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Weekly Diaries

During my internship at U.S. News and World Report as a editorial intern, I had the opportunity to dive deep into the world of health journalism. collection of diaries reflects my experiences, challenges, and the valuable lessons I learned throughout the internship. From researching health topics to collaborating with seasoned editors, each entry captures my growth and the insights gained this dynamic and impactful field. Join me as I share my journey through this transformative period.

Week 1 

Journalism Practicum Diary # 1

 

Student’s name: Sabrina McCrear

 

Week of: 6/3 - 6/7

 

Supervisor’s name: Jennifer Winston 

 

Agency/Station/Company Office: U.S. News & World Report - Maternity Outreach & Communications

 

My two main objectives for this week were:

 

  1. The first objective for this week is to become acclimated to the work I will be doing for the duration of the internship. I want to be confident in knowing what my role is and its significance to the company. Achieving this will help my confidence and productivity throughout the internship. 

  2. The second objective is to network with other employees in the company whose career goals/ positions align closely with my own. Our general supervisor, Judy, and the president, Chris advised us to make connections and network with employees at the company. They expressed the importance of networking and how many opportunities become available when you open yourself up and get to know people. They described the environment as very friendly and welcoming. They told us the employees would be happy to answer our questions and support us in any way necessary.
     

Describe the work you personally performed and observed.


This week was orientation-based. Both the DC and NY interns were briefed on the history of the company by the president. Before that, we received our work laptops and set them up with the help of IT, Chris. 

Afterwards, I reached out to my direct supervisors who briefed me and Sarah on our specific roles in the maternity and outreach communications department. We had a meeting discussing the need for maternity care centers and the role they serve in counties that experience maternity care deserts. 

This week I reached out to almost 100 hospitals that could potentially qualify as maternity care access hospitals. It was quite tedious and I ran into a lot of blocked emails but I consulted with a fellow intern to improve my efficiency and reach out to as many hospitals as possible in a week.
 

List the names and titles/positions of all the people you directly worked with this week.

 

  • Judy David - President & CEO Executive Assistant; Human Resources Administrator

  • Jennifer Winston - Health Data Scientist 

  • Kaylan Ware - Hospital Relations Manager

  • Xinyan Z. - Health Data Analyst 

  • Sarah Aronson - Maternity Outreach & Communications Intern 

  • Arooj Yousaf - Maternity Outreach Consultant
     

Describe any new skills or concepts you learned or important observations (about yourself or others) you made this week.

 

I learned how to organize my work to be more efficient and get my work done in a timely and organized manner. I learned this by turning towards a fellow employee after noticing their quickened work pace and demonstration of efficiency. After having a conversation with Arooj I was able to implement the same technique she used to better my own work habits and increase my performance.


Describe any significant experiences, achievements, “aha” moments and/ or roadblocks you had this week.

 

This week I met my fellow interns and made their acquaintance. An aha moment I had was realizing how my colleague was able to send out so many emails in one day. Her solution really surprised me because I hadn’t thought to go about the task in that way. I’m glad I took the time out to ask her because it really helped improve my efficiency.

Week 2

Journalism Practicum Diary # 2

 

Student’s name: Sabrina McCrear

 

Week of: 6/10 - 6/14

 

Supervisor’s name: Jennifer Winston 

 

Agency/Station/Company Office: U.S. News & World Report - Maternity Outreach & Communications

 

My two main objectives for this week were:

 

  1. My first objective this week is to find a balance between my fellowship and my internship. My supervisor has allowed me to work reduced hours so that I may focus on my internship. My fellowship however is from 8 am to 8 pm, so I will have to work about 2-3 hours afterwards to put time into completing tasks and projects for my internship. 

  2. My second objective is to find a better way to verify the emails I send out to hospitals so that they don’t come back blocked or “domain not found”. Running into this problem becomes a waste of time because I won't know if the email has bounced until it is sent the next morning. Then I feel as if all the work I did the day before was insufficient because more than half of the emails I scheduled to send don’t make it through.

Describe the work you personally performed and observed.


