Bringing a community focus to health journalism

April 23, 2010 at 12:12 pm (California Endowment grantees, community health, community journalism)

By Mary Lou Fulton

The most eye-opening thing I have learned since going to work for a health foundation is this:  where you live has a more profound effect on your health than whether you can see a doctor when you’re sick.  In short, place matters when it comes to your health and life expectancy, ideas that are at the heart of The California Endowment’s community health strategy.

The media and communications grants I make are aimed at advancing this more expansive view of health, which is not the conventional way that health journalism beats are defined.   A 2009 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that health care reform drove 40% of all coverage, followed by public health/swine flu at 36% percent and reporting on specific diseases at 24%.    These are event-driven topics that focus primarily on things that happen today (i.e. political developments in health reform, the latest flu outbreak data, the newest scientific study on obesity, and the like) versus focusing on life at the neighborhood level.

Covering health from a community perspective requires a different approach that combines elements from a number of beats, and it’s great to see a growing body of journalism that tells these stories in areas such as:

  • Land use: City Council decisions on land use and zoning are usually covered by city hall reporters, but land use has a huge impact on health because it defined where parks and walking paths are located (offering more convenient places to exercise), where or whether shopping centers will be built, and proximity of homes to freeways. The California Bay Area city of Richmond is expected to become the first in the nation to incorporate health into the general plan that governs land use, as described in this HealthyCal.org video.
  • Violence: Crime is a health issue, not only when it results in physical and psychological harm but when it keeps fearful people inside their homes where they are less likely to exercise. Neighborhood violence also discourages economic development, such as the addition of new grocery stores, that offer convenient healthier food choices.  And violence has a disproportionate impact on young people, with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reporting that homicide and suicide are the second and third leading causes of death among Americans aged 15-34.  A creative approach to reporting on this topic won Joe Carlson of ModernHealthCare.com an award from the National Association of Health Care Journalists for “The Cost of Murder,” examining the toll that violence takes on communities and on the profits of hospitals in those neighborhoods.
  • Housing: If your home or apartment is toxic or infested with vermin, you will get sick.  Janet Wilson, with support from the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism, wrote about how residents of Maywood, California, are fighting to improve their contaminated tap water.  And The Los Angeles Times reported on an innovative program at the St. John’s Well Child and Family Center  where doctors cure illness by referring tenants to lawyers down the hall to pursue action against slumlords whose apartments are making people sick. As the article’s headline said, “Sometimes good legal help is the best medicine.”
  • Childhood obesity. Weight loss is often portayed as a matter of individual will, and personal decisions certainly are important.  But so are other factors, such as the food kids eat in school, the daily time devoted to P.E. and access to fresh fruits and vegetables.  The childhood obesity cause has found a powerful ally in chef Jamie Oliver, whose new Food Revolution television show focuses on this issue, for which he won a TED prize earlier this year.  Oliver’s TED Talk accepting the prize really makes the case for why this issue matters.
  • Life expectancy. Reporters Suzanne Bohan and Sandy Kleffman won a White House Correspondents Association award for their Shortened Lives series which included reporting on the differences in life expectancy among people who live in three Bay Area ZIP codes — including a striking 16-year difference in neighborhoods just 12 miles apart.

While all of this work is impressive, it is largely “special project style” reporting, which involves temporarily focusing on a topic and then moving on to something else.  For this reason, I’m working toward grants that create full-time positions focused on community health so that this important topic is not addressed only in projects, but becomes an ongoing and essential part of local journalism.

The Endowment’s recent support of investigative reporting startup California Watch is an example of this approach, with two new positions specifically focused on community-level concerns.   Another example is our grant to OaklandLocal.com to train East Oakland residents interested in writing about the food environment in their neighborhood. More grants are in the works, and I look forward to sharing all the great stories I’m confident will emerge when a community lens is used to report on health.

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Being independent doesn’t mean going it alone

April 10, 2010 at 2:15 pm (California Endowment grantees, collaborative journalism, community journalism, media industry)

By Mary Lou Fulton

In traditional journalism, there is a proud and important tradition of independence.   But along the way many traditional news organizations came to define independence as doing everything yourself, rather than maintaining an independent perspective in practicing journalism.  Thankfully that is changing, with a new collaborative ethos that is fueling local media startups and a new awareness among traditional media about the potential of working with others.

A number of examples were shared at today’s get-together of  New Voices grantees who have started an impressive variety of locally-focused media projects:

  • Traditional media are joining forces with neighborhood blogs to create rich local media networks.  J-Lab’s Networked Journalism project gave grants to newspapers to explore this opportunity, and The Seattle Times put that money to good use by collaborating with  more than a dozen neighborhood blogs in a move that makes The Times’ site more comprehensive and sends traffic to the blogs.
  • Meetup.com is being used to support community journalism. In Texas, the founder of the new investigative journalism site The Austin Bulldog needed a helping hand, so Ken Martin created  a Meetup Group that has brought together a small but enthusiastic group that is now working together to bring project ideas to life.
  • Crowdfunding catches fire. The community-funded journalism model pioneered by Spot.us is expanding beyond the Bay Area.  For example, a collaboration between OaklandLocal.com, New America Media (both California Endowment grantees), public media outlet KALW and Placeblogger.com raised  $2,000 to send a reporter to Los Angeles to report on an important local trial that was moved from Oakland to Los Angeles.    Coverage of the trial of a transit policeman accused in the shooting death of Oscar Grant will be carried by these outlets and others.  And from north of the border, the Canadian news site The Tyee has created two funds to support independent journalism.

