Date
September 11, 2017
On September 11, 2017, NYHealth hosted Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charles Ornstein, senior reporter covering health care at ProPublica, for a wide-ranging conversation about the evolution of journalism and health care.
Mr. Ornstein spoke about how journalists break through the clutter of a growing, unfiltered social media landscape; what they need and want from health care experts and other sources; and some of the consequences of growing distrust of the media.
Mr. Ornstein emphasized the importance of fact-checking, both within news rooms and by external watchdogs such as FactCheck.org and PolitiFact. He also described ProPublica’s efforts to strengthen its investigative journalism through crowd-sourcing and civic engagement. For example, ProPublica asked readers to share the communications they received from Members of Congress in response to letters about the Affordable Care Act; ProPublica and other media colleagues then fact-checked those responses and shared their analyses. In stretched newsrooms, readers are helping journalists stay better connected to what’s happening on the ground.
(Please note that the video freezes for about 20 seconds starting at 0:32; it resumes normally afterward. Our apologies!)