Taken together these stories on pediatric surgery programs raises serious questions about American hospitals and the care they provide. Here are a few worthy of further examination.
While objectivity might not exist, the key is to check your biases. And recheck them throughout your reporting.
"You can’t just waltz into a community of people who are marginalized and under threat, stick a microphone in their faces and start asking them questions," writes reporter Judith Mernit, a 2018 Impact Fund recipient.
Find the people who can tell the story. Scrutinize death records. Isolate the levers that can create change.
"One of the first lessons we learned was the need for patience with survivors. We were often asking people to relive their trauma when we interviewed them and that carried a high emotional cost for families."
What happens to the growing number of drug-exposed babies? Answers "proved maddeningly difficult to tease out — much harder than we expected," writes reporter Teri Sforza.
How a reporting team overcame countless hurdles to tell a new story of how children are affected by the family violence they experience, from the time they are in utero through childhood and after.
What happens when a poorer, unincorporated section of Sonoma is annexed by a wealthier neighboring city? Two editors share what they learned from telling stories of how annexation is impacting a community's health.
"The biggest thing I learned about people who were reluctant to talk: Emotion affects how people talk about their health, so hearing what they have to say in person matters a great deal."
While the Associated Press started advising reporters to avoid the word “commit” when covering suicide several years ago, many journalists and the public have yet to embrace the shift in language.
