A successful journalism collaboration reaches not only large numbers of people but also the right people – the people most affected by, or most capable of solving, the problem you’re revealing.
That was the case with Public Health Watch’s most recent partnership, with KPCC/LAist in Los Angeles and Univision. On Dec. 2, PHW and our radio colleagues published and aired a story about a cluster of the deadly lung disease silicosis among artificial-stone fabricators in Southern California. There had been at least 30 cases of this preventable, ancient disease since January 2016, we reported, and workplace regulators were having a hard time staying on top of the outbreak.
Because all the victims are Latino men, we wanted to make sure workers in this industry and their families got the story in Spanish as well as English. On Dec. 4, Univision’s weekly news magazine program, Aquí y Ahora, aired a powerful, nine-minute segment in prime time that accomplished that goal. The result: stories in two languages that reached at-risk workers, physicians, advocates and policymakers.
We’ll stay with this story. We believe the odds of positive impact are high.
Jim Morris
Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief
Public Health Watch