This week, although I did work fewer hours, I had fewer emails bounced back as blocked or marked “user not found”. I had more accuracy just by copying and pasting the email as opposed to retyping it. That way I know if the email did bounce it wasn’t the result of a spelling error. I completed the first round of contact with hospitals that qualified for US News’s Maternity Care Access Hospital Designation. This designation is awarded to hospitals that provide maternal care to a community or area that would not have access to the care otherwise. In all, I reached out to over 200 hospitals in the past two weeks under this designation alone. 

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I also worked 40 hours at my fellowship participating in numerous workshops that helped us craft a science story based on a research study. I was able to dissect the study I was assigned and produce a quality paper with the guidance of numerous science journalist professionals and mentors. This experience was very eye-opening; I learned a multitude of different avenues in science journalism and this made me feel more confident in my plan after graduation.
 

List the names and titles/positions of all the people you directly worked with this week.

 

  • Judy David - President & CEO Executive Assistant; Human Resources Administrator

  • Jennifer Winston - Health Data Scientist 

  • Kaylan Ware - Hospital Relations Manager

  • Xinyan Z. - Health Data Analyst 

  • Sarah Aronson - Maternity Outreach & Communications Intern 

  • Arooj Yousaf - Maternity Outreach Consultant 

  • Ashley Smart - KSJ MIT Director

  • Melba Newsome - Health Science Journalist and KSJ MIt mentor
     

Describe any new skills or concepts you learned or important observations (about yourself or others) you made this week.

 

This week I learned how to write a science story and the different story structure and language that it requires. I learned how to dissect a research study and find a story that people will be able to relate to. I learned that I am a lot more mature when it comes to juggling multiple tasks such as my internship and my fellowship. I also realized that everything doesn't have to be trial and error but other things require that methodology. Writing my science story was less trial and error because it was a guided and instructed process. However, trying to figure out why my emails kept bouncing was a trial and error-process because I didn’t feel like it was a problem someone else could fix. And this being my first job in communications I wanted to challenge myself to figure it out and see if I could solve it before asking for help. And I did, which was also very satisfying and a proud moment. 

 


Describe any significant experiences, achievements, “aha” moments and/ or roadblocks you had this week.

 

I had a couple of great moments/achievements this week. One, I was able to reduce the number of emails that got bounced once they were sent out by copying and pasting the emails directly as opposed to retyping them. 

 

I was also happy to have been able to complete a science study story on access to breast cancer screenings disproportionately affecting black and Hispanic women. This story will also be published in the New Amsterdam Journal.

Week 3

Journalism Practicum Diary # 3

 

Student’s name: Sabrina McCrear

 

Week of: 6/17-21

 

Supervisor’s name: Jennifer Winston 

 

Agency/Station/Company Office: U.S. News & World Report - Maternity Outreach & Communications

 

My two main objectives for this week were:

 

  1. My first main objective is to finish my first round of outreach to hospitals that qualify for the Maternity Care Access Hospital Designation. I am about ¾ of the way through. Once I finish the first round I will then go back and contact hospitals that did not have an available email via phone. After that I will then start contacting baby-friendly hospitals that also qualify for High-Performing Maternity Care Hospitals

  2. My second objective for this week is to compile research studies and CDC data that support the benefits of having DEI and perform highly in that area in regard to maternity. From there I will be meeting with my direct supervisor and department supervisor to go over the guidelines for an equitable maternal health story to be published with US News.
     

Explain how you achieved or why you did not achieve your goals.  Be specific.


I did not entirely complete the first round of contact for access hospitals and baby-friendly hospitals. However, I did reach out to all the emails I was able to find for access and baby-friendly hospitals on the dashboard. I am now in the process of calling all the hospitals without an email so that I can find a marketing rep. and leave a message. Some marketing reps answered the phone and I was able to get a contact name and email for future reference. 

I am continuing to research studies that support health inequities when it comes to c-section rates. I have found two really good studies so far and will dissect them when I get the time before I have to present them to our vertical manager and my direct supervisor.

 

Describe the work you personally performed and observed.


This week I made a lot of calls to hospitals, many of which did not answer. However, I still marked them off as contacts because I left voicemails describing our survey and the data we’re collecting as well as my contact information. I also drafted emails for returning hospitals who submitted the survey last year for High Performing Maternity Care Hospitals and shared it with my team. My supervisor helped edit the email before we shared it with the team to make sure it addressed the most important points. 

