2015 Beat Memo, Intro 2 Health Journalism

BEAT MEMO Introduction to Health Journalism, Spring 2015 Learning how to become an instant expert in a topic that was foreign to you the week the before is one of the most valuable skills you can develop as a health and science journalist. It’s also one of the most fun parts of the job: If you’re an information fiend, and if you love the feeling of getting really plugged into something you’re interested in, then diving into a new beat is thrilling. If it feels like a chore, you probably just chose the wrong beat. (It’s key to pick a beat you’re genuinely curious about — something you can really sink your teeth into.)

Health is so broad, with so many complex sub-areas, that even if you spend decades covering it, you’ll have to give yourself crash courses in new topics all the time — when you get an assignment outside your comfort zone, get antsy covering a particular area, or stumble across the crumb of a story that’s on unfamiliar ground. This assignment might be the first time you develop subject area expertise on a totally new beat, but it won’t be your last.

The Internet is a tremendous gift to journalists. But it can be a swamp as well. There is so much information out there — some valuable, some useless, some legitimate, some sketchy. What you need to do is figure out what to pay attention to.

Your first goal is to capture the background information you need to understand your beat, and the mainstream sources of information that will keep you apprised of what’s going on. Once you have a good grasp of the basics, it’s time to search for more offbeat, obscure sources that you can turn into journalistic gold: those unturned stones and story ideas that your competitors won’t see. Think book report, then treasure hunt.

You’ll want to sign up for newsletters, emails, RSS, and twitter feeds from a variety of sources related to your beat (universities, nonprofit organizations, journals, etc.). The more you read in your beat, the easier it will be to assess ongoing developments confidently — to figure out what to ignore and what to pay attention to. Is a new finding interesting and newsworthy? Or has it happened ten times before? Small-circulation publications like newsletters can be filled with interesting tidbits that mainstream publications don’t cover. Press updates from centers that are less widely known may contain gems that other journalists will miss.

Your main goal through all of this is to look for story ideas. Ideas are the currency of our business, whether you work as a freelance writer or producer, or a staff editor. At every level of your research, keep your eye out for conflicts, unanswered questions, emerging areas of research, breakthroughs, innovations — anything new, surprising, little-known, controversial, or intriguing, any shift that might interest a general audience. These will be the ideas that lead to stories.

NOTE: You are not required to stick to your beat for the stories you write for this class. But if the beat memo works the way we hope, you will want to.

PART 1: Follow the general health news (DUE FEBRUARY 5) No matter your beat, you must keep up with what’s going on in the health arena. This will not only make you literate as a health journalist, it will also make sure you don’t miss important developments on your beat.

Part A. General health news releases: There are many specialized health news sites to follow that will keep you up to date with the latest studies and reports. Choose at least three and sign up for regular alerts. Here are a few suggested sites: Eurekalert, Newswise, MedPage Today, Kaiser Health News, Reuters Health, HealthDay, WebMD, NEJM Journal Watch.

Part B. Health journalism: Eagerly consume your favorite magazines/newspapers/online sources/audio/video that include health coverage (a few ideas: The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Scientific American, Aeon, Matter, ProPublica, Nautilus, NPR Shots, Radiolab, Science Friday, Nova, BBC Horizon, It’s OK to Be Smart, longform.org).

Keep the best, most illuminating and well-done articles you find. You can do this by bookmarking them in your browser, but a system that helps you file (and even tag/search) them for the future would be better--something like Google Keep, Evernote, Delicious, Pocket, or Instapaper.

Set up a Google news alert for your beat, so you don’t miss anything interesting.

What you need to do, Part 1 (due February 5): • What is your beat? Write a paragraph about why you chose it. • Part A: Which health news site has been most useful to you so far and why? Name one new finding/development you learned about that you did not see much coverage of in the mainstream news. • Part B: What are your go-to sources for health journalism (not necessarily in your beat)? Pick three and explain why you find each of them useful. • Part B: Identify at least one health journalist whose work you admire (does not have to be working in your beat), and explain in a few sentences what you value about this person’s work. Link to two stories by this journalist and explain in a few sentences why they stand out for you.

PART 2: Identify the main information sources for your beat (DUE MARCH 5) Now you want to get a sense of your beat: the main issues and areas of interest. The first step is to identify the established institutions, organizations, and publications that cover your beat, and connect with them through RSS, email, Twitter etc.

Part C. Universities that have a special focus on your topic, such as the University of California San Francisco Memory and Aging Center, or the Sleep, Metabolism, and Health Center at the University of Chicago. There are many, many such research centers, at universities all over the country (and the world), for just about any scientific or medical you can imagine. Note: What you are looking for are institutions that support research. What you want to avoid at this point are institutions that are only treating patients. Institutions that do both, such as Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, are fine.

