Constance Alexander, a freelance columnist in Murray, Ky., has been selected as a featured speaker on the roster of presenters approved by the Kentucky Humanities Council. This is the third time she has been selected as a statewide presenter. She has added “The Way Home: What the Dying Teach Us About Living & Life” to the list of programs she presents.
Beth Baker was hired as the features editor for BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. It’s a part-time position and she will continue to work as a freelance health and science writer.
A radio documentary by Karen Brown, a reporter/producer at WFCR Public Radio in Amherst, Mass., aired in July. “Living with Hypochondria: The Real Costs of Imagined Illness” is available for wider broadcast.
Gerri Shaftel Constant was nominated for four Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards this year. Winners will be announced Aug. 6.
Hannah Douglas is an intern at Illinois Times, which published her first piece on Health Policy in Illinois.
Susan FitzGerald, an independent journalist based in the Philadelphia area, is coauthor of a new parenting book, “Letting Go with Love and Confidence: Raising Responsible, Resilient Self-Sufficient Teens in the 21st Century” (Avery, August 2011). FitzGerald, who specializes in children’s health issues, wrote the book with Kenneth Ginsburg, M.D., an adolescent medicine doctor at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
The seventh edition of “How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper,” by Robert A. Day and Barbara Gastel, M.D., M.P.H., was released last month. Gastel is professor of integrative biosciences/medical humanities at Texas A&M University.
Samantha Gluck is covering health care for a new health and wellness publication in the Cleveland/Akron area: Balanced Living Magazine.
David Gulliver is an investigative/enterprise reporter at The Bradenton Herald, a McClatchy paper on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Terri Hansen received two Native American Journalists Association 2011 Excellence in Journalism awards: Best Environmental Story in a daily/weekly (Indian Country Today Media Network), and Best Feature Story in a Monthly/Bi-Monthly (High Country News).
Harriet Hodgson participated in a panel about “Writing and Getting Your Book Published” at the national conference of The Compassionate Friends, an organization for parents who have lost a child and their families. Her latest book, “Happy Again! Your New and Meaningful Life After Loss,” will be released by Centering Corporation in Omaha, Neb.
Bob Mitchell, of King of Prussia, Pa., was named Editor at CMIO, a TriMed Media publication written for chief medical informatics officers
Kathryn O’Hara was recently elected to the Board of the World Federation of Science Journalists representing North America.
Richard Peck is writing his third “Top 10” article for Long-Term Living this year: Top 10 predictions for long-term care, following Top 10 Movements in LTC and Top 10 Most Influential in LTC. He has editing the magazine for 18 years been in geriatrics-related publishing for 27 years.
Stefan Pinto‘s first book, “Fat-to-Fit: 50 Easy Ways to Lose Weight” was published in March by Vook. It is available for the iPhone, iPad and iTouch and was released in June on the Barnes and Noble Nook. It will be available on the Amazon Kindle in August.
Kathleen Raven was chosen to be a participant in the Online News Association Student Newsroom at its 2011 conference in Boston in September. She will be one of 20 journalism students from across the country participating in live conference coverage.
Bob Roehr has received a National Press Foundation fellowship to the Journalist to Journalist training program and AIDS Vaccine Conference in September in Bangkok.
Lara Salahi was selected as a Society of Professional Journalist’s Diversity Leadership Fellow and she will speak at SPJ’s annual meeting in September about personal branding.
Gary Schwitzer, publisher of HealthNewsReview.org, spoke to the Evidence-Based Practice Centers of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, to the European Health Journalism Conference in Coventry, England, to the NIH Medicine in the Media workshop at Dartmouth, and to the Tufts Web Strategies for Health Communication Workshop. The American College of Sports Medicine also publicly supported the 10 criteria used by HealthNewsReview.org to review health care news stories.
Kurt Ullman was awarded an APEX Award for Publication Excellence in the news writing category for an article in The Rheumatologist on the controversy surrounding the release of Colcrys as an FDA-approved form of colchicine, subsequent removal of all other manufacturers from the market, and 50 times increase in price.
Medicine in the Media
In July, Rochester (Minn.) Post-Bulletin health reporter Jeff Hansel and independent journalist Erica Jorgensen attended the National Institutes of Health’s “Medicine in the Media” training at Dartmouth College. Gary Schwitzer, publisher of HealthNewsReview.org, was one of the speakers. About 50 journalists were chosen for the four-day educational series
Casey Medals
Three AHCJ members were among those honored by the Journalism Center on Children & Families in the 17th annual Casey Medals, which are awarded for exemplary journalism on the dilemmas of children and families.
Karen Garloch was part of the team at The Charlotte Observer who produced “Cradle of Secrets,” which was the winner in the Project/Series: Under 200,000 circulation category. The series looked at the cases of children whose deaths were attributed to sudden infant death syndrome and found that many infants in N.C. slept in unsafe settings and possibly suffocated.
Betty Ann Bowser and Bridget DeSimone contributed to a two-part series that received an honorable mention in the “Video Short Feature” category. In “Families Battle Obesity in Mississippi,” PBS NewsHour went to Mississippi to demonstrate two problems – a fatty everyday diet and a distinct preference for fatty foods – that help drive the obesity crisis.
- Mississippi Wages Fried Food Fight Against Childhood Obesity
- Mississippi ‘Food Deserts’ Fuel Obesity Epidemic
The winners will receive a Casey Medal, as well as $1,000, at an October ceremony in Washington, D.C. The winners will compete for two additional $5,000 awards presented by the America’s Promise Alliance.
California Endowment Health Journalism Fellows
Three AHCJ members have been named National Health Journalism Fellows in the 2011 California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowship Program. The fellows attend six days of workshops, seminars and field trips that explore community health issues. They then continue their fellowship work on ambitious reporting projects over the next six months to a year.
Betsy Cliff is a health reporter at The Bulletin, a daily newspaper in Bend, Ore. She will investigate the causes and incidence of medical errors, particularly at rural hospitals.
Sheree Crute is an award-winning writer and editor who covers a broad range of health topics and specializes in consumer and multicultural health. She will look at whether the latest potentially life-saving discoveries from the world of medical research will have any lasting impact on the nation’s health disparities.
Shannon Muchmore is the health reporter for The Tulsa World. Her project will look at the lack of health care accessibility in Oklahoma.