​

List the names and titles/positions of all the people you directly worked with this week.

 

  • Judy David - President & CEO Executive Assistant; Human Resources Administrator

  • Jennifer Winston - Health Data Scientist 

  • Kaylan Ware - Hospital Relations Manager

  • Xinyan Z. - Health Data Analyst 

  • Sarah Aronson - Maternity Outreach & Communications Intern 

  • Arooj Yousaf - Maternity Outreach Consultant
     

Describe any new skills or concepts you learned or important observations (about yourself or others) you made this week.

 

I realized that I get easily distracted working from home so I have made a comfortable work environment at my desk. I try really hard to only sit at my desk when I have to work so whenever I do sit down my brain understands that this is the place where I get work done and I can concentrate better. Thus, eliminating any distractions and I can attend to my work for longer periods of time. 

I have also gotten better at improving my phone script for when hospitals do answer the phone. It took a couple of tries but I think I figured out the best way to communicate a relatively brief summary of our survey without overwhelming the rep. on the phone. I just start with the basic voicemail script and then ask them for their contact information or if there are any other questions I can answer for them over the phone. It has worked well so far so I will keep doing it. 

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Describe any significant experiences, achievements, “aha” moments and/ or roadblocks you had this week.

 

This week I realized that calling, although may be quite tedious and a little time-consuming, I received a high volume of responses through emails and phone requesting more information about our surveys. Over 300 hospitals have accessed and completed the survey since it opened in June thanks to our team's efforts. 

 

A roadblock that I encountered was that my Google Voice phone number kept dropping calls which made it hard to leave any kind of message. I restarted my phone but after that just went back to sending emails to returning hospitals. I will try again next week and see if the issue with Google Voice has been resolved.

Week 4

Journalism Practicum Diary # 4 

 

Student’s name: Sabrina McCrear

 

Week of: 6/24 - 6/28

 

Supervisor’s name: Jennifer Winston 

 

Agency/Station/Company Office: U.S. News & World Report - Maternity Outreach & Communications

 

My two main objectives for this week were:

 

  1. My first main objective is similar to last week's in that I want to finish all first-round contacts to access hospitals and baby-friendly hospitals. Whether it be my phone or email, I will have contacted all the hospitals that match the criteria on my communication tracker. Then I will begin to reach out to returning hospitals via email. Before I do that I will cross reference my communications tracker with hospitals that have already accessed the survey since the number of hospitals increases daily. 

  2. My second objective is also similar to last week's in that I will keep researching studies that support cesarean health inequities and compile sources to interview. The interview will most likely be from three of the top-performing maternity care centers in regard to DEI. I will also extract the facts/data I need from the studies to present to the vertical director and my direct supervisor.
     

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Explain how you achieved or why you did not achieve your goals.  Be specific.


Yes, I did achieve a lot of what I set out to do this week. I reached out to returning hospitals with much success. I continued to reach out to the remaining maternity access and baby-friendly hospitals via phone. A few of the hospitals that accessed the survey were hospitals that I reached out to. I also had a meeting with my supervisor and director about my DEI maternity story. It went very well and I began to reach out to the six high-performing hospitals with excellent black patient outcomes.

 

Describe the work you personally performed and observed.


This week I began to reach out to hospitals that participated in the survey last year. I reached out to around 200 hospitals. I got very positive responses from the hospitals. All of the hospitals that responded confirmed that they would be participating in the survey again this year. I also contacted six North Carolina hospitals that received high-performing maternity care with excellent black patient outcomes. I reached out to make them aware of the DEI maternity story we’re writing and we would like to recognize their efforts. I also asked for written permission to publish the data they submitted through our survey. 

This week I also contacted the remaining maternity access and baby-friendly hospitals via phone to encourage their participation in this year's survey. 

​

List the names and titles/positions of all the people you directly worked with this week.

