By Theresa M. Olsen
From the Spring 2007 issue of HealthBeat
"Somehow I hid behind the door when they handed out the pessimism gene," Carol Gentry says. Her latest project proves it.
While working full-time as a senior health reporter for the Tampa Tribune, Gentry founded Florida Health News Inc. (FHN), a nonprofit online news service dedicated to informing citizens, policy makers and journalists about health policy and finance issues around the state. In its first phase since launching in early March, www.FloridaHealthNews.org has posted health policy stories from news media throughout Florida, tracked legislative activities and highlighted Florida studies.
Carol Gentry
In her 30 years as a health reporter, Gentry has clearly witnessed a lack of understanding among the public, state agencies and news media about the health care system. Frustrated by the imbalance of power held by special interest groups in Florida, she wanted a way to bring these health issues to the public's attention. "It sounds naive, but I still believe that when people are aware of how the system works and aware of what is going on, you get better public policy," Gentry says.
Gentry has covered health issues for five Florida newspapers, including a 10-year stint at the St. Petersburg Times. She has covered health for The Wall Street Journal and was a 1994-95 winner of the Kaiser Family Foundation fellowship for health reporting.
Kim Walsh-Childers, professor of journalism at the University of Florida and board member for FHN, is excited about the Web site because there's a growing body of research, including some of her own, that suggests the way news media cover health policy issues has a significant impact on how policy develops. "It's particularly important, I think, that there be a good, solid objective source of health policy information," she said.
Walsh-Childers and Gentry agree that the site is a one-stop resource for Florida journalists trying to navigate the complexity of important health policy developments. Reporters can request e-mail news alerts, giving them timely and easy access to vital background information. Walsh-Childers said she hopes the site's content will encourage news media to increase coverage of these issues. But even if that doesn't happen, interested citizens now have a place to turn for Florida health policy information that they might not get from their local newspaper or television station, she added.
Obtaining funds for the project was challenging, despite Gentry's large network of contacts. "Nobody in the journalism or foundation world seemed to have an answer for financing a health news service in a way that wasn't slanted because of industry ties," she said. Eventually she found a match in the Florida Health Policy Center (FHPC), a partnership of foundations dedicated to furthering access to neutral health information. The FHPC could only provide $59,200 for the start-up year, so Gentry scaled back to a model that could be attempted with only her volunteered time, a webmaster, part-time managing editor and a volunteer board of directors.
Without a marketing budget, getting the word out about FloridaHealthNews.org is the biggest hurdle. Demonstrating that the site is having the desired impact will be critical to securing future funding. Walsh- Childers said the board will need to persuade organizations it is in their best interest to fund a Web site that doesn't have an agenda – other than ensuring people have access to a complete range of health policy information. Nevertheless, Gentry looks forward to the site reaching the level she initially intended, with original reporting and additional staff members.
"I'm just lucky that I have a lot of good friends that I've known for years, and they were willing to give of their time and effort to make this happen," Gentry said. "I'd rather stay small and poor and pure, at least this year, until people understand that this is public service journalism."
Theresa M. Olsen is a master's student in the University of Minnesota's Health Journalism Program.
