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At East Carolina U......
FREDERIC A. MORITZ
Visiting lecturer journalism




TALES from the MEDICAL UNDERGROUND
ECU CLASS MEDICAL INSURANCE PROJECT,
BASIC REPORTING 2320, FALL 2003

Course Syllabus Comm 1002 Section 005
Spring 2005

THE SECRET TO A SUCCESSFUL MEDIA CAREER:
"SPIN" (and unspinning SPIN) is the name of the game;
EXPLORE HOW MANY WAYS THE "CHICKEN CAN BE SPUN"

Office Hours: Library, 1407
Thursday, 12:30 - 1:45

For student writings on web, see:
Teaching at Unity College
Teaching at Univ. of Maine
Teaching at A&T
The Columbia Graduate School of Journalism

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Click on Image
for interviewing tips

The Art of Interviewing
Click for lots more tips

"Can you give me an example?"
"What was it like?"
"How did you feel about that?"
"How were you able to deal with that?"
"What have you done to get care?"
"How were you treated?"
"You are healthy now? What will you do if.....?"
"Can we look at your expenses and budget? How do you manage medical bills?"
"How have medical issues of friends and relatives affected you?"
"If you've had to neglect something out of cost, has anyone pointed out the risks?"
"To make sure I understand, please explain again?"
"Can you give me another example?"
"Some people say....how do you feel about that?"

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WRITING FOR STORY

"A story consists of a sequence of actions that occur when a sympathetic character encounters a complicating situation that he confronts and solves."

-Jon Franklin, Writing for Story, page 71
Chuckle over a parody of Franklin's approach,
then click on the original of his To Make a Mouse


COMPUTER ASSISTED REPORTING

• American Journalism Review Newspapers and Yahoo! - News and Media: by Country for access to hundreds of news and other publications around the world.
• Google News and Resources comprehensive American and overseas
• Election 2004 a University of Michigan resource
• Reference Desk a powerful reference site for navigating the web
• Journalists' Tools reference works from Reference Desk
• The Journalist's Toolbox American Press Institute journalist resources
• Journalism.org journalism issues and developments
• A Journalist's List lists of experts
• Portals to the World massive internet guide to nations and cultures
• Free Online Lookups basic geographic, address, and other
• Guide to Law Online
• State Laws Library a reference to North Carolina and other law
• How Web Pages Work a guide to web page design
  
  

The links below provide a wealth of useful but sometimes technical information. It is important NOT to let technical detail intimidate you. Use this resource as background and backup - or to stimulate your curiosity.

Remember journalists learn to quickly study complicated issues with a view to simplify them, communicate them to others, and bring them alive with understandable examples from human experience.

• News From The Commonwealth Fund
• A Consumer's Guide to Getting and Keeping
  Health Insurance in North Carolina
• What is HIPAA?
• 5 Steps to Understanding How HIPAA May Affect You
• What is Medicare; it's history
• Medicare Made Almost Simple
• Battle over drugs in Medicare, Seniorjournal.com

 

The three emerging healthcare issues for the 2004 election are:

A) Prescription drugs for Medicare
B) Medical insurance for the uninsured
C) The high cost of prescription drugs

The issues are interrelated.

As a class we will interview a rich variety of people. Although any one interview will be partial, the body of interviews as as whole should give us a varied, not mono-dimensional view.

We will tell shed light on the story of health care by focusing on different "types" of people: for example the healthy well insured; the unhealthy well insured; the healthy poorly insured; the unhealthy poorly insured.

Some of these types will be subdivided into persons who approach health preventatively and those who cope mainly on a crisis basis.

For this project we will focus on the "telling of story:" helping the person we interview to convey their experience as they navigate the health care system.

We will transform interviews into stories by drawing out and communicating the experience of the person interviewed.

Our common story "thread" is how individuals navigate through, cope with a complicated system, in sickness and in health, with insurance and without.

We will deal with story as defined by Pulitzer prize winning science writer Jon Franklin in Writing for Story, as. page 71:

"a sequence of actions that occur when a sympathetic character encounters a complicating situation that he confronts and solves."

Chuckle over a parody of Franklin's approach, then click on the original of his To Make a Mouse.

As people tell their stories by sharing their experience, a journalist witnesses, spotlights, and communicates issues affecting the nation.

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While students may be tempted to interview parents or brothers or friends, (people with whom they feel comfortable) our purpose as journalists will require interviews with people more distant.

Part of going beyond being a student to be a journalist is to deal with people more distant, even with strangers. Dealing with people with whom one is less comfortable, people who are different from oneself. Part of becoming a journalist can be challenging one's own comfort level.

Reaching out to take risks, to push the limits.

 

FREDERIC A. MORITZ

HUMAN RIGHTS REPORTING