Knight Journalism Fellowship - Part I
“The CDC had always seemed like a mysterious, closed institution to me,” says Mary Loftus, Atlanta-based health feature writer and former assistant editor for the New York Times Company’s regional newspapers. When she heard about the new Knight Journalism Fellowship and learned that it would allow her to spend four months inside CDC, she immediately applied. “It sounded like the opportunity of a lifetime,” she says.
Last spring, Loftus and five other mid-career science and medical journalists were selected to become Knight Journalism Fellows at CDC - the first class funded by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. In July, the journalists left their daily reporting duties to immerse themselves in a science-based, hands-on exploration of public health at CDC and state and local health agencies.
“We did controlled studies, sat in on the Epidemic Intelligence Service training classes, and worked in the field alongside CDC researchers. It was an eye opener to see what these scientists do and to be part of it,” says Loftus, who worked with a syphilis elimination team in Indianapolis and accompanied an EIS officer to rural Arkansas to search for the cause of a cluster of heart-failure cases among new mothers.
Moji Makanjuola, the only international Knight Fellow, helped investigate an outbreak of cryptosporidiosis in Columbus, Ohio, and participated in developing health education programs for a Native American community in North Carolina. While collecting data at Atlanta’s Grady Hospital, Makanjuola, who heads the health and environmental desk at the Nigerian Television Authority, worked with HIV and AIDS patients - an experience, she says, that profoundly impacted her life.
“In Nigeria, people with HIV are outcasts. I am now determined to use the facts I’ve learned to reach people and stimulate change,” Makanjuola says. “I see what a symbiotic relationship health journalists have with public health scientists. We need each other to bring accurate knowledge of public health issues to the public.”
CDC Foundation Offers Journalists First-hand Experience in Public Health - Part II
How do journalists gain in-depth knowledge about a subject to prepare an accurate and thoughtful story? Often, with the pressures of deadlines and limited access to expert sources, developing a broad understanding of any topic can be a challenge. And translating technical information for the public is often an even greater hurdle.
That’s why the CDC Foundation partnered with CDC and the Miami based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to develop a journalism fellowship at CDC that would strengthen reporting of public health and help ensure that communities receive vital health messages.
“We are a supporter of mid-career programs that allow journalists to leave their day-to-day routine and get into a setting where they are able to study areas in greater depth,” says Del Brinkman, former director of journalism programs at Knight Foundation. “The CDC Foundation approached us about funding fellowships at CDC, and we had been looking for specialized areas that need better understanding. Medical journalism certainly falls into that category. It touches everyone’s lives, and reporting needs to be at the highest standards possible.”
The first class of Knight Journalism fellows accepted into the four month program all had at least five years of reporting experience and impressive track records. The journalists spent the first three weeks in an intense epidemiology training class and then went to separate assignments within CDC. The highlight for most was participating in CDC field investigations - from investigating an outbreak of E. coli in northeastern Ohio to traveling to rural Alaska to study an outbreak of an antibiotic-resistant bacterial illness. Although the journalists agreed not to produce any articles during the program, they finished with dozens of story ideas.
“One of the problems in reporting public health is to get journalists excited about it,” says Carol Gentry, health reporter for The Wall Street Journal and director of the Knight Journalism Fellowship program. “That’s not hard to do once people come here and see what goes into it - the surveillance, the monitoring, the way people here at CDC study how to talk to people so they’ll listen to their messages,” she says.
The need to get accurate health information to the public is something reporters and public health specialists agree is important. “I think there is a lot we can teach each other about how to get people to listen to a public health message,” says Gentry. “We all need to come together and realize the big picture. We all benefit when the public gets better information about public health.”