Q&A with KQED's Raul Ramirez: Blogging "Our State of Health"

Editor's Note: The project featured in this post is one of a number of new media initiatives launched by Mary Lou Fulton, a grant-maker at The California Endowment, which also supports ReportingonHealth. We've invited her to share the philosophy behind all of her new journalism and New Media grant-making on community health. To see her post, originally written for her blog, The Media Optimist, click here. 

KQED Public Radio sought to bring citizen voices into the conversation about health in California when it recently launched its new blog, "Our State of Health." Produced by KQED's California-oriented public affairs series Health Dialogues, "Our State of Health" features dispatches from citizen correspondents from Salinas, Richmond and other California communities.

I recently spoke with Raul Ramirez, KQED's executive director of news and public affairs, about "Our State of Health, how it got started and its goals. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: What was the impetus for starting Our State of Health"?

A: We've had the Health Dialogues program for 10 years, a monthly, hour-long program that produces 70 to 80 stories on health issues each year. But there's one thing that's been missing from picture: a non-journalistic but informed perspective. Health is one of those things you can talk about with experts and describe statistically, but it doesn't really acquire full meaning unless you bring the conversation into people's lives. We needed to identify a way to establish an unfiltered means of communication. A blog about communities that experience the health care system and reality of health care in different ways because of their geographic, social or economic realities seemed to make sense.

Q: What are your goals for the blog? What do you hope to accomplish?

A: I hope that it does truly reflect the diversity of California. I hope that along the way that the voices of the citizens emerge and become part of the state conversation about health issues. This blog needs to be fiercely independent and unique to the community. We're going to correct spelling and factual errors, but interpretation and tone and voice (will be) the bloggers', otherwise there's no point to it. We do hope that as health issues arise – a new wave of flu or a new regulation, for example – we're able to ask all of the correspondents to look at our communities and tell us what's happening. We're not trying to create journalists – we do enough of that. There is a streak of witnessing and storytelling that's compelling and meaningful.

Q: How did you select your community correspondents?

A: We were not looking for any particular kind of individual – only that they had communication skills. We looked for writing ability. We did look for a range in age.  We asked them to write about themselves and their communities' health. Knowledge about their community, caring about their community and caring about health beyond their immediate concern is an  important human skill and an important blogging skill. We didn't avoid people who had organizational affiliations (that could pose) a conflict of interest, as long as we disclosed it.

Q: What were their marching orders?

A: We asked them to write (an introductory) post that tells about their community to establish, if not a fact-based, then a perspective-based post. From there on, it's going to be guided by them. We're saying to correspondents, go out into the community so we can learn (from) a wider range of voices, in the waiting room of a clinic or the living room of one of your neighbors. The more we learn about a community, the more we can cover its realities and avoid simplistic conversations.

Q: What has surprised you about the community correspondents and their work? 

A: The talent is awesome; these are good writers. We have Will Haynes – he's 16 years old – he's witty, he's insightful. They're all smart and insightful.

Q: Do you see your community correspondents as a reality check on your health coverage?

A: We hope they'll provide us with unvarnished opinions about our coverage, and I know they will. I'm hoping that we'll have a program and our bloggers will point out what we missed.

Q: Is this health journalism, or something else?

We're not going to ask these people to be reporters in the field. Even though there's absolutely no intent to create journalists, I'm hoping that in time we'll be able to turn to the correspondents and bring them onto our air and debrief them on what they're seeing with health developments in their communities.

Q: What is the editing process like?

The blog will be read by a journalist; the editing will be minimal. We care about clarity, accuracy and transparency, and fairness is implicit in those. It doesn't mean not being critical, it means not being unfair. We're going to be matching each blogger to a KQED staff member as a mentor if they want it. We're not going to be smothering people.

Q: How did you select the communities the blog would focus on?

A.  We considered a number of factors. We wanted to be able to hear from different regions in California  with different geographic and economic realities, as well as ethnic and racial diversity and income diversity.  We also looked for the opportunity to be able to contrast and compare cities that were experiencing similar challenges. For example, in the city of Richmond, there are concerns over air pollution and respiratory illness. In Wilmington, there are similar concerns. We'll soon have rural communities in the Central Valley (we're looking at Salinas and Mendota) and the Inland Empire. It's a patchwork that really reflects the different regions of California.

Q: Who funds "Our State of Health?"

A: It's supported by The California Endowment, which supports Health Dialogues. The blog doesn't require huge amounts of money.

Q: What kinds of conversations do you hope will come out of the blog?

 A: It's to really establish connections between those who make policy and those who are affected by that policy, or lack of policy, for that matter. By posting these perspectives, (we hope) to bring the policymaker and the community people face to face in conversations that don't happen generally. I don't know how many people in stressed communities read blogs. I don't know how much people in stressed communities listen to public radio.