Reporter’s Notebook: Year Two on the Health Beat
Courtesy of Anissa Durham. Photo by Trenae Tillery.
Our health data reporter, Anissa Durham, reflects on some of her favorite and most impactful stories from 2023 — and shares her upcoming projects.
By Anissa Durham
Health in the Black community is more important than ever — especially when we suffer the highest increase in suicide and opioid overdose deaths in the last three to five years. We exist at the intersection of many leading causes of death and disease. Heart conditions, obesity, hypertension, and numerous other chronic illnesses impact our community on a daily basis.
As Word In Black’s health data reporter, I feel it’s important to write stories with a lens on solution and empowerment. This is why I’ve continued to focus my coverage on stories that matter and on topics you won’t find anywhere else.
There’s a common misconception about Black folks that we don’t care for our health. But, while reporting on this beat for the last two years, I would say quite the opposite. I don’t know a community of people who advocate more for themselves or stay more on top of their health care.
Courtesy of Anissa Durham. Photograph by Trenae Tillery.
I wouldn’t be doing this work if I didn’t care about the health of our community. I’ve been honored to speak with many Black experts, advocates, and community leaders in the health space. Listening to your stories is at the core of why I’m a reporter.
As I reflect on this year, I want to share a brief roundup of some of my favorite projects that I reported on, and what I will be working on in 2024.
Most Impactful Project
Lost Innocence: The Adultification of Black Children
I started this series last year; it took about six months of reporting and a team of people to bring this project to fruition. The interviews were some of the hardest I’ve done in my career so far. But these are discussions that more reporters need to have and pay attention to.
This in-depth reporting project on adultification bias is one of the first multi-series articles I’ve seen on this topic.
Abraham Jarvis, 18, poses for a photo at John F. Kennedy Park in San Diego on Feb. 10, 2023. Last year, when Jarvis was 17, he was ticketed and briefly detained in the back of a police car for “switching lanes,” one example he says of him experiencing racial profiling. While being photographed, police cars were parked in the distance. (Anissa Durham/Word In Black)
It was eye-opening to hear adults, teens, and children share vulnerable moments of their childhood — in essence, being forced to forfeit their innocence. This experience is all too common. Yet, not spoken about enough.
Throughout this project, I wanted to make a few things very clear. Black children deserve to be children and to be treated as such. Forcing Black children to be and act like adults only strips them of their innocence. Adultification bias contributes to the hypersexualization of Black girls, lifelong mental health issues, and the criminalization of Black youth.
Tamica Jean-Charles, 24, poses for portraits at the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville, Virginia, on March 1, 2023. She was sexualized as a teenager by adult men. This contributed to her experiencing low self-esteem. (Kori Price/Word In Black)
One of my favorite quotes from this series is a second-hand statement one of my sources received from a stranger. “I think you need my dick in your life.”
I wrote it at the top of the article because it’s jarring, uncomfortable, and unsettling — which is exactly how you should feel when you read the entirety of this series.
Most Needed Project
Fact or Fiction: Navigating Health Misinformation
Health misinformation and disinformation are oversaturated on the internet and social media. Yet, I hadn’t seen much reporting on how health misinformation impacts Black folks’ access to health care services and fact-based information.
Which is why I decided to tackle this from a Black perspective throughout the summer.
I couldn’t report on health misinformation without addressing how COVID-19 changed the landscape of health information. To no surprise, Black folks were deliberately targeted with COVID-19 misinformation, which often resulted in death.
Illustration by Demis Courquet-Lesaulnier.
My goal with the series wasn’t to steer people away from going online or to social media for information. It was quite the opposite. Social media and online platforms can be a great way to access information. However, it’s important to know how to differentiate fact from fiction.
In the six-part series, I took a deeper look at how Gen Z can learn media literacy, why social media disinformation is dangerous to our health, and where readers can go for fact-based health information.
Upcoming Project
In the last few months, I’ve been working on a project with STAT News about how Black bodies are affected in the age of Ozempic and weight loss medications. So far, I’ve spoken to men and women from California to New York, with varying perspectives about chronic illness, body image, and weight loss medications.
Without spoiling anything, I believe this will provide an illustrative portrait of Black bodies that is rarely shown in mainstream news. I hope you will stay tuned for this upcoming series and continue to support the work of our dedicated team at Word In Black.
If you have any story ideas, pitches, or tips, please feel free to email me at anissa.durham@localmedia.org.