Tag Archives: meetings

Conference coverage 101: New tip sheet can ease your experience at the event

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Tara Haelle

About Tara Haelle

Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.

Photo: raymondclarkeimages via Flickr

Covering medical conferences is the bread and butter of many health journalists, especially if they write for trade publications. A previous tip sheet offered tips for how to prepare for covering a medical conference, and now we’ve compiled a tip sheet aimed at making the most of a conference while you’re on the ground rushing from session to session.

Policies, schedules, location layout, press room amenities, conference structure and other characteristics vary from one conference to another, but most of the tips we offer will apply to nearly every research conference, big or small, in any discipline or subspecialty. Continue reading →

Oops! That ‘Open Door Forum’ won’t be off the record after all

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Felice J. Freyer

About Felice J. Freyer

Felice J. Freyer is AHCJ's vice president and chair of the organization's Right to Know Committee. She is a health care reporter for The Boston Globe.

Reporters were taken aback on Monday when they received an invitation to a national phone call billed as an “Open Door Forum” – with instructions that remarks made on this public call would not be on the record.

After AHCJ inquired, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services stated that the call would, in fact, be on the record and that the off-the-record requirement was included by mistake. Continue reading →

Taylor’s top 10 tips for covering scientific meetings

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Liz Seegert

About Liz Seegert

Liz Seegert (@lseegert), is AHCJ’s topic editor on aging. Her work has appeared in NextAvenue.com, Journal of Active Aging, Cancer Today, Kaiser Health News, the Connecticut Health I-Team and other outlets. She is a senior fellow at the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement at George Washington University and co-produces the HealthCetera podcast.

Mark Taylor

Photo: Carla K. JohnsonMark Taylor

How can journalists make the most of their time and energy when covering a scientific or professional conference?

Mark Taylor has covered more than a few scientific conferences in his two decades as a health care journalist. While he says that doesn’t qualify him as an expert, he does admit that “over the years I’ve painfully acquired a few tips for how to successfully cover such massive events.”

Most recently, he attended the annual Scientific Meeting of the Gerontological Society of America (as a GSA Journalism in Aging Fellow), which featured more than 500 presentations, symposia and poster sessions.

Following that meeting, Taylor shared his top 10 tips for efficiently covering scientific conferences. Find out what they are and then come back here to  add your tips in the comments.