Michelle Levander

<p>We award $53,500 in reporting grants:&nbsp;“We need high-quality, high-impact health journalism now more than ever to keep community health issues squarely in the public spotlight,” said Mary Lou Fulton, program manager, communication and media grants, at The California Endowment.</p>

<p>Check out our upcoming webinars on how to build your own "health reporting survival kit" and embedding multimedia content on your blog or website!</p>

<p>Susan Mernit and Staci Baird, social media gurus, had a message for reformed journalists and New Media entrepreneurs participating in our pilot program melding online community engagement and health journalism: "We come in peace."</p>

<p>It takes a certain kind of stubbornness and stick-to-it-ness to develop a successful online news site or a popular blog, especially if you are writing about the civic life of your community — not fashion tidbits or celebrity gossip. We are working with these news innovators to expand their health reporting.</p>

<p>ReportingonHealth celebrates its two-year anniversary this week. To celebrate this milestone, we are introducing a new look – one that puts the contributions of our community members at center stage.</p>

<p>We are proud to have six California Endowment Health Journalism Fellows among the winners this year of the Association of Health Care Journalists’ Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism.&nbsp;And we are grateful to the AHCJ for offering these valuable prizes. The Health Journalism Fellows'&nbsp;commitment to quality health journalism is apparent both in their selection of topics and their execution of complex pieces. One Fellow, Caitlan Carroll, was honored for Fellowship Project. Others were honored for other work outside of our program.</p>

<p>The other day, Reporting on Health asked its friends to share stories about their best health journalism adventures and misadventures. We made it a contest on our own <a href="ReportingonHealth">http://www.facebook.com/ReportingonHealth">ReportingonHealth Facebook</a> page and offered prizes of a $50 itunes card (1st prize) and <em>In Pantagonia</em>, Bruce Chatwin's adventure saga (2nd Prize).</p>

<p>Boyle Heights is a neighborhood populated by restless souls. Its small houses, windows barred more often than not, hold within them stories of journeys and reinvention; these days, it’s Spanglish and café de olla served at a Formica table covered in flowered oilcloth. Before that, the kitchen conversation was sprinkled with Yiddish or Japanese, as earlier generations of immigrants made their mark on these streets.&nbsp;But who captures the stories in these days of diminished newsroom resources of this working class neighborhood? Who shares the yarns that help people feel, as one teenager told us recently, that "No estamos solos," that we are not alone?&nbsp;In a few months, we will have a chance to see what stories emerge from this Latino immigrant neighborhood of about 100,000, located a few miles east of downtown Los Angeles. And we will learn how the community responds to journalism written, not by outsiders, but by local youth writing "<em>por la comunidad y para la comunidad</em>&nbsp;"– for the community and by the community -- as Pedro Rojas, the executive editor of La Opinión, put it as we planned this venture in community journalism together.</p>

<p>Everyone has a story about how they got the story, and sometimes the former is better than the latter. We’re hoping you’ll share yours for a new contest we’re sponsoring on <a href="Reporting">https://www.facebook.com/ReportingonHealth">Reporting on Health’s Facebook page</a>. The prize: a $50 <a href="iTuneshttp://www.apple.com/itunes/">iTunes</a&gt; gift card.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>When Toni Yancey gave me a copy of <em>Instant Recess</em>, her new book published by UC Press, I diligently began reading, expecting measured and important public health advice, solid research, all carefully relayed in an academic tone.</p>