National Press Club Journalism Institute and Common Health Coalition announce 2025 Public Health Reporting Fellows

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Five mid-career journalists have been selected as the inaugural Public Health Reporting Fellowship cohort coordinated by the National Press Club Journalism Institute with backing from the Common Health Coalition. Fellows will receive training and funds to support reporting projects focused on the intersection of public health and health care delivery.

The fellows will conduct investigations into the growing disparities in and solutions for disease prevention and health care for immigrant workers, rural populations, and elder communities, among other topics.

"Rebuilding trust in accurate health information is central to the mission of the Common Health Coalition," said Dave A. Chokshi, MD, MSc, who chairs the Coalition. "This fellowship equips journalists to deliver evidence-based health stories that earn the confidence of readers and empower informed decisions on critical issues."

The Common Health Coalition, which brings together leading health care organizations in pursuit of a more unified health system, has invested $50,000 to start the fellowship program at the Institute.

The fellowship recipients include:

• Ted Alcorn, an independent journalist who reports on health and justice for numerous publications and an adjunct at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and NYU's Wagner School of Public Service. His project will focus on the large and growing health disparities between rural and urban areas in cancer treatment and outcomes.
• Jamal Jordan, a multimedia documentarian currently working as an audience editor at The Washington Post. He's the author of "Queer Love in Color," a book of photos and stories based on his New York Times project of the same name. He plans to report on the ways public health officials, organizers, and community members have addressed America's loneliness epidemic among senior citizens as a public health issue.
• Eleanor Klibanoff, the Texas Tribune's women's health reporter based in Austin, where she covers abortion, maternal health care, gender-based violence, and LGBTQ issues. She will report on maternal healthcare among rural communities.
• Lygia Navarro is an award-winning bilingual and disabled independent journalist working in long-form narrative print and audio with a focus on health and Latine stories. She plans to investigate the immigrant workers most affected by H5N1 and how public policy could be improved for the benefit of these workers and the health of the whole country.
• Amanda Seitz is a healthcare policy reporter for The Associated Press based in Washington, D.C. She reports on how complex decisions made in the nation's capital shape the way people around the country receive health care. Her project will uncover the impact President Donald Trump's immigration policies have on U.S. public health and how community organizations in Texas are trying to reach migrants to provide health care, despite their concerns about mass deportations and arrests.

"Nuanced reporting on these types of complex public-health issues takes time and focus, and we are thrilled to help these journalists create the space to do this important work," said Ed Kelley, president of the National Press Club Journalism Institute. "We also are confident this reporting will reveal the impact of solutions-oriented ideas that could make real changes in public health."

Fellows will have six months to complete their projects and are receiving up to $7,500 each to support their work. Each fellow's reporting project will be published or distributed by July 2025. The cohort will receive training from the NPC Journalism Institute focused on public health issues, data, and other resources to support their projects, as well as mentorship from leading public health experts and journalists

Three journalists well known for their deep understanding of public health issues and reporting selected the cohort. The judges included:

• Dr. Céline Gounder, MD, ScM, FIDSA, an internist, infectious disease specialist, and epidemiologist trained at Princeton University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Washington, and Harvard University. She is also a CBS News Medical Contributor, a Senior Fellow KFF, and Editor-at-Large for Public Health at KFF Health News.
• Pien Huang, a reporter on NPR's Science desk covering public health and health disparities. She also guest hosts on NPR news programs and narrates the "Moments in History" series on the NPR One app.
• Joanne Kenen, the Journalist in Residence at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she also teaches about the changing political and economic landscape of U.S. media and how it affects public health practitioners. She is a contributing writer to Politico Magazine, Politico "Nightly," and a regular panelist on Kaiser Health News' "What the Health" podcast.

About the Common Health Coalition 
The Common Health Coalition: Together for Public Health brings together leading health organizations in pursuit of a reimagined health system: one in which the nation's health care and public health systems no longer work in parallel, but hand in hand – with better health for all as the common goal. The Coalition's founding members are the Alliance of Community Health Plans, AHIP, American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, and Kaiser Permanente. Former New York City Commissioner of Health Dave A. Chokshi, MD, MSc, chairs the Coalition, and Chelsea Cipriano, MPH, serves as its managing director. Our work is informed by an advisory council of public health leaders chaired by Georges C. Benjamin, MD, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association, and J. Nadine Gracia, MD, MSCE, President and CEO of Trust for America's Health. The Common Health Coalition is hosted by the Institute for Public Health Innovation, a non-profit that builds cross-sector partnerships, promotes health equity, and works to create effective public health systems and policies that foster healthy communities. To sign up for the newsletter or learn more, visit  commonhealthcoalition.org and follow on LinkedIn.

About the NPC Journalism Institute

The National Press Club Journalism Institute promotes an engaged global citizenry through an independent and free press, and equips journalists with skills and standards to inform the public in ways that inspire a more representative democracy. As the non-profit affiliate of the National Press Club, the Institute powers journalism in the public interest. To sign up for our newsletters and learn more, visit pressclubinstitute.org and follow us on LinkedIn.

Read more about the fellows and judges here. For inquiries about the program, please email Beth Francesco, executive director for the National Press Club Journalism Institute.

Contact: Beth Francesco, Executive Director, 202-662-7523

SOURCE National Press Club Journalism Institute