California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowship Application Deadline

Los Angeles, CA

Aug 24, 2006

APPLICATION DEADLINE: AUGUST 24

WHO CAN APPLY:

Reporters, editors, and producers in print, broadcast, and ethnic media with a passion for health care news -- not just those on the health beat -- from Greater Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernadino, Riverside, Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties).

OUR PROGRAM:

The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships program offers journalists a chance to step away from the newsroom to hone their skills in health care journalism. In intimate workshops, field trips and discussions, fellows learn from the country’s most respected health and medical experts, from top journalists in the field and from each other.

The all-expenses-paid program – valued at $3,000 – includes free tuition, meals and lodging. Greater Los Angeles Fellows attend two intensive three-day sessions spaced six weeks apart. Similar trainings are offered in four other locales statewide. Funded with a $1.8 million grant from the California Endowment and offered by USC’s Annenberg School for Communication, this pioneering initiative aims to set a national standard for multicultural health care journalism.

GREATER LOS ANGELES WORKSHOP HIGHLIGHTS:

• Telling compelling stories on health – taught by narrative writer and Pulitzer-Prize winner Tom Hallman, Jr., of The Oregonian.
• Investigating the inside story at your local hospital – taught by Los Angeles Times reporter William Heisel, finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for his quality report card of Orange County hospitals.
• Teaching New Mothers to Nurture: Can It Be An Antidote to Poverty and Its Ill Effects Within Families? with Psychologist David Olds, whose creative approaches were recently featured in The New Yorker.
• Understanding sales pitches on new medical studies – taught by Ivan Oransky, MD, Deputy Editor of The Scientist.
• Covering the junk food wars and the obesity epidemic.
• A look at America's deteriorating health insurance system and why more Americans are exposed to financial ruin, medical calamity, or both – with Jonathan Cohn, New Republic staff writer and author of a forthcoming book on the subject.
• Deciphering the Murky Finances of Health Plans – with George Anders, author and Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist at The Wall Street Journal.
• Finding health stories in state politics: a California Health Care Primer on the Players, the Stakes, the Future – taught by Peter Harbage, a former California assistant secretary of health.
• Testing your skill at covering health news with context and balance – an interactive exercise led by Robert Davis, an award-winning executive producer for CNN medical news.
• Appreciating the life-and-death consequences of cultural misunderstandings and poor interpreting in medical settings.
• Examining air pollution in Greater Los Angeles with researchers from USC’s landmark Children’s Health Study and hearing from port officials on the historic new accord on environmental controls at two of the world’s busiest ports, Long Beach and Los Angeles.
• Covering domestic violence as a health issue, with multimedia journalist Jane Ellen Stevens and Billie Weiss, MPH, Associate Director of the Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center at UCLA .
GREATER LOS ANGELES SCHEDULE:

The fellowships program begins with a keynote dinner on Thursday evening and ends midday on Sunday. Seminar dates for session 1 and session 2 in Greater Los Angeles are: October 19-22 & November 30-December 3 (Greater Los Angeles Fellows are expected to attend both sessions).

WHAT’S INCLUDED:

The Fellowships (valued at $3,000) will provide reporters and editors with tools to improve coverage and to inform their audiences about a subject that daily touches their lives. Workshops have a regional focus, delving into the health issues most relevant to each community and taking journalists out to the field. The California Endowment program also encourages journalists to define health stories broadly – and to examine the nuances of health care issues for California’s diverse populations.

USC Annenberg’s California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships will cover all expenses for lodging, meals, educational and social activities, facilities and experts during each workshop series. We will also reimburse fellows coming from more than 50 miles away up to $200 for travel to the seminar location.

HOW TO APPLY:

For more information and to download an application, go to our Web site: www.californiahealthjournalism.org, e-mail CALENDOW@USC.EDU or call us at (213) 437-4419.

http://ascweb.usc.edu/asc.php?pageID=607