Part D. Government agencies that fund and bring together researchers on your topic, such as the NIH Pain Consortium, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, or the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration.

Part E. Private scientific research foundations, such as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which focuses on broad medical research, or more targeted institutions like the Allen Institute for Brain Science.

Part F. Professional societies for physicians and scientists, such as the American Academy of Dermatology, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the American Society of Tropical Medicine, the Society for Neuroscience, the American Dental Association.

Part G. Major patient advocacy organizations, such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the American Diabetes Association. These groups often support research in their topic areas and keep lists of specialists who are ready to speak to the press on their various subjects of expertise. Note: Beware of fringe groups posing as mainstream—whereas the Association of American Physicians is a huge nonpartisan doctors’ group, the similarly named Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is a conservative group with a much smaller membership base. To verify a group you’ve found, search for it on Google, in The New York Times, and on http://www.sourcewatch.org, which has background information on many dubious sources.

**One incredibly useful tool for cutting through the noise on the Internet and finding these gems is the targeted Google search. Type into Google a keyword or two that describe your beat and: site:.edu -- will bring up only university sites site:.org -- will bring up only nonprofit sites site:.gov -- will bring up only government sites

Another useful resource: 100 Trusted Sites for Health Information ( http://caphis.mlanet.org/consumer/ ).

Once you find a solid mainstream source of information on your beat, spend time on its website. Start with the main pages, then search more deeply. Browse their press releases, newsletters and reports, FAQs and fact sheets. Sign up for their press list and newsletter. Many of these groups have conferences; scan the conference schedule to see which topics are being discussed. Some will have forums or discussion groups you can browse or sign up for. Look through the bios of the scientists affiliated with the center: What problems are they working on? What are they passionate about? Dig in and keep your nose for news at the ready.

What you need to do, Part 2 (Due March 5): You do not need to obsess over finding one resource from each of these categories. Ditch the diner menu approach. The goal is not having a huge number of sources. You want to identify the sources that will most aid your reporting. ● Parts C-D-E: What are the main university and private research centers, government agencies and consortiums, and large nonprofits that operate within your beat? Provide a brief description of each. ● Part F: What is/are the main professional societies that operate within your beat? Provide a brief description of each. ● Parts C-D-E-F: Identify two labs, scientists or research projects of particular interest. For each, explain in a few sentences why their work might yield story ideas for you. ● Parts C-D-E-F: List three newsletters, email lists, or press updates you signed up for. For each, provide one nugget of “gold” that you found that could lead to a story. ● Part G: Identify at least one nonprofit that’s active on your beat, and explain in a few sentences a patient-centric or human-interest story idea you generated while looking through their materials.

PART 3: Identify the major outlets for research and industry news on your beat (DUE MARCH 19) You’ve identified some of the major research organizations and centers on your beat, but a wide variety of scientists around the world will be producing relevant research. To keep track, you’ll need to follow not only the biggest centers but also the conferences, journals, and trade publications that are venues for all that research.

Part H. Conferences Scientific conferences are important networking events for researchers, but they are also where a great deal of research is presented before it hits the journals. Identify the conference(s) most significant to your beat. These may include the annual meeting of one or more of the societies you found in Part F, but you should do some legwork to see if there are others. Google keywords related to your beat along with “conference.” See where some of the scientists you’ve come across (at university/government centers, for example) have recently presented their research, by scanning their online CVs.

Part I. Journals Identify the main scientific journal(s) that cover your beat. Many will come up in a Google search. You can also browse top journals by clicking “Metrics” in Google Scholar, and consult the file that we sent before the semester began from the Journal Citation Reports, with lists of journals by topic. Go to each journal’s website and scan the past few months of abstracts. Sign up for email alerts when their new issues are announced, or subscribe via RSS. You should especially be on the lookout for journals that publish review articles and meta-analyses, which is when researchers go through all the relevant recent research on a topic and distill what they’ve learned. These are very useful for journalists, because while individual studies may offer conflicting information, reviews are a good way to get a more zoomed-out look at the field. Part J. Trade publications and Specialty sites Trade publications are the magazines and websites that doctors and scientists read to keep current—publications like Anesthesiology News and Emergency Medicine News. Sign up for emails, alerts, and feeds, so you can find out what people in the industry are talking about and thinking about before it hits more general-audience news. This is a great source for story ideas, as the often dry and technical language of trade publications can leave really interesting developments or story angles hidden in plain sight. Specialty sites provide frequently updated, newsy coverage of a specific topic. Examples are Food Safety News and RH Reality Check, which covers reproductive health. Like trade publications, these sites are typically read mostly by people who work in that field, and so are great ways for you to be “in the know.” If you find a specialty site that appeals to you, try to assess how journalistic their methods are (is the reporting open-minded, thorough, and balanced?), who supports it financially, and what the agenda is.

