Health Media Jobs and Opportunities: Create "Sticky" Health Content

September 16, 2011

For health media professionals with a knack for generating healthy living content geared toward online audiences, NBC Universal offers an opportunity with iVillage. Also, our Southern California members might want to check out some current openings around Orange County. Or, if you're interested in health journalism fellowships, workshops, awards and other opportunities, you can find the most updated information below.

To keep up with the latest discussions on topics relevant to health journalists, follow Career GPS posts and job listings via RSS. To submit a job listing, please email knativid@usc.edu.

 

Featured Listing

Senior Editor, Health, NBC Universal (via Career Builder)
Location: New York, NY
Status: Full Time
Medium: Online

"The senior health editor is responsible for conceiving, assigning, writing, producing and editing content for iVillage's health channel. The senior health editor is also charged with helping manage bloggers and experts, increasing audience engagement and producing highly sticky healthy living content.

  • Assign, edit, report, write and produce health slideshows, articles, newsy posts, health blog posts, quizzes and more with an eye on SEO and what's trending in the healthy living space
  • Program and update the health channel and its landing pages and promote new blog posts, slideshows, quizzes and more
  • Manage newsletter writers and work to identify stories for a wide range of health newsletters
  • Work with health and marketing teams on health challenges, helping to secure experts, assign and edit related content, and ensure adequate promotional efforts
  • Create content that can live in other lifestyle verticals and work with editors in other channels to encourage cross channel user flow
  • Provide top editing and editorial guidance to freelancer writers, bloggers and associate editor as needed
  • Monitor health channel traffic, analyzing metrics to program accordingly
  • Watch competitors and social media and stay on top of healthy living trends
  • Conceive and execute ideas for new packages (such as diet and fitness and healthy living) and repeatable health franchises
  • Work with the Community Director to help ignite conversations on the boards by promoting health content in community and promoting community in health content
  • Work with social media team to promote health content on Facebook and Twitter
  • Manage a team of freelancer writers and help bring in new experts, bloggers and book excerpts to the site
  • Help manage the health budget and freelancer invoices and work with legal on contracts"

 

New Job and Internship Listings

Senior Content Writer, WebMD
Location: San Clemente, CA
Status: Full Time
Medium: Print, Online

Proofreader, healthcare marketing, Maricich Brand Communications (via JournalismJobs)
Location: Irvine, CA
Status: Freelance
Medium: Print, Other

 

Fellowships and Grants

George Polk Grants for Investigative Reporting, Long Island University
Eligibility: Applicants should have a proven track record as an investigative reporter. Special consideration will be given to journalists who have been laid off or are no longer employed by a news organization.
Deadline: Unspecified
From the Website: This program is intended as a resource for the reporter who always has wanted to dig into a particular topic or who has developed useful expertise – who knows "where the bodies are buried" – on a matter of public interest that may be local, national or international in scope. Grants will range from $2,500 to $10,000, depending on the duration and complexity of the proposed project."

Spring 2012 Global Health Fellowship, International Reporting Project
Eligibility: U.S. journalists with at least five years of professional experience in any medium.
Deadline: Oct. 3, 2011
From the Website: "The International Reporting Project (IRP) is offering up to five IRP Fellowships for U.S. journalists to report on global health topics such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, maternal and child health or new scientific research aimed at reducing the impact of global diseases. The nine-week reporting Fellowships will begin in mid-February 2012 and extend through mid-April 2012. Fellows will spend two weeks in Washington at the IRP offices preparing for their overseas trips and then five weeks reporting on their chosen health topics in the country of their choice. Fellows will return to Washington for a final two weeks of reporting and presentations of their findings."

AHCJ-CDC Health Journalism Fellowships, Association of Health Care Journalists & Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Eligibility: Fellowships are open to professional journalists working in the United States.
Deadline: Oct. 21, 2011
From the Website: "Ten fellows will be chosen to spend a week studying public health issues at two CDC campuses. The AHCJ-CDC Health Journalism Fellows will: attend sessions on epidemiology, global disease prevention efforts, pandemic flu preparedness, climate change, vaccine safety, obesity, autism and more; tour the CDC director's National Emergency Operations Center; meet new sources on policy and research; learn how to tap the agency's abundant resources to produce better stories." The fellowship dates are Dec. 4-8, 2011.

