Reading over the list of 2016 Pulitzer Prize winners makes clear just how essential journalism’s watchdog role is to public health. In 2015, news organizations devoted considerable resources to researching, reporting, and commenting on slave labor in international seafood supply chains; funding cuts resulting in dangerous conditions in Florida mental hospitals; and failures in justice systems across the country.
The list of Pulitzer Prize winners released earlier this week includes several journalists who addressed public-health issues, from black lung to food stamps.
A few recent pieces worth a look
A News & Observer series on employers who break workers’ compensation laws spurs a promise of action from North Carolina’s governor; safety initiatives address hazards in Northeast fisheries; and seven former General Motors workers sew their mouths shut as part of a hunger strike over the company’s treatment of workers.
Stacey Singer of The Palm Beach Post used Florida’s sunshine law to request info on the state’s extensive tuberculosis outbreak, which hadn’t been explained to the public.
I read a lot of stories about how our healthcare system fails people, but one of the ones that’s stuck with me the most is the tragedy of 12-year-old Deamonte Driver, who died in 2007 after bacteria from an abscessed tooth spread to his brain. Deamonte and his brother were covered by Maryland’s Medicaid program, […]
The Kaiser Family Foundation has just released a report on the future of global health journalism, and it’s not surprising to hear that the traditional model of covering global health is crumbling. KFF commissioned journalists Nellie Bristol and John Donnelly to conduct this research, and their interviews with 51 stakeholders found that challenges abound. Budget […]
Ben McGrath has an excellent article on “the NFL and the concussion crisis” in the January 31st issue of the New Yorker. It’s well worth a read (though it might change the way you see the Superbowl), but the thing I want to highlight is the roles of Alan Schwarz and the New York Times […]