Our Programs

With the ongoing changes in the news media and the launch of the Foundation's new non-profit news service, Kaiser Health News, the Foundation has redesigned its journalism training and education programs.  Any questions about the programs should be addressed to Penny Duckham, the Executive Director of the Fellowships Program.

• The Kaiser Media Fellowships in Health — Starting in 2011, the fellowship program provides in-depth briefings and week-long site visits focused on complex health policy issues. These are for invited health and health policy journalists, with invitations tailored to the topics and issues addressed. Visit this page for information on the most current site visits. Prior to 2011, in addition to  site visits and briefings, the Media Fellows program provided a group of up to ten selected journalists with a fellowship of several months to undertake individual health policy reporting projects. Visit this page for information about the 2000-2009/2010 Media Fellows and their projects, and links to some of the reporting completed under the program.
  
  
  
• The Kaiser Media Internships in Health Reporting — for young U.S. journalists interested in specializing in health reporting, provides an intensive introduction and practical experience reporting on health issues based at newsrooms across the U.S. Click here to see a list of the 2012 host news organizations.
  

• Kaiser projects on Global Health Reporting — Starting in 2010, the Kaiser Foundation has launched new projects focused on U.S. global health policy reporting and coverage by U.S. news organizations.

• Taking the Temperature: The Future of Global Health Journalism, a review of U.S. global health coverage, including the constraints, shifts in coverage, and potential reporting opportunities for U.S. journalists and news organizations, was published in February 2011.  The report is based on interviews with 50 senior U.S. editors, reporters and others engaged in global health coverage.  A summary note of a follow-up discussion is also available.


• Kaiser/GlobalPost Partnership and Global Health Reporting Fellowships: In 2011, the Foundation began a new partnership with GlobalPost to help support original reporting on global health policy issues. As part of the partnership, the Foundation is working with GlobalPost to support its coverage of global health, including reporting on U.S. global health policy issues, and is sponsoring the work of three Kaiser/GlobalPost Global Health Reporting Fellows.  The Fellows complete paid internships in the U.S. and abroad.  The three fellows are chosen by GlobalPost and the Foundation from students and/or recent graduates of the Columbia Journalism School. The three 2011 Fellows were Selena Ross, Lomi Kriel and Marija Karimjee. The 2011 Fellows' reporting appeared as part of GlobalPost's year-long reporting project on the Obama Administration's Global Health Initiative, titled "Healing the World."


• Global Health Challenges facing Policymakers and Journalists: The Foundation, in conjunction with the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University and GlobalPost, held an evening discussion on global health decision making and news coverage in Cambridge, MA, in December 2011.  The keynote presentation by Dr. Rajiv Shah, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), focused on U.S. efforts to target interventions to save children’s lives including access to immunizations, steps to improve newborn mortality, prevention of mother-to-child HIV, and initiatives to boost infant nutrition, family planning and malaria prevention. A video of the event and Dr. Shah’s speech is available here. The subsequent discussion centered on international aid priorities and decision-making, and on the media’s challenges in reporting on global health. At an all-day workshop following this event, a smaller group of journalists debated how best to report effectively on global health issues in the digital age.
  
  
• The Kaiser Mini-Fellowships program for Global Health Reporting has ended.  Details of past awards and some of the reporting completed under the program is available online.  Journalists may also be interested in a toolbox to navigate the Foundation's U.S. global health policy work and resources.
  

• Robin Toner Distinguished Fellowship in Journalism — based with the Foundation's Kaiser Health News, allows the recipient to pursue in-depth reporting projects on health policy and politics.  The Fellowship honors the late Robin Toner, a long-time New York Times reporter whose reporting often framed debate about health policy and politics.  Through an internal selection process, veteran award-winning journalist Marilyn Werber Serafini, a former health care and welfare reporter at the National Journal, was chosen as the first recipient and started her fellowship in September 2010.