Insights

<p>I wanted to share a story I wrote about a local author who published a memoir on her struggles with bipolar disorder. I <a target="_blank" href="http://egpnews.com/?p=12387">interviewed her</a> about her book, "Bipolar Girl: My Psychotic Self," which is a frank and detailed account of what it was like growing up in a traditional Mexican-American family that did not possess a "manual" for how to handle her illness, and her own struggle to accept her illness.

<p>My former colleague at the <i>Los Angeles Times</i>, Myron Levin, played an important role in unearthing new information about cell phone use and car accidents.

<p>I've been meaning to write about a great Aug. 9 Denver Post article I read while on a trip to that city. </p>

<p>Reporter Karen Augé <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/firstinthepost/ci_13023972">examined</a&gt; the controversial health policy issues surrounding doctor-owned hospitals in the wake of a death of a young woman at <a href="http://www.mycosh.com/">Colorado Orthopaedic and Surgical Hospital</a>. </p>

<p>Here's how she opens the story: </p>

<p>It’s been five years since I started navigating the waters of social
media. I was trying to get a feel for what others were seeing in
MySpace, so I joined it and I soon joined Facebook too. Flickr,
YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter and other sites were part of the plethora of
social media destinations I visited periodically. They all had one
thing in common: they allowed me to socialize and share with others
online.<br />

<p>Medical malpractice cases can live or die on the testimony of an expert witness. Defense<br /> attorneys will go after the expert's credentials with every tool in their kit.</p> <p>One would think that plaintiff's attorneys suing the federal government on behalf of a<br /> patient would make sure they had a doctor with impeccable experience ready to take the stand and bolster the patient's case.</p> <p>Instead, they hired Dr. Alex T. Zakharia.</p>

<p>How are California's community health clinics faring amid the state's most brutal health budget cuts in decades? That's one topic that's seen little coverage recently as journalists focus on national health reform. </p>

<p>"It is not often that you are aware of the revolution right while you are in the midst of it. But we are," says <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16616870">Alicia C. Shepard</a>, ombudsman at National Public Radio. And with those changes come a host of challenges for journalists working in a fast-changing climate, she recently told a group of broadcasters participating in <a href="/fellowships">The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships</a>.</p>

<p>Johnson &amp; Johnson — maker of <a href="http://johnsonsbaby.com/product.do?id=47">tearless baby shampoo</a> and <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2005/tc2005022_7832_t… sugar</a> — has devised another innovation: the time-traveling scientist.</p><p>This may sound astonishing, true believers, but read on!</p>

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<p>Howard I read your article "MSM fact-checking of Sarah Palin." Let's be honest about this entire exercise of 'Examining' Sarah Palin, and that is what many in the MSM are attempting to do here. If Sarah Palin had written the words "Complete Lives System" on her Facebook page in place of the "Death Panels", Sarah Palin would not be part of the healthcare debate. If the MSM didn't think they had a "GOTCHA" story on her they would not have acted, to my knowledge, in a unprecedented manner reaching out to a Facebook page to make National News.