The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation today announced that twelve medical journalists from across the nation have been selected for the 2014 class of the Health Coverage Fellowship.
The 2014 fellows are Elizabeth Aguilera of Southern California Public Radio (KPCC), Samantha Allen of The Sun in Lowell, MA, Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post, Anna Gorman of Kaiser Health News, Jeffrey Hess of Mississippi Public Broadcasting, Richard Holmes of the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, MA, Lynn Jolicoeur of WBUR-Radio in Boston, Mary Meehan of the Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader, Brett Norman of Politico, Magaly Olivero of the Connecticut Health Investigative Team, Chelsea Rice of the Boston Globe, and Lindsay Tice of the Lewiston (ME) Sun Journal.
The fellowship is designed to help the media improve its coverage of critical health care issues. It does that by bringing in as speakers more than 75 health officials, practitioners, researchers, and patients. It also brings the journalists out to watch first-hand how the system works, from walking the streets at night with mental health case workers to riding a Medflight helicopter or spending a morning in a crowded emergency room.
The program, which is entering its thirteenth year, is sponsored by the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, with support from the Blue Shield of California Foundation, Bower Foundation in Mississippi, Connecticut Health Foundation, Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, Kaiser Family Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Maine Health Access Foundation, and the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut.
The fellowship will run for nine days, beginning April 25. It is housed at Babson College’s Center for Executive Education in Wellesley, MA, and is operated in collaboration with leading journalism organizations. Larry Tye, who covered health and environmental issues at the Boston Globe for 15 years, directs the program. A former Nieman Fellow and author of six books, Tye has taught journalism at Boston University, Northeastern, Tufts, and Harvard.
Next spring’s fellowship will focus on a series of pressing medical issues – from implementing health care reform to curbing costs, addressing mental illness, and redressing public health threats. Attention also will be given to breakthroughs in medical treatments and innovations in the delivery of care.
The teaching will not end when fellows head back to their stations or papers. Tye, the program director, will be on call for the journalists for the full year following their nine days in Wellesley. He will help when they are stuck for ideas or whom to call on a story. He also will assist in thinking out projects and carving out clearer definitions of beats.
# # #
Skip to main content
