Health/Science

Mar 222013

Tips for Effective Coverage of Immunization

Reporting on efforts to prevent infectious diseases through immunization is a key part of health coverage. Journalists play an important role in examining public health efforts, and in helping readers and viewers understand how and why vaccines are used.

Story Contest for Best Coverage of Vaccines

In Partnership With:

African Health Journalists Association

In Partnership With:

Arab Media Forum

Journalists in Sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan and the Gulf States have a chance to win a trip to the United States or cash prizes as part of three regional competitions to recognize the best media coverage of vaccines and immunizations.

A child is vaccinated against meningitis. Photo: Gates Foundation

Stories published or broadcast in Sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan and the Gulf States between March 15 and May 15, 2013, which includes World Immunization Week (April 24-30), will qualify for the regional contests.

Dec 142012

Health Reporting Helps Reduce Stigma and Discrimination in Zambia

Media coverage of health issues can break down barriers to better information about health, resulting in improved services and care. During her Knight International Journalism Fellowship, Zarina Geloo trained journalists to produce higher-quality stories and launched a health segment in the Times of Zambia.

Dec 62012

Data “Boot Camp” Helps Kenyan Reporter Expose School Sanitation Woes

by Patrick Butler

Irene Choge arrived at the data boot camp with little experience using spreadsheets. But the reporter for NTV in Kenya knew that learning how to use data could help her nail down an important story: why girls in rural school districts started performing badly as they reached adolescence.

Program:

Sub-Saharan Africa: Spurring Innovation and Experimentation in Newsrooms

Nov 132012

New Knight International Fellowships Will Advance Media Innovation Worldwide

WASHINGTON—From digitally mapping Amazon deforestation to launching a news innovation challenge in Africa, innovative work by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) will be supported by a new $3.15 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Oct 112012

Reducing Deaths From Illegal Abortion in Mozambique

by Mercedes Sayagues

On Friday, September 28 – the Day of Global Action for Decriminalization of Abortion – my trainees splashed the gruesome consequences of clandestine abortion across major Mozambican media. The weekly SOL published a two-page story on abortion in Inhambane province, 500 kilometers north of Maputo, while the daily O Pais, Radio Mocambique and three Internet news sites picked up a story from the Portuguese news service LUSA by a reporter I coach, Emanuel Pereira.

The Henry Luce Foundation Program to Promote Excellence in Global Coverage of Religion

Continuing its efforts to improve coverage of religion around the world, ICFJ has launched a two-year program for American and international journalists who cover religious issues. By improving professional skills and increasing the dialogue around religion, ICFJ hopes to encourage journalists to engage the subject more openly and free of bias, and simultaneously more respectfully and critically.

The program is designed to:

Improve U.S.

Creating an Association of Pan-African Health Journalists

Founding members of Africa's first continent-wide health journalists network met for four days to hammer out the many details needed to launch the association.

The African Health Journalists Association (AHJA) is an association of health journalism organizations and journalists dedicated to promoting and providing quality media coverage to improve the lives of people across Africa.

Its goals are:

To help journalists improve the quality and quantity of reporting on health issues in Africa
To advance professional development and raise the profile of health stories in the media
To promote dialogue and understanding between journalists and experts
To encourage journalism that fosters the b

Mozambique - Story on Kuchinga

Using data, health journalists at Mozambique's weekly newspaper Savana proved that the tradition of "widow cleansing" increases the risk of HIV infection.

Mozambique - Declan w/journo at Entebbe workshop

Knight Fellow Declan Okpalaeke, president of the newly formed African Health Journalists Association, is helping lead the way for health data journalism training in Africa. (Photo by Mercedes Sayagues)