 

  • Judy David - President & CEO Executive Assistant; Human Resources Administrator

  • Jennifer Winston - Health Data Scientist 

  • Kaylan Ware - Hospital Relations Manager

  • Xinyan Z. - Health Data Analyst 

  • Sarah Aronson - Maternity Outreach & Communications Intern 

  • Arooj Yousaf - Maternity Outreach Consultant 

  • Ben Harden - Chief of Health Analysis
     

Describe any new skills or concepts you learned or important observations (about yourself or others) you made this week.

 

This week I continued to improve my verbal communication skills when speaking with hospital representatives. My impromptu communication skills are getting better and I am able to accurately articulate any questions hospital marketing representatives may have over the phone. I am proud that I have become more comfortable with US News & Report and the maternity designations that I no longer have to refer to the script when answering questions via email or over the phone. 

 


Describe any significant experiences, achievements, “aha” moments and/ or roadblocks you had this week.

 

This week I was happy to have consulted with my direct supervisor, Jennifer Winston and the health vertical manager, Ben Harder on the DEI maternity story. I was very happy with the way I conducted myself during this meeting. I feel that I asked all the right questions and was well prepared. Both Jennifer and Ben were satisfied with what we discussed and agreed upon. I took the initiative and they gave me complete control and creative freedom over the story. I set a reasonable deadline for the first draft and reached out to the hospitals we agreed on.

Week 5

Journalism Practicum Diary # 5

 

Student’s name: Sabrina McCrear

 

Week of: 7/1 - 7/5

 

Supervisor’s name: Jennifer Winston 

 

Agency/Station/Company Office: U.S. News & World Report - Maternity Outreach & Communications

 

My two main objectives for this week were:

 

  1. The first objective from this week is to continue outreach to last year's participating hospitals. In addition to finishing up calls to hospitals that may qualify for access designations and/or have baby-friendly designations. Many of the hospitals do not have emails on our dashboard so I will have to call those hospitals using the information I find on their website. 

  2. The second objective is to schedule interviews with study authors and follow up on data permissions for North Carolina’s high-performing maternity care hospitals. I will also begin to draft my lede and nut graph for the story so that if I don’t get a response from the author studies or providers I still have something to present. Also, reach out to the hospital providers to see if they’d be willing to give anecdotes for the story.

     

Explain how you achieved or why you did not achieve your goals.  Be specific.


This week was fairly short. Monday and Wednesday I worked on calling the remaining hospitals that did not have emails on the dashboard and leaving voicemails. Some of the hospitals that did answer provided an email that was either blocked or did not exist. I will have to follow up with those hospitals. 

4 out of the 6 hospitals from NC still haven’t responded to my release of information request. I will follow up with them next week. I also still have to reach out to the providers at those specific hospitals who would be willing to give anecdotes for the story. I also need to draft a lede and nut graf for the story as well as interview questions for providers and study authors.

 

Describe the work you personally performed and observed.

This week I finished contacting hospitals via email whose contact addresses were readily available either on their website or our hospital dashboard. After that ,I began calling the rest of the hospitals that did not have an email readily available on either their website or on our hospital dashboard. I drafted another phone and voicemail script for contacting those hospitals.
 

List the names and titles/positions of all the people you directly worked with this week.

 

  • Judy David - President & CEO Executive Assistant; Human Resources Administrator

  • Jennifer Winston - Health Data Scientist 

  • Kaylan Ware - Hospital Relations Manager

  • Xinyan Z. - Health Data Analyst 

  • Sarah Aronson - Maternity Outreach & Communications Intern 

  • Arooj Yousaf - Maternity Outreach Consultant
     

Describe any new skills or concepts you learned or important observations (about yourself or others) you made this week.

 

I learned how to draft a script that directly addressed what I needed from the hospitals that kept them engaged and encouraged them to participate in our survey. It took a couple of tries and I edited each time after the first 5 or 6 calls. But after that, I believe I found a brief but informative script that would encourage hospitals to participate. 

 


Describe any significant experiences, achievements, “aha” moments and/ or roadblocks you had this week.

