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1995 winners Merck Health Science Journalism Student Awards Program (l-r): John Doorley, Merck; Linda Richards, Columbia University; Lori Wolfgang, University of Maryland; Rachel Donner, Northwestern University; Elana Shapochnikov, Brenda DeKoker, Rutgers University; Prof. Jerome Aumente, Rutgers University. 
1996 winners Merck Health Science Journalism Student Awards Program (Sitting l-r): Kelli Stauning, Stefanie Wilsey, Stephanie Barrett, Anita Srikameswaran, (Standing l-r): Stephen Solomon, Jerome Aumente, Jon Ziomek, Suzanne Zolfo, Michael Watts, Mary Landers, Dan Rutz, Joan London, and Robert Logan. |
The Journalism Resources InstituteOver the years, the Journalism Resources Institute has received funding for a variety of health and media training initiatives. Workshops were held for professional journalists, and a second for high school editors, in covering the AIDS crisis. Other workshops trained journalists to report on mental health issues or issues of aging and health. Environmental communications strategies was the subject of other workshops in the tri-state area. A current research project analyzes media coverage of prostate cancer, and, in conjunction with the medical school, we will interview selected patients and their families as to information sources and decisionmaking. In each of the above instances, undergraduate and graduate students were involved in the research, in the preparation of resource materials for the training and in the actual workshops. One intern assigned to the institute later began a successful career as a magazine editor at a health publication. Currently, work students assigned to the JRI as part of their financial aid program are being taught to do library research of media issues, including the health, medical and science areas. The division of an undergraduate student's life into 120 credits and forty or so courses is an institutional convenience, but learning and exploration are organic, interrelated experiences that require flexible alternatives. The opportunity to do research, read deeply into topics, do field work, interviews, and surveys and to build upon the work over several semesters, is a process that the JRI has developed over time and might be considered elsewhere. The JRI has also administered nearly $2 million in projects in Central and Eastern Europe to provide training of print and broadcast journalists and to assist universities in curriculum development. As a visiting professor, I am currently helping Jagiellonian University in Krakow with its newly created International School of Journalism, and chairing its international advisory board. Students from that school are working on health and media research and study projects. Their counterparts at Rutgers are doing field research in Poland and in the United States to better identify public needs in health and medical information and designing future training workshops for professional journalists and students. Such initiatives are possible with more flexible courses of study and field assignments at our institute under faculty supervision. Another initiative we wish to explore at the JRI in coming years is the design of case studies so that in journalism training all aspects of, for instance, coverage of AIDS can be treated from health and medical, economic, political, governmental, social and cultural perspectives. The use of interactive media, online connections and the Internet would play a role in this, as well as the design of multimedia learning materials utilizing compact disk technology and the Internet. Journalism students can learn how to reach multiple sources, do interviewing, fact check and present stories in multimedia environments of text, video and audio. Joint Research and Cooperative ProjectsThere are several areas where the Journalism Resources Institute working with the Merck participants and other interested universities can provide some useful follow-up assistance based on the interests and earlier discussions. JOINT RESEARCH PROJECTS: Mutual interests can produce cross-comparative research undertaken by several or more universities. Analysis can be done of how particular topics such as managed health care are covered by the regional news media, and how this compares with national and regional coverage. There is interest and concern over the appearance and disappearance of health and science publications, or special science sections in newspapers, magazines and in television and radio. Just how these elements fluctuate, their content and approach to coverage and the implications for future journalism and communication careers and training would be a valuable outcome of the research. THE INTERNET AND ONLINE SERVICES: Many of the participants in the Merck seminars have expressed an interest in having a long range network of contacts to exchange ideas and experiences. The JRI, with additional funding support, could administer a special online service through the Internet and web pages that would facilitate ongoing dialogues among faculty and students interested in health and science journalism, and include professional journalists in the field, scientists, health and medical professionals and those from the government and private sectors. The student winners have expressed an interest in creation of a student chapter of the Council for Advanced Science Writers and such an effort might include participation in the council's professional training workshops, and an ongoing dialogue with professional journalists acting as mentors through the online Internet service we are considering at JRI. Continuing the Dialogue: Encouraging and Building ParticipationThere is no limit to the opportunities in programs like this, and only a sampling has been set forth here. The spirit of opportunity was captured in remarks by Dan Rutz, CNN Managing Editor for Health/Medical News, when he told the Merck award winners at the 1996 dinner that their schooling and the ideas they shared at our Merck seminars were important. "You will use it and you will need it. You will use it in the basic construction of your work to be a good writer, to be a good editor, to be a good listener, to ask all the right questions. All that comes from the intellectual discussions you are having now and the interchanges you are having with your professors regardless of the subjects you are taking. And you are coming into the field at an exciting time when you have the new media to integrate with the old." Copies of this report are being mailed to selected university and college programs, news media, corporations, government organizations and private organizations concerned with health, medical and science journalism. For additional copies of the report, or to present your comments and suggestions, please write to us at: Professor Jerome Aumente For more information, visit the Journalism Resources Institute web site.
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Copyright © 1997, Jerome Aumente, SCILS, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
