Kaiser steps in to fill gap left as beat reporters lose jobs
As many news organizations continue to struggle, non-profit news services will increasingly be attempting to fill the information gap, says Matt James, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. James visited the Cronkite School Tuesday to speak to faculty and students about the foundation’s new non-profit Kaiser Health News (KHN) and the increasing role of non-profits in journalism.
While the foundation has long supported health journalism in the form of fellowships and internships, with this new lofty venture, KHN is producing the news content themselves. The new news service has partnered with major news organizations like National Public Radio, ABC News, The Washington Post and Philadelphia Inquirer to produce in-depth coverage of health care free of charge.
The idea to begin the KHN began when the foundation noticed that many health care reporters and journalists with expertise were losing their jobs, says James. There was an increasing concern that the major newspapers and news organizations lacked the resources to cover health care in enough detail. That’s when the Kaiser Family Foundation decided to step in to fill those shoes.
The health news service has a yearly operating budget of three million per year and the foundation hopes to increase that to five million in the future, says James. While the new service has partnered with papers like the Washington Post to produce acclaimed journalism such as the Being a Black Man series, James points out that the business model is not sustainable forever. All content produced by KHN is provided for free, and is built into the core operating budget of the foundation.
One thing that is unique about KHN is that the organization maintains an editorial firewall between the news division and the Kaiser Family Foundation management, says James. “It was critical for credibility with our partners.”
“Coming from a management perspective, the most difficult thing was letting go,” says James.
James is quick to point out that not all non-profits and foundations will have this level of transparency in their attempts to produce news in the future. He worries that if for-profit organizations like pharmaceutical companies create foundations to produce news it will become increasingly difficult for news organizations to discern fact from advocacy in health coverage.
Universities and Institutions of higher learning can play a key role in teaching journalists to discern the “rules” for non-profit news, says James. They can lay the framework for teaching young journalists to differentiate between non-profit news that is explanatory and advocacy journalism.
To that end, KPN is working on strengthening its distribution network, building its news team, and developing a freelance network to promote in-depth health coverage nationwide. The organization is also looking for interns interested in specialized in health care coverage.