 

I was happy that I was able to draft a script that accommodated the type of hospital I was reaching out to for this specific designation. The hospitals I was reaching out to may have only been eligible for the US News High Performing Maternity Care designation which is different from the US News Maternity Care Access designation Baby-friendly designation. It was difficult at first because the first couple of drafts did not yield positive responses from the hospitals that answered. I was proud after a couple of edits through trial and error and 5 or 6 calls to hospitals that I finally started getting positive responses from hospitals.

Week 6

Journalism Practicum Diary # 6

 

Student’s name: Sabrina McCrear

 

Week of: 07/08/2024 - 07/12/2024

 

Supervisor’s name: Jennifer Winston 

 

Agency/Station/Company Office: U.S. News & World Report - Maternity Outreach & Communications

 

My two main objectives for this week were:

 

  1. The first objective for this week is to continue to reach out to hospitals that may be eligible for High Performing Maternity Care designation and do not have an email address readily available on their website or on our hospitals dashboards. 

  2. The second objective for this week is to draft interview questions and schedule interviews with the author studies and healthcare providers. I also need to draft a lede and nut graf for the story.

     

Explain how you achieved or why you did not achieve your goals.  Be specific.


This week I continued my outreach as usual. My supervisor instructed me to specifically reach out to hospitals that participated last year but haven’t accessed the survey yet. This will be one of my objectives for next week since our meeting was on Friday. I also drafted a lede and nutgraf for my DEI maternity story that I really like. My supervisor also scheduled a follow-up with our vertical director to go over what I have so far at the end of next week. I also interviewed a study author whose work is relevant to this story and drafted some more questions as I continue interviews next week.
 

Describe the work you personally performed and observed.


This week I reached out to hospitals that hadn’t accessed the survey yet this year, but participated last year. I also followed up with hospitals I reached out to earlier in the summer that haven’t responded or accessed the survey yet. Specifically access designation hospitals and baby-friendly hospitals. I’ve contacted all the hospitals on my communication tracker at least once so far, either by phone or email. I also drafted the intro to my maternity DEI story and interviewed a study author whose work is relevant to the story. 

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List the names and titles/positions of all the people you directly worked with this week.

 

  • Judy David - President & CEO Executive Assistant; Human Resources Administrator

  • Jennifer Winston - Health Data Scientist 

  • Kaylan Ware - Hospital Relations Manager

  • Xinyan Z. - Health Data Analyst 

  • Sarah Aronson - Maternity Outreach & Communications Intern 

  • Arooj Yousaf - Maternity Outreach Consultant 

  • Ben Harder - Managing Editor and Chief of Health Analysis
     

Describe any new skills or concepts you learned or important observations (about yourself or others) you made this week.

 

I learned that I am still able to persevere and complete my work even if I am ill. I had a terrible cold with body aches, headaches, congestion, coughing and sneezing all week which made it hard to focus and do my work. Nevertheless, I was still able to conduct my interviews, attend meetings and get a significant amount of work done.It was difficult and at times I had a lot of brain fog and struggled to focus on what I was doing. Working from home made it easier to take care of myself while I got my work done so I could get better and continue to work efficiently. 


Describe any significant experiences, achievements, “aha” moments and/ or roadblocks you had this week.

 

This week I struggled with calculating the percent differences for the maternity data for my story. The six hospitals from NC had significantly lower hospital averages for c-sections and UNC’s amongst black patients than the national average. If I weren’t sick I would not have had any difficulty with this task, however my illness gave me severe brain fog which impacted my cognitive function and my ability to focus. Nevertheless, I still got it done, although it took me much longer than it would have if I weren’t sick.

Week 7

Journalism Practicum Diary # 7

 

Student’s name: Sabrina McCrear

 

Week of: 07/15/2024 - 07/19/2024

 

Supervisor’s name: Jennifer Winston 

 

Agency/Station/Company Office: U.S. News & World Report - Maternity Outreach & Communications

 

My two main objectives for this week were:

 

  1. The first objective for this week is to continue outreach to hospitals that participated last year but haven’t accessed the survey yet this year. 

  2. The second objective this week is to continue scheduling interviews for my Maternity DEI story and have a rough draft for my vertical director by the end of the week.

     

Explain how you achieved or why you did not achieve your goals.  Be specific.


