Fourteen journalists, sponsored by AHCJ, are wrapping up a two-day workshop at the CDC about covering influenza. The workshop included a series of on-the-record sessions with CDC experts to prepare front-line journalists for the upcoming flu season. Public health experts are providing a primer on the flu, examine how it is being tracked, expectations for vaccines and antivirals, and what communities can do to deal with the fallout.
Speakers included CDC Director Thomas Frieden and Anne Schuchat, M.D., director, National Center for Immunization & Respiratory Diseases, as well as a number of other experts.
The AHCJ-sponsored journalists are:
- Diane Chun , health and science writer, The Gainesville (Fla.) Sun
- Tom Corwin, science and medicine reporter, The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle
- Dawn Davis, writer, Caribbean Today
- Dana Felty, features reporter, Savannah (Ga.) Morning News
- Karen Garloch, medical writer, The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer
- Joe Goldeen, health-care reporter, The (Stockton, Calif.) Record
- Nina Hemphill Reedern, health and fitness editor, Upscale Magazine
- Sandy Kleffman, health care reporter, Contra Costa Times/Bay Area News
- Valerie Lego, health reporter, WZZM-Grand Rapids, Mich.
- Andy Miller, independent journalist, Atlanta
- Sonia Morgan, assistant editor, CN Media
- Shanderia Posey, healthscene editor, The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger
- Cynthia Roby, journalist, South Florida Times
- Olivier Uyttebrouck , health/general assignment reporter, Albuquerque Journal/Albuquerque Publishing Co.
Some of the journalists have already written about the seminar and they all will take what they learned this week home to help them report on influenza for their local readers and viewers.
- Flu vaccine no longer just for “high risk” groups, Dana Clark Felty, Savannah (Ga.) Morning News
- CDC: Flu vaccine development needs to improve, Valerie Lego, health reporter, WZZM-Grand Rapids, Mich. Lego has been tweeting from the seminar.
