Career Development : Calendar

Covering the vaccine rollout: How to connect to audiences

03/17/21

March 17, 2021, 2 p.m. ET

With a slow rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, it’s a story for health journalists to cover for the next several months or longer. Learn about more resources and how to reach your audiences with some of the authors of the Vaccine Education Toolkit, a project geared for journalists. Created after a survey by the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute with help from the National Association of Broadcasters and the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, the toolkit lets you dig through survey findings and finding data sources, leading experts and more. The webcast can help you find stories and make deadlines.

• Andrew Finlayson, executive vice president of digital and social media strategies, SmithGeiger

• Dan Reines, senior vice president, research insights, SmithGeiger

• Monique Luisi, assistant professor of strategic communication, Missouri School of Journalism

• Moderator: Bara Vaida, AHCJ topic leader/infectious diseases

Andrew Finlayson is the executive vice president of digital and social media strategies at SmithGeiger, an international research and consulting company based in California where he works with leading media companies examining opportunities in TV, digital, streaming and content monetization. He joined SmithGeiger after being a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University. He is the recipient of numerous Emmy and Edward R. Murrow regional awards, has reported from Asia, South America, Europe, Russia and across the U.S., and before COVID-19, regularly spoke at industry conferences regarding audience trends. He is also the author of the business book, “Questions That Work” (Harper Collins) that has been translated into five languages.

Dan Reines is senior vice president, research insights for SmithGeiger. With nearly two decades of experience in a variety of news and entertainment organizations, he has a combination of rigorous analytical abilities, an abiding journalistic perspective, and a knack for compelling writing and clear storytelling. Reines' work at SmithGeiger includes strategic research and consulting for news, entertainment and tech clients, among them NBC and ABC News, CNBC, Participant Media, Google, the Discovery Networks, ESPN, T-Mobile, FOX Sports, the BBC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among many others. His professional background includes nearly two decades in print journalism as a writer and editor for national and local newspapers and magazines. He has reported on everything from the music industry and pop culture to sports to business and business ethics, and his writing on investing and public relations has appeared in two textbooks. Dan has an MBA with a marketing emphasis from Pepperdine’s Graziadio School of Business and Management, and a BA in Mass Communications from the University of California at Berkeley.

Monique Luisi is an assistant professor of strategic communication in the Missouri School of Journalism. Her research focuses on media messages and audience interpretation of messages related to disease, treatments, and the lives of minority groups. Using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, she had conducted research on such topics as the HPV vaccine on social media, Ebola in U.S. newspapers, mental health in the Black American community, and coming out in sports. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Vaccine, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Howard Journal of Communication, Journal of Homosexuality, and others. Some of these works have also been featured in publications from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.