, where trust in media (and many other institutions) is sorely lacking? The Frameworks Institute explores how vulnerable populations are portrayed in the public sphere in ways that can be divisive. Does that kind of research have a place in our journalism training? Another development of concern for the Center is how many newspapers are shying away from policy stories because they don’t get as many clicks.
Other themes for consideration: What are some of the best ways that we can continue to support diverse Fellowship/program participation as well as to help strengthen ethnic media with our program offerings? Our Fellowship classes are far more diverse than most U.S. newsrooms, but diversity in newsrooms is not what it had been, and ethnic media outlets have been hit hard by the general media downturn. La Opinion – which still advertises itself as the leading newspaper for Los Angeles Spanish speakers -- is down to three full-time reporters covering all of Los Angeles – and one of those reporters spends part of the time helping to lay out the newspaper. How can we support those reporters and their newsrooms?
Additional Reading
The State of Health Journalism in California, California Health Care Foundation, January 9, 2020
Assessing the Effectiveness of the California Health Care Foundation's Health Journalism Grant Portfolio, Aspen Institute, January 9, 2020 (which includes a detailed assessment of the impact of the Center's work)
The Expanding News Desert, Penelope Abernathy, Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics, October 2018
Less Local News Means Less Democracy, Nieman Reports, September 2, 2019
9 Charts about America's Newsrooms, Pew Research Center, November 26, 2019
7 Facts about Black Americans and the News Media, Pew Research Center, August 7, 2019
Key Findings about the Online News Landscape in America, Pew Research Center