The following is an analysis of the Association of Health Care Journalists, also known as AHCJ. The Web site can be found at healthjournalism.org.
The AHCJ was created after a group of journalists met and felt the need that a group was needed to help ensure accurate and professional health and health care information be available to all journalists.
Membership includes professional journalists, freelance journalists, journalism and non journalism instructors, as well as graduate and undergraduate students.
The mission of the AHCJ and the Web site is to advance public understanding of key health care issues, as well as improve quality, accuracy and visibility of health care reporting, writing and editing.
The AHCJ has six important goals. The first is to support the highest standards of reporting, writing, editing and broadcasting in health care journalism for the general public and trade publications. Second, the AHCJ strives to develop a strong and vibrant community of journalists concerned with all forms of health care journalism. The third goal is to raise the stature of health care journalism in newsrooms, the industry and the public as a whole. The fourth goal is to promote understanding between journalists and sources of news about how each can best serve the public. The fifth goal is to advocate for the free flow of information to the public. Lastly, an important goal is to advocate for the improvement of professional development opportunities for journalists who cover any aspect of health and health care.
The site includes recent headlines and blogs on the home page, as well as a resources tab to help journalists find health and health care information quickly. Under the resources tab, journalists can find hot health headlines, AHCJ publications, electronic mailing list, tip sheets, contest entries, latest reports and studies, AHCJ articles, data, Web sites and Web casts. Another way to find information is through the “Select Topic” box on the upper right of any page on the Web site. Here, journalists can sort through an array of health and health care related topics. Other information on the site includes links to important sites, reporting guides and Facebook and Twitter links.
Journalists can find this Web site very useful when it comes to stories concerning anything health and health care related. It can also help get the facts straight as well. There are fact sheets under the resources tab that provide statistics and other facts that can help fill in gaps within stories or make sure a source is accurate and telling the truth. The site goes into much more detail about health related topics than if a journalist were to get the details and information from the Associated Press or other news sources.
The site can also be helpful to journalists, as well as journalism organizations, when they encounter problems in the workforce. For example, journalists and journalism organizations are asking the FDA to retract their policies of mandating permission from an agency official in order to conduct interviews. Another issue is that journalists are encountering variations of released numbers when pertaining to the extent of H1N1 patients. The site is not only helping put journalists and journalism organization's concerns out there, but the site is also helping retrieve input and feedback from those who read the articles. The AHCJ wants to know what journalism organizations and journalists have encountered, how they dealt with the situation and what the current status is of the situation at hand.
I would rate the Web site at a four out of five. The “Select Topic” box is very helpful when letting journalists narrow down to certain topics. The pages that come up under topics include links to other sites that are very helpful, such as informational sites or blogs of experiences or expertise. It also seemed to be up to date for the most part. Health and health care are very broad subjects, but the AHCJ helps journalists narrow down resources in order to help journalists obtain information faster and report accurately. The only problem I encountered was limiting searches even more. For example, I wanted to search for lymphoma, a type of cancer, but the site only allows a search for cancer. If it would let journalists select more detailed topics, the site would easily be a five out of five rating.
Sites like this seem extremely important in order to cut research time for journalists. Journalists, who are assigned a niche such as healthcare, can utilize the site to access information that is important and relevant to the covered field. This site also gives a journalist gathered updates that are important to justify newsworthiness. Making the "Select Topic" tool more specific would obviously help. However, journalists should be thankful for resources that help the credibility of their own reporting.
ReplyDeleteI am very glad to know about this site. It seems like a very reliable and resourceful website for journalists and others who just want to brush up on their understanding of important health issues. The "select topic" tool is very helpful and i agree that a more specific way to search would be useful. It is a lot of useful information and I am glad a site like this exists.
ReplyDeleteIn class discussion, we have talked before about the journalist's goal to find truth. Web sites like this help journalists do that because it provides a wide array of verifiable resources. By providing this information, it has the possibility of raising the standard of journalism to avoid just asking some random health official instead of an informed stakeholder on the matter.
ReplyDeleteI had never even heard about this Web site before! I certainly agree that the site is easy to use and provides a vast amount of information. I also thought the "select topic" tool was very helpful... however I think I like it giving you categories for certain information you are searching for. I think its useful because sometimes you search for something and numerous sites provide you with so much information and most of the time it isn't accurate. However if I were searching for a very specific area of something then I certainly agree with how it wold be extremely helpful for it to allow us to be more specific.
ReplyDeleteThe Association of Health Care Journalists sounds like a great site. One of the greatest debates of today is the administration's Health Care bill and doing quality, in-depth reporting on it can be difficult. AHCJ could be very helpful in taking such a broad and complex topic and breaking it down into an easily accessible platform.
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