I scheduled two more interviews for my maternity DEI story. One with an OBGYN clinician who works and UNC REX Hospital — one of the hospitals being recognized. And another OBGYN clinician from Arizona. However, after speaking with our vertical supervisor her anecdotes may not be relevant. This week we also paused outreach to hospitals so as not to overwhelm them. We will resume outreach after next week contacting hospitals who have already accessed the survey and encouraging them to finish.
 

Describe the work you personally performed and observed.

 

This week I completed a very rough draft for my maternal DEI story. I am still waiting for anecdotes from UNC Rex’s OB-GYN physician, Dr. Barlow, as her interview is scheduled for next week Wednesday. I emailed my rough draft to our vertical supervisor with notes but did not hear back from him. This week I also conducted interviews with Dr.Roth a sociologist at the University of Arizona who published a study on health inequalities amongst c-section rates. I incorporated her anecdotes into the story.
 

List the names and titles/positions of all the people you directly worked with this week.

 

  • Judy David - President & CEO Executive Assistant; Human Resources Administrator

  • Ben Harder - Managing Editor and Chief of Health Analysis

  • Jennifer Winston - Health Data Scientist 

  • Kaylan Ware - Hospital Relations Manager

  • Xinyan Z. - Health Data Analyst 

  • Sarah Aronson - Maternity Outreach & Communications Intern 

  • Arooj Yousaf - Maternity Outreach Consultant 

  • Dr. Louis Roth - Sociologist and professor at the University of Arizona
     

Describe any new skills or concepts you learned or important observations (about yourself or others) you made this week.

 

This week I continued to hone my skills as an investigative journalist. I used skills I learned from my week in Boston with the Knight Science Journalism program on how to dissect and report on research studies. I was able to pick out the most important information from the study that would support my story. It served as the necessary background information for my story. In order to highlight these hospitals and why the work they’re doing is important I first had to describe the problem and I did that using Dr. Roth’s study and her anecdotes in my story. 

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Describe any significant experiences, achievements, “aha” moments and/ or roadblocks you had this week.

 

This week I faced roadblocks because I did not have all the anecdotes I needed when I had my article-update meeting with our vertical director and my direct supervisor. I was still able to assure them that I could still write the story with the current anecdotes from Atrium Health and Dr. Roth. However, the story would not be complete until I spoke with Dr. Barlow from UNC Rex as well. Her anecdotes are very key because she plays a crucial role in why UNC Rex Hospital received its Best Hospitals for Maternity Care Designation and their exemplary black patient outcomes.

Week 8

Journalism Practicum Diary # 8

 

Student’s name: Sabrina McCrear

 

Week of: 07/22/2024 - 07/26/2024

 

Supervisor’s name: Jennifer Winston 

 

Agency/Station/Company Office: U.S. News & World Report - Maternity Outreach & Communications

 

My two main objectives for this week were:

 

  1. The first objective this week is to research Dr. Barlow from UNC Rex in preparation for my interview with her on Wednesday. Per my vertical supervisor's instruction, I need to find out if she has any published research on health inequities pertaining to c-sections of unexpected newborn complications. 

  2. My second objective is to complete a final rough draft of my story to submit to my vertical supervisor. The final draft will include anecdotes from Atrium Health, Dr. Barlow from UNC Rex Hospital and D. Roth from the University of Arizona. The word count on my story is 750 so I think three sources will allow me to tell the story and provide quality anecdotes while staying under the minimum word count for the story.

     

Explain how you achieved or why you did not achieve your goals.  Be specific.


This week I conducted interviews with Dr. Barlow the chair of the department of the department of Obstetrics and gynecology and Dr. Arriana B. Sholes Douglas, OBGYN from the University of Arizona. The interviews were very successful and I got very good quotes from each doctor that contributed well to the story. I also completed the first draft of my story which my supervisor will look over Monday and we will discuss edits on Tuesday morning.

 

Describe the work you personally performed and observed.


