Support for Health Equity Reporting at National and Local Black-Owned Outlets

This project will support health journalism for the Word in Black collaborative in three specific ways: 1. The Word in Black would hire a new dedicated data journalist focused on health and health equity issues. This new journalist will report stories at the national level and also work with the reporters across the collaborative to generate data-driven reporting on health care issues affecting the Black community with a solutions-focused lens. This reporter will produce a minimum of 50 stories over the course of a year. 2. The Word in Black will provide stipends to the 10 media outlets to create mini-health beats within each publication. Each publication will produce eight stories for a total of 80 stories at the local level. 3. The Commonwealth Fund also will provide training for Word in Black publishers, health and freelance reporters, in the form of quarterly webinars covering key health topics identified as of interest by the collaborative’s members.