Almost every day, interesting things arrive in my email inbox: Reports by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on topics as diverse as gun violence and black lung; new academic studies on toxic chemicals; new data on Medicaid coverage and the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease.
We simply don’t have time at Public Health Watch to turn all of these items into stories. We focus on long-form, investigative journalism and have a small, dedicated team of journalists built to do this work. We have to let many newsworthy things go, sometimes to my frustration.
Beginning Thursday, April 6, we’re going to try to rectify this situation, at least in part. We’re introducing The Watch, a weekly roundup of public health news we believe merits attention. It will be written by Michele Late, executive editor of The Nation’s Health, a newspaper published by the American Public Health Association.
We’ll try to select items that didn’t make the front pages of national newspapers or lead the evening news. (We’re assuming most of you will see those). Instead, we’ll highlight findings by federal inspectors general, the U.S. Government Accountability Office and scientists whose important research too often goes unreported by the media. We hope you’ll see value in this new feature. Look for The Watch every Thursday at publichealthwatch.org.