The Connection is the newsletter of the Science and Medical Journalism Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

Medical & science journalism students produce two TV reports on alternative energy

By Stephanie Soucheray-Grell
 

For the last 12 years, students in Dr. Tom Linden's Science Documentary Television class have researched, produced and written seven-minute reports for North Carolina Public Television. From the health of the Haw River to solar-powered buses, students have looked at environmental issues that touch the lives of North Carolinians. This fall, the class produced two pieces on controversial alternative energy sources: fracking and woody biomass.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the horizontal drilling process used to capture natural gas from shale rock deep underground. A recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency linked chemicals used in fracking with tainting an underground water table in Wyoming. Currently, horizontal drilling used in the fracking process isn't legal in North Carolina, but recently oil and gas companies have approached homeowners in Lee, Moore and Chatham Counties seeking mineral rights leases to drill for natural gas.

In researching its piece, the team confronted the challenge of visually depicting the fracking process that has yet to occur in the state. Kelly Izlar, a second-year master's student in science and medical journalism, taught herself animation techniques so she could illustrate the process. Another second-year master's student in the school, Lydia Wilson, traveled to Pennsylvania to shoot video of existing fracking operations there.

"I've always wanted an excuse to play with graphics software, but never had the time or motivation," said Izlar. "While a skillfully crafted text-piece can get at the heart of any subject, a good visualization can make a technical issue easier to understand."

Another team tackled an alternative energy source used throughout the state and touted as a renewable energy resource. Woody biomass – that is, wood waste from leaves, tree tops and branches – supplies about 4 percent of North Carolina's energy. It's the largest source of alternative energy in the state today. But many environmental advocates say there's nothing green about burning wood for fuel.

"I found that this issue is more complex than I previously thought," said Lesley Copeland, a master's student in public health. "Nothing is black or white in alternative energy."

By 2021, North Carolina has mandated that 12.5 percent of energy come from renewable energy sources. Logging advocates and proponents of woody biomass say North Carolina should exploit the relatively cheap and plentiful wood resources in the state. But groups like the Environmental Defense Fund say calling woody biomass a "renewable" energy is a misnomer since there is no requirement for private landowners to replant the forests that they cut.

The fracking report can be seen at video.unctv.org/video/2174158017.

The woody biomass report is available at video.unctv.org/video/2174526055.

A conversation with... Dan Childs

Dan Childs is ABCNews.com's health editor and a 2002 graduate of UNC's science and medical journalism program. In our Q&A he talks about hosting Twitter chats, the Web's never-ending deadlines and the importance of getting a story right rather than getting a story first. Childs tweets @DanChildsABC. His stories are archived at ABCNews.go.com/Author/Dan_Childs. The following is an edited interview by Stephanie Soucheray-Grell, a second-year master's student in the science and medical journalism program at UNC.

Q.How or why did you decide to go into medical/science journalism?

A. I was enrolled in the pre-med program at Wake Forest University, and it must have been sometime during the second semester of my freshman year — probably in the middle of a three-hour lab course on a sunny late spring day — that I began to have doubts as to whether the road to medical school was the choice that was going to lead me to something that I would love doing.

I carried these doubts into the summer as I shopped my paltry resume around my smallish hometown in search of a summer job. By sheer luck, my choices boiled down to either taking a part-time stint at a car rental establishment or working as an intern at the local newspaper, writing up whatever they could risk throwing my way. I went with the newspaper job, and it turned out to be one of the best summers of my life. I scarfed up health and medical stories whenever I could, since the introductory college courses I had taken gave me pretty much the only edge I could possibly have had on the more seasoned reporters. And to my surprise I found something that I liked doing.

Had I chosen differently that summer, I might have sold you a car by now. But instead I get to guide the way our network covers an important and growing area of knowledge in which I have always been interested. So I have no regrets.

Q.How is producing news for ABCNews.com different from producing for an ABC News program? What's the overlap? In other words, what's it like to cover a story on multiple platforms?

A. One of the main differences is the concept of deadline. I started off in morning newspapers, so the evening press time was always our hard cutoff. For programs at ABC News, there is a set time that the show goes forward. But when it comes to producing news online, there is no deadline — or, more accurately, the deadline is all the time. To get the news up more quickly than the competition, while reporting it out as completely and (most important) as accurately as possible, is an immense challenge, and it is one that is laid at our feet around the clock, seven days a week.