What you need to do, Part 3 (Due March 19): ● Part H: List at least one major conference that involves research in your beat, and browse the sessions and presentations from their most recent meeting. Explain a topic/question/conflict that was a keynote or focus or recurring theme at the most recent conference. ● Part I: List the main scientific journals you are following for your beat. Explain why they are useful and how they are different from each other. ● Part I: Read several review or meta-analysis journal articles from the past five years that draw your interest. Report back with a paragraph about an area of your beat that is either “hot” right now (a few recent reviews address it) or controversial (researchers seem to be coming to very different conclusions). Explain what the issue is and why it’s interesting, citing at least three review articles. ● Part J: Identify at least one trade publication you are receiving alerts from, and provide one nugget of “gold” that you found as a result that could lead to a story. Be sure this is not something that has been written about much in the mainstream press.

PART 4: Identify more obscure sources for your beat (DUE APRIL 16) Once you’ve identified the mainstream sources of news on your beat, dig deeper to find off-the- beaten-track sources of updates and perspectives. These will help you unearth gems that other journalists have not found.

You should proceed with equal doses enthusiasm and caution. Avoid people/sources that are overtly biased or pushing pseudoscience of any kind (if you see one kind of pseudoscience coming from a source, you should treat everything they write as suspect). Look for people who are reputable, with a background in the subject matter and not an ax to grind.

But don’t be too cautious: You’ll have to be a bit intrepid to identify the sources who will bring richness to your reporting. Avoid those who are part of the echo chamber, who just post links to The New York Times (etc.) on Twitter or their blogs. Instead, seek out for people who post regularly, cite their sources, and expose you to information you haven’t seen elsewhere. Part K. Twitter lists You may have already subscribed to tweets from some of the institutional sources you found in Part 2. That’s great. Now it’s time to identify lesser-known Twitter accounts worth following because they offer special insight or perspective on your beat.

You can do this by searching for news about your beat on Twitter (what are people saying about it?), seeking out the Twitter accounts of interesting experts/activists, and even just searching key words. Be sure to the accounts you subscribe to are active (post at least once every few days) and reputable, and then start collecting them in a Twitter list specific to your beat. (To keep that list useful, remove people who tweet off-topic too much.)

Part L. Professional/academic bloggers Look for the most thoughtful and prolific bloggers on your beat. These may be doctors, health professionals, psychologists, epidemiologists, healthcare economists, or even well-informed patients/advocates. (Note that patient blogs that are more like diaries are not as useful at this stage—you’re looking for newsy, research-oriented blogs that will give you an insider perspective.) These can be treasure troves for fresh story ideas.

Some of the Twitter accounts you found in Part K may have blogs attached to them, but push yourself to find more. You can start by looking for good individual health-related bloggers on the news sites with blogging networks full of scientists and professionals, like Scientific American, Psychology Today, and Forbes. You should also look through sites like KevinMD, The Health Care Blog, and The Incidental Economist, which often feature guest bloggers or contributors who have personal blogs elsewhere. Every time you find a blog with interesting info, subscribe via RSS or email.

Part M. Patient Communities Next, identify the semi-private online venues where people on your beat—patients, advocates, specialists, researchers, etc.—talk amongst themselves. These can take a variety of forms.

If there is a subreddit related to your beat (https://www.reddit.com/subreddits/search), follow it. Use Facebook’s Graph Search to see if there are relevant Facebook groups you should be a part of. You also can Google for old-fashioned discussion boards or forums, where patients or others discussing your beat convene. Some communities also use listservs, either privately hosted or via Yahoo! Groups or Google Groups. (Join if you can to listen in, though not if it’s not open to journalists.) Lastly, see if there are any local Meetups—you generally wouldn’t want to intrude on these, but group organizers can be good point people for finding sources.

What you need to do, Part 4 (Due April 16): As with Part 2, the goal here is not to find the most sources, but the most useful sources. ● Part K: Send a link to your Twitter list. Write a sentence or two about why you chose to follow each of these people. ● Part L: List at least two blogs that you think will be particularly useful to help you keep up with your beat. Explain what you like about each. ● Parts K-L: Identify three people you found via Twitter or a personal blog who would be good sources to keep on file. These should be experts, advocates, or professionals who you could turn to for a second opinion on a study or an issue, people who have a good zoomed-out view of the the field and an interest in communicating with the public. Include names, credentials, how you found them (Twitter handle or blog URL), and a sentence about who they are / why they are useful. ● Part M: Identify at least one online “place” where people crucial to your beat gather or talk. Explain in a few sentences who is a part of this community and why it might be useful to you. ● Parts K-L-M: What are people within your beat talking about that the public doesn’t know about? Explain in a paragraph at least one intriguing thing you’ve learned about via these sources. You’re looking for the kind of nugget you could dig into a little more, consult the research on, and develop into a story that might surprise and delight an editor.