This week I conducted interviews with Dr. Barlow the chair of the department of the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Dr. Arriana B. Sholes Douglas, OBGYN from the University of Arizona. The interviews were very successful and I got very good quotes from each doctor that contributed well to the story. I also completed the first draft of my story which my supervisor will look over Monday and we will discuss edits on Tuesday morning. This week outreach priorities also shifted and my team and I focused on reaching out to specific hospitals that participated last year. We had to make sure they responded either by email or phone to confirm their participation. If they did not we had to find another contact address on their website as well as a press release. 

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List the names and titles/positions of all the people you directly worked with this week.

 

  • Judy David - President & CEO Executive Assistant; Human Resources Administrator

  • Ben Harder - Managing Editor and Chief of Health Analysis

  • Jennifer Winston - Health Data Scientist 

  • Kaylan Ware - Hospital Relations Manager

  • Xinyan Z. - Health Data Analyst 

  • Sarah Aronson - Maternity Outreach & Communications Intern 

  • Arooj Yousaf - Maternity Outreach Consultant
     

Describe any new skills or concepts you learned or important observations (about yourself or others) you made this week.

 

I realized I’ve gotten better at making up interview questions as I conduct interviews. In school, I was taught to only have a coupl ofe questions prepared and it was a field skill to actually learn how to make up questions during an interview to steer the conversation in the right direction. I was very proud of myself for doing so during both interviews. I took short notes during interviews while my interviewees were talking and composed questions about certain things they said that stood out to me or I thought would make good anecdotes for the story. 


Describe any significant experiences, achievements, “aha” moments and/ or roadblocks you had this week.

 

The majority of the hospitals on our high-priority list for outreach responded confirming their participation. As of right now, we have over 300 hospitals submitted. The deadline has been extended to August 18th however we are still encouraging hospitals to submit by August 2nd. We are continuing to prioritize hospitals that participated last year until the survey closes.

Week 9

Journalism Practicum Diary # 9 

 

Student’s name: Sabrina McCrear

 

Week of: 07/29/2024 - 08/02/2024

 

Supervisor’s name: Jennifer Winston 

 

Agency/Station/Company Office: U.S. News & World Report - Maternity Outreach & Communications

 

My two main objectives for this week were:

 

  1. The first objective for this week is reaching out to as many hospitals that participated last year but have yet to complete or access the survey this year. As well as getting confirmation from those who do plan to submit for this year. Our priority outreach for this final week of the survey is to reach out to hospitals that have started the survey but haven’t finished it yet. Starting with hospitals that haven’t made it past the first page of the survey followed by hospitals who have made some progress but also haven’t finished.

  2. The second objective for this week is to continue editing and revising my maternity DEI story. I have a meeting scheduled this week with our vertical supervisor to go over edits and publishing dates. I will know more about this objective after my meeting with him on Tuesday

     

Explain how you achieved or why you did not achieve your goals.  Be specific.


This week we continued reaching out to hospitals that accessed the survey but did not complete it yet. Our priority outreach was focused on encouraging those hospitals to submit before the deadline. My supervisor provided lists of the hospitals that accessed the survey but did not complete it yet alone with the email used to access the survey. The meeting with my vertical supervisor went well. We worked through the edits on my story and are working to get it published before the end of next week.

 

Describe the work you personally performed and observed.


This week I reached out to nearly 300 hospitals to encourage them to submit before the deadline. These were all hospitals that accessed the survey earlier in the summer but had yet to complete and submit it. Many of the responses that I received confirmed that the hospital would submit the survey before the end of this week when the survey closes. There are a couple hospitals that asked for extensions and we’ve given them until August 9th to submit. I also went over the edits with my vertical supervisor, Ben Harder. 

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List the names and titles/positions of all the people you directly worked with this week.

 

  • Judy David - President & CEO Executive Assistant; Human Resources Administrator

  • Ben Harder - Managing Editor and Chief of Health Analysis

  • Jennifer Winston - Health Data Scientist 

  • Kaylan Ware - Hospital Relations Manager

  • Xinyan Z. - Health Data Analyst 

  • Sarah Aronson - Maternity Outreach & Communications Intern 

  • Arooj Yousaf - Maternity Outreach Consultant 


 

Describe any new skills or concepts you learned or important observations (about yourself or others) you made this week.