There is a great deal of overlap between what we do online and what the show platforms cover. So if you see a health or medical story on Good Morning America, World News or any of our other shows, you are likely to find out more about it if you check ABCNews.com after it airs. I think that our interaction with the various shows is actually one of the most rewarding parts of what we do. I meet daily with the producers behind the various programs, and running between these meetings you really get the sense of how the same story can be covered differently on each platform. What we get to do is integrate everything that we get from the shows — and more often than not build upon it — to create what goes on the site. Because there are several shows but only one ABCNews.com, the digital team often finds itself at the hub of the wheel.

Q.How important is breaking a health news story to ABCNews.com? Is there a fight to be the first?

A. I would say that being first is very important, but not nearly as important as getting the story right. A decent percentage of what we cover is embargoed research, so obviously the "get it first" dynamic doesn't really apply in those situations; you know everyone is going to have it at the same time, so you have the luxury of time to report it as deeply as you want. But with breaking health news, you want to make absolutely sure you have the story nailed down accurately, with details at least double-confirmed if possible, before you go live on the site with it. One example — and this did not start out as a health story, but quickly evolved into one — was the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords back in January. Here was a situation in which the pressure to report new details to the moment was immense. When a couple of news outlets were "the first" to report that she had died, the tension was incredible. Yet, by holding back for confirmation, we were able to save our audiences from being misinformed and ourselves from being really, really embarrassed. Then, once we were able to get in touch with her doctors to find out what really happened, we were able to report out the health story about her amazing and unlikely survival, complete with information that I feel was at least as good or better than anything our competition was able to offer. So when it comes to health news, I personally prefer to offer our audiences accuracy and context — particularly considering that, as a health reporter, it's important to realize that people are going to take what you write into account when making their own health decisions. If we're also first, all the better.

Q.How do you use social media at ABCNews.com?

A. One of the most high profile uses that we currently have for social media is a weekly Twitter chat hosted by ABC News' chief health and medical editor, Dr. Richard Besser. It's an hour-long chat, and we deal with a different topic every week. Anyone can follow or join in on the conversation using the hashtag #ABCDrBchat. We regularly get the chance to bring some heavy hitters into the discussion. Past chats have involved the CDC, the NIH and a number of top medical professionals and organizations. It also gives our audiences a great opportunity to interact directly with Dr. Besser. Yes, Dr. Besser actually participates, and all of his tweets are actually his — it's not an intern logging into his account or anything. I can take a picture and post it for anyone who does not believe me. He has told me that these chats are the highlight of his week.

There are also other ways in which social media are very helpful to our reporting, albeit in a lower-profile way. We regularly use Facebook and Twitter to reach out to our audiences and find personal stories. What we have found is that patients and patient communities are very active online, and we can often get in touch with people who have stories to share — even with regard to some of the rarest and least-known conditions. Social media are a great equalizer in this respect; as a patient, you do not have to have a huge PR machine behind your condition in order to gin up awareness, and as a reporter you do not have to work through high-level press contacts to find a compelling, real story to help educate audiences. The obvious caveats apply. You need to make sure that what you are being told is the truth.

Patrick Mustain joins UNC science and medical journalism master's program

By Patrick Mustain

I started out years ago as a personal trainer. As I began to investigate the problems that my clients were facing in adopting healthy habits, I was led to kinesiology, then public health and now here. I think the most daunting barriers to health are cultural ones. I am incredibly interested in the ways that institutions shape our culture, how our culture shapes our behaviors and how our behaviors shape our health.

I entered the Interdisciplinary Health Communication program with an idea of researching the commodification of health, particularly within the health and fitness industry. Since writing a media law paper that looked at the relationship between government regulatory agencies and the food industry, I have become interested more generally in the intersections between government, industry, politics, science and media, and those places where the average citizen get lost in the scrum. I believe there are stories that need to be told, and I believe that many of the stories that are told could be told better.

I am also generally interested, in no particular order, in parks and public spaces, how urban planning affects health behaviors, outdoor recreation, food, music, biking, climbing, snowboarding and occasionally getting away from what we call civilization.

Some of my more formative experiences occurred during two summers that I spent in Northern Uganda. It is a country marked by unmatched beauty, joy and love of life, yet also has one of the most heart-wrenching histories imaginable. Although I've made lifelong friends there and hope to return soon, I haven't quite figured out how I feel about Western involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa, so the next time I return it will be as a traveler. Maybe I'll bring a camera. We'll see how this journalism thing goes.

I am thrilled to have entered the science and medical journalism program. I am looking forward to the many skills I will acquire over the next couple of years and to meeting new people. I am eager to see how my writing improves and can't wait to see the work that I will produce with my colleagues through this program. I expect to work hard, learn a lot and make many great connections and good friends.