Today, The New York Times’ Bay Area blog posted about how the San Francisco Bay Area is emerging as a hotbed of nonprofit journalism, and noted that collaboration is a key driver.   “All of these organizations have been talking to one another about doing collaborations and how we can support one another,” said Michael Stoll, the executive director of San Francisco Public Press.  “There are not enough donors or people in these organizations to make a difference on our own.”

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In Praise of New Voices

March 31, 2010 at 4:57 pm (community journalism, foundations)

I’m delighted to have been invited to join the Advisory Board of New Voices, focused on seeding innovative community news ventures in the United States.   New Voices is among the many excellent initiatives of the J-Lab for Interactive Journalism, based at American University and led by Jan Schaffer. This gives me a great excuse to talk up their work!

  • The New Media Women Entrepreneurs program will award $12,000 to four projects led by women who want to change the world of journalism.  The application deadline is just around the corner on April 12.
  • The Knight Citizen News Network is a self-help portal that offers guidance to community members and traditional journalists who want to launch and operate community news and information sites,
  • The New Voices program will provide startup funding for 56 local news ventures.  This year’s application deadline has passed, but there are great ideas and lessons to be learned from current grantees.

In announcing the 2009 New Voices grants,  Bruce Koon, News Director of KQED radio and a New Voices Advisory Board member, summed things up well:   “With all the anxiety about the future of journalism and news outlets, these projects are a breath of fresh air because of their creativity and commitment to serving communities. They’re providing valuable lessons for the future.”

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Local Media That is Location-Aware, Plugged In and Vitamin-Free

March 29, 2010 at 1:45 pm (community journalism, foundations, social media)

Last weekend, I was delighted to speak at the Knight Foundation’s Community Information Needs Boot Camp for local foundations that won matching grants from Knight for projects aimed at finding creative ways to use new media and technology to keep residents informed and engaged.

This was my first presentation to foundation folks after having given many talks through the years to people in the media industry.  When I thought about what I would say differently to my new colleagues in the foundation world, the answer was, “Not much!”  And I offered this advice about how to succeed in the world of local media:

Be Aware of Your Location

I started out by showing a picture of the solar system, with planets orbiting around a giant sun, and people started laughing without my having to say a word.  My point, which thankfully was understood right away, was that when you create a startup it’s easy to become confused about your location.  You think you’re the sun around which everyone else revolves, but in reality, you are just the latest entry in a local information ecosystem that has been around the time when people learned to communicate (and yes, that pre-dates the Internet).   Your job is not to be the sun (or act like the sun), but rather to find ways to plug into the local network.

Networks as Drivers of Media

It was a watershed moment earlier this year when Facebook began driving more traffic to key portal sites like Yahoo than Google.  I believe that network-based information-sharing by individuals and groups is THE driving force in media today.  If you are not taking part in social networks, then you risk being invisible.   Recommended reading on this topic is Pew’s Understanding the Participatory News Consumer.

Fish Where the Fish Are

In learning your local media ecosystem, you need to find and befriend other local content content creators.  Here are some places to go fishing:

  • Facebook’s advertising interface lets you see how many Facebook members are in your community, and drill down by age, gender, interests and more.
  • Find local photographers by searching for your community’s name on Flickr and YouTube.
  • Look for local business reviewers on Yelp.
  • Find tweeters in your neighborhood using Twellow.

Focus on who and why (not just what)

Most startup proposals are long on the “what,” describing features and functionality in painstaking detail but devoting little time to why anyone needs this in the first place.  You should spend time consider the practical needs you want to meet (such as saving time and money) as well as the emotional needs (such as feeling safer in your neighborhood or looking smarter at happy hour).   In the world we live in today, you need to explain why a time-starved, stressed out and cynical person should make time in the day for what you’re creating.

Stop talking about yourself like a vitamin

Often times, earnest community startups talk about how what they are doing is important, is badly needed, will be good for the community and make for a better world.  This sounds like the media version of “Eat your carrots.”  Please stop talking about your projects using the same language as One-A-Day.  Guilt and obligation are not positive ways to motivate someone to take time out of their day to spend with your project.  Be specific and energetic in talking about your work.  Show some personality! Have a point of view!  This is an especially important point for foundation folks, who easily lapse into jargon.

Q&A

We had some time for Q&A at the end, and several questions were about the topic of how foundations could learn to tolerate risk, especially when it came to media startups.  I do two things on this front:  (1) strongly emphasize that funding independent media means it is highly likely that some coverage will annoy us as funders because we would have told the story in a different way or prioritized other topics, but that the overall benefit of the grant will be a positive one; and (2) budget for risk.  Set aside a small percentage of your grantmaking budget for the express purpose of investing in higher-risk or emerging media.  That limits your exposure and creates a way to manage the risk so that it doesn’t seem out of control.

Foundations are always interested in the question of sustainability — will this project endure beyond the initial funding period?  But as Lisa Williams so eloquently said in response to a question about this (and I’m paraphrasing her), “Why does a project need to last forever?  A song or a film are not considered unworthy simply because they have a beginning and an ending.  Why can’t we think of other kinds of media this way?” Amen.

Thanks again to Michele McLellan and Vikki Porter for inviting me to speak, and I look forward to watching all these terrific Community Information Challenge projects as they launch and grow.

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