Public Health Challenges, Tips

The Federal Information Center maintains an online site where consumer health care materials can be ordered, downloaded, or read as Web pages. Health topics include long-term insurance, mammograms, pap tests, personal health care management, healthy aging, medicines, exercise and diet, medical problems of all sorts, and so on. Some publications are in Spanish.

Rob Rosenthal, Director of the Radio Program at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies talked about diaries during a recent conference call training session. He defines the diary format, offers recording tips, and lists his favorite listening sites on-line. Download a Word document with hyperlinks to listening and training resources.

Here are columnist Chip Scanlan's top 25 ideas gleaned from the recent National Writer's Workshop sponsored by the Wichita Eagle newspaper and the Poynter Institute. It's a list of one-liners from presenters that is worth scanning (and maybe printing and posting near your computer). Here's few examples: On the essence of television writing: "Forget about adjectives and adverbs. Let the pictures tell that side of the story." and "You've got to let go of the good to get the great."

Thirteen brain tumor patients tell their informative and inspiring stories in photos, audio and text on the Musarium Web site. Folks at the Musarium write "Photography and storytelling are as important as they've ever been. Just when you think that television has numbed the brains of most people, these presentations celebrate and enforce the power of still photographs to affect people and tell great stories." A terrific example of health issues covered on-line.

May has been deemed "Mental Health Month" by the National Mental Health Association. Even if you are not planning special activities around this initiative, you may want to check out the online support materials available as pdf files you may download.

Lisa Parrish, a journalist and communications director of VOICES for Alabama's Children attended a communications training workshop at the Frameworks Institute. She combined what she learned in the workshop with her experience in the field to create a guide to help local children's advocates more effectively tell their stories about children and family issues. This practical document includes ideas about acknowledging community beliefs and values, defining the problem, putting data in context, offering solutions and building partnerships.

One of the free features at the Wall Street Journal is a watchdog column by Carl Bialik a.k.a. The Numbers Guy. If you are tackling stats in your health care stories, you might want to read about how the wrong numbers or the wrong interpretation of numbers can skew your stories.

Editors wants journalists to use critical thinking skills in researching and reporting stories. But often, they don't understand how to prompt skills and understanding in journalists. Poynter Online Columnist Jill Geisler ponders how to take those lofty-sounding skills and values and turn them into daily newsroom conversation. She suggests that it can happen through questions, which she says can be far more powerful than statements. Read all about it.

More simple technology solutions for sending audio through your Web site to your audience. Joshua Barlow, director of Transom.org breaks it all down: What is MP3? Why and how to encode it? How simple could it be?

Award-winning journalist Jacqui Banaszynski suggests that there are six paths to storytelling (Explanatory, Profile, Issues and Trend, Investigative, Narrative and Descriptive/Day in the life). Thomas T. Huang of Poynter On-line takes her advice one step further and applies it to diversity storytelling. In his example of the "Explanatory Story" he suggests producing a story explaining how immigrants and refugees can or cannot access health care in your community. What benefits are they eligible for? What bureaucratic, cultural or language barriers stand in the way to getting adequate care? Who's providing a safety net? In addition to the six different ways of reporting and telling stories, Huang also offers different ways of "seeing" stories, or, put another way, recognizing and framing stories. Read more online.