 

Something I learned this week is to not be so anxious when an editor makes edits on my stories. In my past experience, whenever I’ve had an editor look over my work most of the edits were either grammatical or structural. I know that I have to continue to work on sharpening my AP and editing skills so it is less work for my editor and to be a better writer overall. The grammatical errors were very small like a missing letter, misspelled words, an extra comma or capitalization of certain words. 

 


Describe any significant experiences, achievements, “aha” moments and/ or roadblocks you had this week.

 

After I went over the story edits with my vertical supervisor, Ben Harder, he complimented me on the story. A lot of the edits he made were grammatical as opposed to structure and content edits. I’ve heard feedback from my professors that I need to work on my AP formatting but otherwise my writing is very good. I will continue to use this advice to better my editorial skills in the future. I am very proud of the piece I wrote. I was anxious when I finished and sent it to my vertical supervisor for edits, but I was happy when he said he was pleased with my work.

Week 10

Journalism Practicum Diary # 10

 

Student’s name: Sabrina McCrear

 

Week of: 08/05/2024 - 08/09/2024

 

Supervisor’s name: Jennifer Winston 

 

Agency/Station/Company Office: U.S. News & World Report - Maternity Outreach & Communications

 

My two main objectives for this week were:

 

  1. The first objective this week is to continue follow-up on the hospitals that we granted an extension for. Most hospitals received an extension until August 9th. The goal is to address any last-minute questions or concerns they may have as they work to finish up the survey. 

  2. The second objective for this week is to complete my final internship presentation summarizing all the work I did during my internship and the skills I learned. The presentation is on Tuesday and the meeting is at 10 a.m. In addition to this presentation, I need to continue documenting successful points of contact for participating hospitals and continue my abortion care research.

     

Explain how you achieved or why you did not achieve your goals.  Be specific.


My presentation was successful. I created it in collaboration with the other intern on my team Sarah. We each took turns presenting each slide sharing what we did during our internship for the summer and describing our individual projects as well as skills we learned. After our presentation, I continued to work on adding all the successful points of contact for participating hospitals in my communication tracker and the shared tracker. Adding them to my tracker and the shared tracker will help the maternity team and future interns next year when they begin contacting hospitals for 2025-’26.

 

Describe the work you personally performed and observed.


This week I made a final intern presentation with the other maternity outreach team intern, Sarah. Our presentation summarized what we did for the summer including the specifics of our outreach and individual projects we worked on as well. I also documented all the successful points of contact for the participating hospitals in my communications tracker and shared tracker. I also worked on abortion care pitches in preparation for my fall internship as a health editorial intern. I was assigned to research abortion care by Jen, my direct supervisor, and now need to have a couple pitched ready by the 15th. 

​

List the names and titles/positions of all the people you directly worked with this week.

 

  • Judy David - President & CEO Executive Assistant; Human Resources Administrator

  • Ben Harder - Managing Editor and Chief of Health Analysis

  • Jennifer Winston - Health Data Scientist 

  • Kaylan Ware - Hospital Relations Manager

  • Xinyan Z. - Health Data Analyst 

  • Sarah Aronson - Maternity Outreach & Communications Intern 

  • Arooj Yousaf - Maternity Outreach Consultant
     

Describe any new skills or concepts you learned or important observations (about yourself or others) you made this week.

 

I learned how to fine-tune my pitches so that the intent of the story is clearly communicated. Working with my mentor from KSJ on my pitch for my fellowship helped me write pitches for the maternity editorial that I have to present to my supervisor and U.S. News Managing Editor, Gretel Schueller. My mentor emphasized the importance of having a good pitch that shows you already know how to write the story you are pitching and is basically a blueprint of your story for your editor; which is why it has to be very good and well thought out. 

 


Describe any significant experiences, achievements, “aha” moments and/ or roadblocks you had this week.

 

This week I struggled to find pitches to present to our managing editor and my direct supervisor. I know most of my pitches are centered around maternity and abortion care but I also wanted to include other health stories that didn’t relate to women's health. I was able to come up with about four pitches that I believe my editor would like to see. One of them being the pre-announcement of the maternity survey. I thought this would be a good idea given the maternity survey just closed and it would get hospitals excited about the survey to come out later this year.

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