Black Americans face health care challenges rooted in racism at every stage of life. To kick off the collaborative’s reporting on health equity, the New York & Michigan Solutions Journalism Collaborative invited journalist Kat Stafford to speak about her reporting on the subject. Stafford, a former reporter for the Associated Press, led a five-part series for the news service called “From Birth To Death,” which examined a lifetime of health inequities for Black Americans.
The project was birthed from reporting during the pandemic that Stafford felt was inadequate. Most news outlets reported that Black people were disproportionately affected by the virus, “but they weren’t really getting into the how or why we get to this point where a swath of our nation’s population was being hit so hard,” she said.
A yearlong Knight-Wallace fellowship at the University of Michigan supported her reporting. At U-M, she worked to create a series of five connected stories, traveling across the country with two colleagues to examine a lifetime of health inequities among African Americans. The project started with infant and maternal mortality and ended with Alzheimer’s.
Here are some takeaways from our webinar with her:
1. Journalists should establish historical context and patterns when reporting on present-day health equity. Slavery and Jim Crow laws contribute to common-day health inequities. Look at old news coverage. (This interactive timeline from KFF and the chronological history from AP outline how U.S. policy and events from the early 1800s to the present influence current health disparities.) One thing that emerged from Stafford’s research is that cardiovascular issues and other health disorders that black Americans encounter earlier in life can lead to Alzheimer’s or cognitive decline.
2. Where you live matters. Living near polluting factories or toxic fumes from freeway traffic, or in homes that might have mold and other asthma triggers contributes to health disparities. These toxic communities are the same as those that were segregated and redlined decades ago.
3. When reporting, meet people where they are. Journalists shouldn’t expect people to come to them; they should reach out to communities for conversations. “And sometimes that could be uncomfortable,” Stafford admitted. “Maybe it’s a part of a community that you have neglected on your beat, or you haven’t been. But you have to make that first step in order to be able to establish any sort of trust.” She advises journalists to get outside their comfort zones and to try to connect with marginalized people to understand their community and the power players in those neighborhoods. Give them the space to speak, and to share their questions and concerns. Newsrooms need to allow reporters to dedicate time for this to build trust.
4. That also means reassessing who’s an expert. As a reporter at Detroit Free Press, Stafford traveled randomly to city neighborhoods, meeting people … “80-year-old women, 70-year-old folks, and these were people that had lived in these neighborhoods for for 30-plus years. … I would argue that the person has lived on that same corner for 30-plus years is in some ways more of an expert than the high-paid analysts and consultants that cities have.” Use both traditional methods and social media to find diverse voices. Explain the reporting process transparently to them upfront. In the conversations, cover timelines and privacy concerns. Make sure they understand where the story is headed.
To listen to the conversation, watch the replay.
