Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Pulitzer Center Join Together to Improve Global Health Reporting

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health announced a new collaboration today to bring leading global health journalists to the Johns Hopkins campus and offer public health students funds to complete an international reporting project with the Pulitzer Center.

This effort will combine the Pulitzer Center’s extensive experience supporting global health reporting for leading news outlets with Johns Hopkins’ deep bench of top public health experts.

Each year, two visits from international journalists will be organized on campus. One of the visits will be a symposium drawing on Bloomberg School faculty and Pulitzer Center journalists to dive deep into a critical global health challenge and the media’s role in addressing it. The first symposium will take place in Fall 2013.

“We’re excited to be able to offer our journalists the opportunity to present their work at the Bloomberg School and to learn from experts at the top of their field,” says Jon Sawyer, the Pulitzer Center’s executive director.

In addition to the journalists’ visits, Bloomberg School students will have the opportunity to complete an international reporting project with editorial support from the Pulitzer Center. Each summer, a fellow will spend several weeks in the field reporting on a topic of his/her choice. Before and after the fieldwork, the fellow will work with Pulitzer Center editors and journalists in their Washington, D.C. headquarters. The resulting will work will be published on the Pulitzer Center and Bloomberg School websites and in other media outlets.

“Our students know public health,” says Michael J. Klag, MD, MPH, dean of the Bloomberg School, “and communicating global health threats and successes to the general public plays a key role in our efforts to protect health and save lives. This collaboration gives our students the chance to understand how the media deals with global health stories through firsthand experience.”

There will be an informational meeting for students on Wednesday, March 27 at noon in W3008 of the School’s Wolfe Street Building. Students can learn more about the grant and talk with Pulitzer Center and Hopkins staff on hand to answer questions and offer advice for creating a strong proposal. The fellowship application deadline is April 17.

The Bloomberg School joins a consortium of more than 20 U.S. universities that have formally joined with the Pulitzer Center and is one of two public health schools to join; the other is Boston University.

At the Bloomberg School, the Center for Global Health and the Office of Communications will coordinate administration of the fall symposium and the reporting fellowship with Pulitzer Center colleagues.

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health media contact: Tim Parsons at 410-955-7619 or tmparson@jhsph.edu.