!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> Streamline Training & Documentation: 21st Century Journalism XXI: NewsU Healthcare Course

Sunday, July 15, 2007

21st Century Journalism XXI: NewsU Healthcare Course

I've begun working my way through the preview version of a new course on healthcare reporting offered at the News University website.1

"On the Beat: Covering Hospitals" is free to any registered user of the NewsU site. The content for the course — a simulation in which a rookie reporter covers a hospital story with help from an editor and a more experienced reporter — was developed by Charles Ornstein and Karl Stark. Ornstein covers public health and health policy for the Los Angeles Times; Stark is National/Foreign Editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The course aims to improve critical thinking skills and to help the learner acquire beat-specific knowledge necessary for effective coverage of hospitals in the local community.

There are seven learning objectives, namely, to improve your ability to
  • Uncover sources at hospitals, local associations and goverment agencies.


  • Work with sources to get the information you need.


  • Work with your editor to get to the heart of the story.


  • Interpret reports, statistics and tricky government forms.


  • Extract information pertinent to your story from lengthy source documents.


  • Tap online resources to flesh out your reporting.


  • Detect trends across years and among documents.
The course has two story lines. The one that is currently available deals with quality of care issues by looking at how three local hospitals handle pneumonia cases. Promised, but not yet accessible, is a story involving comparative analysis of financial management at local hospitals.

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1 NewU is a project of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. You can access the complete list of NewsU courses here.

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