AHCJ announces new board members for 2022-23

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Freelance Journalists Laura Beil,  Randy Dotinga, and Deborah Schoch have been elected and will join three incumbents on the Association of Health Care Journalists’ 2022-23 board of directors.

Beil, a Texas-based journalist with more than 20 years of experience in health and science writing, has previously been published in ProPublica, Texas Monthly, the New York Times and Science News. She received the 2018 Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting from the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (CASW).

Dotinga, a California-based journalist, has been a freelance reporter for more than 20 years, with work appearing in the Washington Post, MedPage Today, and the Christian Science Monitor. The longtime advocate for journalists has served as president of the American Society of Journalists & Authors from 2014-2016, as well as the NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists board of directors for eight years.

Schoch, a California-based journalist, spent 18 years with the Los Angeles Times before joining the USC-based Center for Health Reporting. Schoch now works as a freelance reporter with outlets such as the New York Times and AARP to report on health issues in communities across the country. She has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes and won a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard to study science and law.

Together, the three new board members have more than 50 years’ experience as AHCJ members.

Incumbents starting a new term include Carrie Feibel, NPR’s Science Desk; Joyce Frieden, International Medical News Group and MedPage Today; and Sabriya Rice, Kaiser Health News.

The board members join those elected last year for two-year terms: Christine Herman, health reporter at Illinois Public Media; Sebastián Martínez Valdivia, public health reporter at KBIA and adjunct instructor at the Missouri School of Journalism; Marlene Harris-Taylor, managing producer at NPR/PBS affiliate ideastream; Jeanne Erdmann, a Missouri-based freelancer; Felice Freyer, health reporter at The Boston Globe; and Gideon Gil, managing editor at STAT.

Officers will remain in their current positions until October 1 when a new slate will be elected.

The Association of Health Care Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing public understanding of health care issues. Its mission is to improve the quality, accuracy and visibility of health care reporting, writing and editing. It is a community of about 1,500 people committed to the highest standards of reporting, writing, editing, and broadcasting in health care journalism for the general public and trade publications. The Association hosts a resource-laden website, offers numerous fellowships for journalists, conducts training to help journalists improve and advance their coverage and advocates for the free flow of information to the public. AHCJ is housed at the Missouri School of Journalism.