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.
The Republic of Zambia is emerging from a recent presidential election resulting in the transfer of power from incumbent Rupiah Banda’s Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) to Michael Sata’s Patriotic Front (PF)—an election seen by most as fair, free, and effective (twice now has the opposition won the presidency).
Participants at a three-day workshop on the dangers of smoking were shocked into silence as medical doctors, academics and activists churned out statistics and evidence showing how tobacco use has become the largest cause of preventable deaths in the world. They also heard that cigarettes were more addictive than cocaine.
Editors Note: A news story set off a nationwide campaign to contain measles which was killing young children in Zambia.
A newly employed reporter came to see me a couple of days after she started working. While waiting for a driver to pick her up after she had finished an assignment, she overheard two nurses talking about an increase in measles in children. They were speculating whether there was an outbreak.
She was unsure about how to get verification for the story.
Editors Note: Zarina Geloo returns to the Times of Zambia sixteen years later.
Everything seems to have changed since I was last the Times of Zambia, it was a little unnerving, but I realised very quickly that actually, things are still the same.
