October 4, 2024
To address the pressing healthcare challenges facing rural and marginalized communities across the United States, six nonprofit newsrooms — the Associated Press, California Health Report, Capital B, Cardinal News, CatchLight Local and Enlace Latino NC — came together to form the editorial collaboration “Bridging Access.” This initiative, led by the Institute for Nonprofit News’ Rural News Network, aimed to elevate underrepresented voices and shed light on health disparities exacerbated by systemic inequities. Through in-depth reporting, these outlets explored solutions, highlighted community efforts, and brought national attention to these critical issues.
Thanks to generous support from the Walton Family Foundation, RNN was able to explore innovative ways to pay newsrooms to research the series ideas they pitched and, for the first time, include a dedicated multimedia partner.
The heart of “Bridging Access” lies in its diverse storytelling, with each newsroom focusing on a unique angle within the broader theme of healthcare disparities in rural areas. From the financial struggles of rural hospitals to the personal stories of marginalized farmworkers, these articles spotlight the human impact of failing healthcare systems and the homegrown efforts to address these issues.
Capital B, a national newsroom centering Black voices and issues in its reporting, led the series. Aallyah Wright, its rural correspondent, investigated the reversal of hospital closures in rural Black communities in Mississippi, Tennessee and Georgia. The story explored community efforts to reopen healthcare facilities, while highlighting persistent obstacles.
When a rural hospital closes, there’s usually no turning back, Wright explained. Yet communities like Brownsville, Tennessee, became an outlier two years ago, working across racial lines to become part of a growing but short list of hospitals in rural counties that have been able to fully reopen.
California Health Report covered the healthcare struggles of the estimated 50,000 immigrants and their descendents from the Indian state of Punjab living in Fresno — one of the largest ethnic groups in the Central Valley — showcasing the successes of a community-led health program.
“Into the void left by a health care system that doesn’t offer sufficient translation services, and an economy that demands grueling labor from low-wage agricultural and meatpacking workers, Punjabi residents have created an organization to help each other,” reporter Claudia Boyd-Barrett wrote.
On the East Coast, Cardinal News focused on Virginia’s growing maternity care crisis. In the last six years, five maternity units have closed down across rural Virginia, impacting access to prenatal care. However, the closures have spurred new models of care, such as doula services, to ease maternal morbidity, particularly among Black mothers, reporter Emily Schabacker found.
Local grassroots organizations like Birth in Color, a nonprofit organization that provides doula services and works on advocacy and policy for reproductive justice, is among those filling the gaps. Birth in Color’s advocacy helped Virginia to become the fourth state in the country to bring doula services under Medicaid in April 2022, making the services more accessible to low-income families.
Enlace Latino NC, the first digital media Spanish language news outlet that covers politics, government, immigration, and community affairs in North Carolina, delved into the health care struggles facing the approximately 150,000 farmworkers and their dependents living in the state, many of them undocumented and Spanish-speaking.
Reporter Claudia Rivera Cotto illustrated how many farmworkers face fragmented access to health care in welfare programs, such as Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and their equivalents, which operate outside of convenient hours for day laborers, present language barriers and confusing documentation requirements that generate fear of deportation. The barriers to access result in delays in diagnosis and treatment for chronic conditions, Cotto wrote, and led various community groups to organize to help fill the gap.
Each of the four RNN newsrooms worked with CatchLight Local, a nonprofit visual journalism collaborative focused on producing compelling, community-centered visual journalism. Led by Jenny Stratton, the team took the photos, audio and video freelancers gathered from the various locations to build an embeddable slideshow for each story and the collaboration as a whole.
The Associated Press rounded out the weeklong series with a national look at the financial challenges of maintaining healthcare services in underserved areas while shedding light on policy solutions that could avert future closures. Kenya Hunger, an AP health reporter, wove threads of the RNN storylines and on-the-ground interviews throughout the series, linking to each to maximize reach through AP’s global wire.
“Bridging Access” reached thousands of readers across a wide range of channels, including news websites and social media. With each newsroom bringing its own approach to audience engagement, the collaboration saw varying levels of success with pageviews, time on page, and social media interactions.
With its global platform, the AP’s article achieved the farthest reach, appearing on 114 unique websites and syndicated by at least 30 newsrooms. As the final installment in the series, the article included links to the other four pieces, elevating the reporting of the RNN newsrooms with more niche audiences.
California Health Report’s story on the Central Valley’s Punjabi community was its top-performing post in the last 30 days, underscoring the impact of locally-grounded health solutions journalism. Several regional and national news partners picked it up, including YES! media, Fresno Bee and California Healthline. The community at the center of its story is working to translate it into Punjabi to share locally.
Capital B’s article was among the newsroom’s top 10 most-read stories in the latter part of August. Sources thanked Wright for the time she spent working to “get to the root cause” of local healthcare disparities and amplify voices from mostly Black communities..
Rural health researchers, professionals and professors along with civil and human rights organizations including the Gwinnett County NAACP and Center for Racial Disability Justice shared the story on social media. An official within the U.S. Department of Agriculture posted about the story while mentioning resources the agency’s Rural Development department has to support healthcare facilities. Other readers tagged government officials like Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.Multimedia elements, including Instagram posts, performed exceptionally well, bringing in new subscribers and engaging various stakeholders and academics.
