Elisabeth Rosenthal on leaving NYT to edit Kaiser Health News: ‘I hope we can add an investigative edge’
人物專訪：Elisabeth Rosenthal談健康新聞
In September, after 22 years as a New York Times correspondent, Elisabeth Rosenthal will take over as editor-in-chief of the nonprofit Kaiser Health News. Rosenthal, an emergency room doctor by training, wrote a lengthy, well-received series for theTimes about the high cost of American healthcare, “Paying Till It Hurts.” With the series, she told me in early 2014, she hoped to “start a very loud conversation” about costs and incentives in our healthcare system that will be “difficult politically to ignore.” We sat down recently to talk about that objective and how she intends to broaden the ambitions and reach of Kaiser Health News—which, earlier this year, expanded its California presence—and elevate the profile of health journalism.
在擔任紐約時報專欄作家22年後，今年9月Elisabeth Rosenthal將接下非營利組織「Kaiser健康新聞」（KHN，Kaiser Health News）總編輯一職。Rosenthal是一位急診專業的醫生，替紐約時報撰寫了一系列頗受好評，探討美國高額醫療費用支出的專欄：「Paying Till It Hurts」。藉由這篇專欄，她在 2014 年初曾告訴我，她希望引起社會的共鳴，因為醫療衛生體系的成本和獎勵問題，是「政治上難以忽視的議題」。我們最近談到，她要如何施展她的抱負，並擴大KHN的規模（今年年初，KHN擴充了加州的組織規模），以及如何提升健康新聞概況。
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
以下為訪談內容摘要整理。
What interested you in the Kaiser job?
這份工作最吸引你的地方？
One appealing factor was that it is nonprofit and foundation-funded—supported as part of the operating budget of the Kaiser Family Foundation—so it doesn’t need a new business model that most media companies are struggling to find. If you look at TV stations, there are so many ads for high-cost drugs and cancer centers. That makes me uncomfortable. It’s liberating for Kaiser Health News not to have to do that. Hopefully that puts us in a better position to disseminate and break health journalism stories. I’ve been a great admirer of KHN as it has grown up. For even longer I’ve admired the parent foundation, which is such a respected name in healthcare research and information. It’s exciting to be there when there’s so much to do and resources to do it.
KHN是個非營利組織，由 Kaiser 家族基金會的經營預算所資助，所以它不需要大多數媒體公司正在努力尋找的商業模式。如果你打開電視，盡是些藥物和癌症中心高成本的廣告，這讓我不太開心。但KHN不需要這樣做，我們能更有利地傳遞健康新聞。對於KHN的不斷壯大，我更感到欽佩，母企業在醫療研究和資訊的貢獻上是如此的令人尊敬。在有這麼多挑戰及資源充足的條件下，我很興奮能在這此工作。
What are the strengths and weaknesses of KHN?
KHN的優勢與劣勢？
For strengths, it’s independent and has reliable funding through Kaiser Family Foundation. That’s huge. It’s really a gift in today’s media world. The staff has a tremendous depth of knowledge about healthcare and great reporting instincts—it has attracted some of the best health reporters in the country. As for weaknesses, it’s young. We’re still trying to figure out our partnerships. We’re trying to figure out the structure that will support the really ambitious reporting we want to do. The weakness is also a benefit. There’s tons of room to try new things as we continue to grow.
在優勢上，它是獨立並且受到Kaiser家族基金會的資助，在現今的媒體圈是很難得的。工作團隊具有醫療衛生的深厚知識，也有優秀的報導本領，也吸引了國內許多的健康記者加入我們。至於缺點，這是一個年輕的組織，我們仍試圖找出符合我們的團隊模式，支撐我們做出具有野心的報導。但這樣的劣勢也是有助力的，我們在成長過程中仍有很大的揮灑空間。
What’s your vision for KHN?
