I’ve just finished up two short journalism fellowships over the last 10 days and head home with notebooks full of thoughts about our profession and citizen journalism. They fall roughly into three categories:
- “Train” (make yourself smarter)
- “Strain” (push yourself harder)
- “Contain” (keep yourself warier).
The two programs I attended were on medical and health journalism. The first was last week at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the second, ending earlier today, at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., outside of Washington, D.C. I picked up enormous amounts of info, met lots of talented fellow journalists, health professionals, scientists and doctors, and got many, many story leads, resources and sources.
Here are some quick thoughts that may help those looking to practice citizen journalism.
- TRAIN: Journalism is a tough job to do right, especially when you’re working on stories that revolve around complicated matters. Science and medicine-related stories certainly fall into that category. Let’s say you want to cover the opening of a local cancer screening center, or you think there’s a particular health problem in your community. To even know how to approach such a story, you’ve got to give yourself some basic grounding in the topic -- an understanding of research methods, some biostatistics, a little biology, a grasp of the public health system. There are countless ways to get that knowledge. You can attending lectures, seminars and conferences that are open to the public, talk to anyone you know who has related expertise, scour the library and web for resources, take classes at local universities. That’s not to say you can’t try to do medical stories without all that, but you’ll certainly have a much harder time getting it right. So, MAKE YOURSELF SMARTER.
- STRAIN: Even if you have expertise in a certain area, it’ll be no good after a while if you don’t push yourself to keep those skills fresh and that knowledge up to date. That means not just covering one story on a topic, but trying for multiple stories to broaden your approach and build on what you’ve learned. It means regularly talking to experts or browsing expert sites, even when you’re not working on a story at the moment. It means reading other reporters’ work on the same topic, or keeping a book or two on your nightstand to keep yourself thinking of it. It means taking follow-up training to sharpen your tools, to meet new sources, to get new story ideas. That’s the way you do the story as well or better than the next guy. So, PUSH YOURSELF HARDER.
- CONTAIN: Once you’ve started to develop some expertise in a topic, you’ll have to work hard not to become so enamored of the subject, or so worshipful of the leading experts, that your enthusiasm spills over into uncritical thinking. From what my colleagues in the medical reporting field tell me, that’s happened repeatedly in the past with reports on cancer “breakthroughs” or other “promising cures” that sound thrilling when you first hear of them, but end up as nothing, or worse, as treatments that desperate people turn to without realizing they’re causing more harm than good. No matter how important you think something is, you’ve got to remember to retain your natural caution, your sense of professional skepticism. Otherwise you’ll end up being used by your sources, overextending on your reporting, or hurting the people you’re trying to help. So, KEEP YOURSELF WARIER.
Now don’t worry, no one expects you to become an expert overnight, if ever. But over time, months, even years, you’ve got to build your know-how. You’ve got to get smart and stay that way. It’s part of what makes journalism so fascinating and challenging. So enjoy it, even when the going gets tough.
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