 

Educational Opportunities

Diabetes Issues Today: A Health Reporting Seminar, National Press Foundation and The American Public Health Association
Eligibility: Register by Sept. 26, 2011
Program: Free, one-day program on Tues., Sept. 27, 2011
From the Website: "Diabetes is the 7th largest killer of people in the U.S., affecting 25.8 million Americans and costing an estimated $174 billion. Minimal press attention is given to this subject, though its impact is growing in the U.S. and in global communities. Learn more about the issues surrounding this silent and increasing health problem, from medical explanations, to personal choices, to policy considerations."

Workshop: Reporting on Intimate Partner Violence, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma
Eligibility: Apply for consideration; due date: Sept. 26, 2011 at 5 p.m. EST
Program: The workshop, supported by funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, will take place October 21 and 22, 2011 at the Columbia Journalism School in New York.
From the Website: "The workshop will feature a wide range of national and local mental health and policy experts, award-winning journalists, educators and prevention advocates. It will include background briefings as well as specialized reporting skills training to enhance journalists' capacity to report on relationship violence knowledgeably, ethically and effectively. It will examine these issue across diverse communities and special populations including teenagers, immigrants and refugees; and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals."

Business of Health Care Workshop, Association of Health Care Journalists
Eligibility: Registration is open to AHCJ members and non-members.
Program: The workshop will take place Oct. 27-28 in San Francisco, CA, and will provide resources, skills and ideas that journalists can apply to their jobs immediately.
From the Website: Learn more about how to cover this tremendous economic engine beyond the routine stories, with tools to find essential information your audiences need, crossing the traditional beats of health, business and government. Panel topics will include: tapping the holy grail of hospital data, using online tools for journalists to visualize data, the effect of the economy and reform on health businesses, the insurance battles ahead, lunch with futurist and author Ian Morrison, Medicare at a crossroads" and much more.

 

Awards

K. Dunn Gifford Journalism Award, Oldways
Eligibility: The competition is open to all reporters (print, online & broadcast), freelancers and bloggers. The contest is open to original work published between January 1, 2010 - September 30, 2011. The piece must cover this year's theme - the Mediterranean diet.
Deadline: Oct. 1, 2011
From the Website: "Back in 1990, food enthusiast and advocate K. Dun Gifford started a nonprofit educational organization called Oldways to change the way people eat. He believed that positive and practical solutions, grounded in science, traditions and delicious foods and drinks, would help address the threatening tsunami of chronic diseases. As a tribute to our founder and visionary who died in May 2010, Oldways announces the K. Dun Gifford Journalism Award, an annual prize to recognize and honor the important role of communications in changing the way people eat. The 2011 winner will visit the beautiful Mediterranean Region where he or she is free to explore the culture, food, and atmosphere of the location freely, with no expectations or assignments."

 

Competitions

Digital Media Competition, 5th International Entertainment Education Conference
Eligibility: Entry is open to any individual, group, or company (profit or non-profit) in any country, except for staff of the EE5 Conference. The submission needs to have been produced after January 1, 2000.
Deadline: Midnight, Sept. 30, 2011
From the Website: "The EE5 Conference invites you to submit your most innovative and entertaining short-form digital production on the following topic: Motivating behavior change around any health topic."

Journalism contest on disability issues, Union of Russian Journalists and Russian Society of People with Disabilities (via ijnet)
Eligibility: Entries must be published from Dec. 1, 2010 - Oct. 31, 2011.
Deadline: Dec. 1, 2011
From the Website: "The competition is aimed to attract attention of media to the people with disabilities, their issues and challenges. Potential topics include inclusion of the people with disabilities into society and encouraging them to participate in the life of society actively."