對KHN的未來規劃？
The first message I have to get out is that Kaiser Health News, which is part of the Kaiser Family Foundation, has nothing to do with Kaiser hospitals or Kaiser Permanente [the big medical group]. A lot of people don’t know that. Even some of my colleagues in journalism ask if we’re like the Mayo Clinic newsletter. The Kaiser name is associated with many different organizations, but we have to get out that KHN is independent, nonprofit journalism, not an offshoot of a company or hospital chain.
首先，我得聲明，KHN是 Kaiser 家族基金會的一分子，但和Kaiser醫院或Kaiser醫療集團並無任何關聯。很多人不知道這點，甚至我的一些新聞界同事擔心我們是否像「Mayo診所學報」一樣。Kaiser的名字常與許多不同的組織聯想在一起，但我們必須澄清KHN是獨立的非盈利新聞組織，不是任何一間公司或醫院的附庸。
Kaiser Health News is now a big and growing organization with more than 40 journalists and over 100 distribution partners from the washingtonpost.com to NPR. The plan is now to build out more enterprise and investigative projects. One of my jobs is to be an idea generator at Kaiser. As a result of the Times series, my Facebook groupand my [forthcoming] book, I have many more tips for stories than I can do. There are so many things to investigate. American healthcare is like a smorgasbord for good health journalists. I hope to seed a lot of good projects that we’ll share or co-report with our partners.
KHN現在是一家擁有超過 40 名記者的龐大組織，與華盛頓郵報、公共廣播電台（NPR）等超過100個平台保有合作關係。我們正打算增設許多企業專題和調查專題，而我的任務就是扮演催化劑的角色。鑑於紐時專欄的成功，還有我的臉書專頁和即將出版的書，我仍有許多真本事沒使出來。有這麼多的事情等待我們調查，許多醫療衛生議題正等待記者去發掘。我希望未來能有更多的專題，能與我們的合作夥伴共享和共同報導。
What specific subject areas do you have in mind?
哪些特定主題是你所關心的？
Although KHN’s newsroom is primarily supported by Kaiser’s endowment, we now have grants from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, The SCAN Foundation, The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to focus on special project areas like prescription drug prices, end-of-life care, and rural healthcare. We want to take on those subjects and others that affect Americans, such as the rise of for-profit urgent care and the manipulation of scientific studies for business purposes. I like beginning with local examples and then nationalizing them with data to show their relevance to audiences across the country.
雖然KHN的新聞主要來自於的Kaiser贊助，但Laura and John Arnold基金會、SCAN 基金會、Gordon and Betty Moore基金會和Gordon and Betty Moore基金會也資助我們，報導有關處方藥品的價格、安寧療護和偏遠地區醫療的議題。還有與美國人息息相關的，近來興起的以營利為目的的緊急照護、和以商業為宗旨的科學研究的不當操縱等議題。我喜歡從本地實例著手，然後再輔以相關數據，擴大至全國層面的探討。
Can you give an example?
能否舉個例子？
The KHN story from April that found there were more potentially fatal bacterial infections from improperly cleaned gastrointestinal scopes than had been previously estimated. What does it say about the national picture? There are certainly bad doctors and bad hospitals, but it’s the system that’s allowed it to happen. My goal would be to start with the scope story in Los Angeles and then look more broadly at how devices are regulated. That’s what I mean by broadening the focus of our reporting.
根據KHN 4月的報導，我們發現，因為不當清洗腸胃道而引發的細菌感染情況，比先前所評估的還要嚴重。這突顯了某種情況，一定有些不肖的醫生和醫院牽涉其中，但這是結構面促使它發生的。我計劃先從洛杉磯開始調查，再談醫療設備管理問題。也就是擴大我們的新聞報導的焦點
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作者：Trudy Lieberman
編譯：朱弘川
原文網址： http://www.cjr.org/the_second_opinion/nyt_elisabeth_rosenthal_kaiser_health_news.php?utm_campaign=Newsletters&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_medium=email
