Provide names of other journalists involved.
Writer Susan Crandell Photographer/illustrator Dan Winters Health director Julie Bain Creative director Jeffrey Saks
List date(s) this work was published or aired.
November 2011 issue
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
Ladies’ Home Journal has long been known for its credibility, authority and leadership in women’s health. Part of the magazine’s mission has always been to bring vital and useful medical information to our millions of readers. As the magazine approaches a March 2012 redesign, it will have a new look, will feature more real women’s voices and will connect with readers in a more open, informal, honest and relatable way. As we evolved toward this new mission in 2011, we decided to shed light on a subject we might not have covered just a year or two ago: pee. And why not? It’s something we all do up to eight times a day–or more if something’s going wrong. And something does go wrong far more often in women than it does in men. Yet we seldom talk about it and get embarrassed when those “gotta go” commercials air on TV. We didn’t want to do a standard reported “women’s service” approach to this subject. We wanted to make it not just informational and useful but also fun and maybe even awe-inspiring. Writer Susan Crandell captured just the right tone. We also worked from the beginning with our creative director, Jeffrey Saks, and the brilliant artist and photographer Dan Winters, to construct a series of whimsical mechanical plumbing systems to mimic women’s unique urinary systems, as well as some complementary illustrations. We organized all the information into sections, from “Common Pee Problems” with symptoms and treatments to a fascinating color wheel of pee. We edited the text to feel candid and relatable–with a sense of humor, and we worked hard to make the subheads funny without being cutesy. Everyone on staff who read the article said they found it amusing but also learned a lot of useful stuff!
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
Writer Susan Crandell did a lot of good old-fashioned reporting, reading a lot of medical research and historical lore on pee.
Explain types of human sources used.
Crandell interviewed several top experts on women’s urinary health, including Ziya Kirkali, M.D., senior scientific adviser in the division of kidney, urology and hematology at the NIH, ob-gyn Sandy Culbertson, M.D., at the University of Chicago and Wendy Cohan, R.N., author of The Better Bladder Book. We also tapped into our Facebook followers to get real-women’s stories of urinary problems, and included several of those throughout the layout under the subhead “You Go, Girl!”
Results:
The article scored through the roof in our editorial research. Readers reacted to the story with enthusiasm and often shared their own urinary troubles that they may have never talked about before. Thelma Bjorklund wrote to us: “This is the absolute best article on the female urinary system I have ever seen: clear, concise, accurate information with attention-grabbing illustrations. This should be available in every physician’s office in the country!” Another reader thanked us: “I had interstitial cystitis and was treated with medication and diet changes, which helped control it. But whenever I go off the diet or am under a lot of stress, the pain returns. So I try to manage all the pesky variables each day. Thanks for the extensive detail and valuable information!”
Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
None.
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
Don’t take the safe route and censor yourself or think readers will be squeamish or offended. We took the edge off a sometimes-taboo topic by making the package impossible to resist: We commissioned clever artwork, creative packaging with easy-to-digest sections and fun approaches like the color wheel, plus not being afraid to have a light tone and have some fun with the bathroom humor. We even included a link to lhj.com, where we compiled jokes and videos so funny “they’ll make you pee your pants.”