“The biggest impact of this project has been raising awareness about the issue [health care disparities] and amplifying the stories and experiences of the communities I covered in the piece,” Wright wrote.
With thousands of views and strong newsletter click-through rates, Cardinal News’ story on Virginia’s maternity crisis resonated deeply with its readership. Schabacker included a survey in Cardinal News’ social media campaign and heard from many women who have struggled to access prenatal care, including one pregnant with twins in Patrick County who drives at least an hour and a half for every appointment.
Enlace Latino NC’s article had deep engagement with its Spanish-speaking audience in North Carolina and abroad, especially through WhatsApp — a key platform for reaching farmworkers. English readers in Mexico had the highest engagement with the story.
“We were able to expand our reach with organizations that work with agricultural workers,” Cotto shared. She said attending events where representatives from other organizations mentioned having read the article and provided positive feedback could improve and tailor support and resources for farmworkers.
Through feedback collected from the participating newsrooms, several key insights emerged about the collaboration’s strengths and areas for growth. Contributors highlighted the positive outcomes of their work, which amplified local stories to national and global audiences, primarily via AP’s news wire. They also pointed out specific challenges, such as securing interviews and coordinating freelance support.
While most contributors saw positive engagement, challenges included addressing timeline pressures and streamlining deliverables, establishing trust with interviewees and coordinating freelance support for visuals.
Some felt that earlier involvement from multimedia partners could have enriched their stories and improved the overall story cohesion. As the only Spanish-language newsroom, Enlace Latino NC faced challenges due to the lack of a bilingual editor, which slowed the editorial process.
Despite some logistical hurdles, each newsroom achieved significant milestones. From amplifying underrepresented voices to building meaningful community connections, the collaboration allowed reporters to produce stories that might otherwise have gone untold.
Amplifying Underrepresented Voices: Across all outlets, this collaboration spotlighted rural and marginalized voices. Capital B featured a diverse range of interviewees (over 30 people, including elected officials, community members and healthcare workers).
Community Engagement: California Health Report’s piece resulted in deep connections with the Punjabi community, while Enlace Latino NC built stronger ties with farmworker organizations.
Learning and Growth: For a few contributors, this was their first cross-newsroom collaboration, and they expressed excitement about the mutual learning and teamwork involved.
Successes: The stories reached diverse audiences, elevated underreported voices, and secured financial support to pursue ambitious reporting. A key highlight was Capital B’s feature on rural hospitals, which sparked significant social media engagement (39.5K views on X, formerly Twitter).
RNN knows it takes time and precious bandwidth to put together a comprehensive story proposal. The Network set aside money to compensate newsrooms to pitch themes for the series broadly focused on “rural communities of color” — a first for INN collaborations and a novel approach for the journalists involved.
RNN structured the “get paid to pitch” process in two phases, providing money for each and expert feedback from the five-member RNN board of advisors.
“It’s important to note how instrumental the pitch process was,” Wright reflected in her post-collaboration survey. “I haven’t experienced anything like this before. Previously, I’d submit a pitch or proposal for a fellowship and either receive a rejection or approval letter. Getting feedback from experts on how to improve my pitch while being compensated for my time was a rare and enriching experience. This process served as a significant skill building opportunity that will benefit me in future endeavors.”
In the end, two of the seven newsrooms that pitched made it into the final series. Those ideas not chosen could be developed, used to fundraise, or however the news organization saw fit.
Another first involved bringing on a dedicated multimedia partner with CatchLight Local. This addition to the editorial process, born out of the journalists’ desire to incorporate more visuals, helped coordinate resources and deliverables.
Cardinal News lauded Stratton’s helpful guidance for its social media campaign.
A few journalists, including Stratton herself, noted that they wished CatchLight had been involved earlier in the editorial process so they could have provided visual strategy and field support to the photographer or videographer.
Still, the embeddable gallery married the various narratives and locations into a single visual representation of the stories.
“Visuals which have the power of traveling from different spaces and platforms,” Stratton wrote. “I think [it] helped engage different audiences with the stories.”
Beyond the immediate success of audience engagement and content production, the long-term impact of ”Bridging Access” is being felt in the communities it covered.
From influencing policy discussions to fostering stronger relationships with community leaders, the stories produced can create lasting change. There is a long list of tangible impacts of the series and plans to explore future opportunities for follow-up reporting and continued engagement with the issues raised.
Policy Influence: Several stories, particularly Capital B’s and Cardinal News’, spurred discussions among lawmakers and civic organizations. Government officials and healthcare professionals shared Capital B’s article, and it resonated with Black Directors Health Equity Agenda, a nonprofit organization that advocates for eliminating disparities among Black people. Cardinal News spoke with members of a state House Select Committee on rural health care, who plan to introduce legislation to support rural labor and delivery rooms in 2025.
Community Impact: California Health Report’s story on Fresno’s Punjabi community highlighted a replicable health worker model that could influence future community-led health solutions across rural America.
Follow-up Reporting: Many newsrooms expressed interest in continuing these stories, whether by tracking hospital reopenings (Capital B) or exploring oral health care for farmworkers (Enlace Latino NC).
The “Bridging Access” collaboration elevated critical issues affecting rural and marginalized communities. Despite logistical challenges, the project resulted in deeply impactful journalism, engaged audiences, and sparked vital discussions on health equity. As a testament to nonprofit news collaboration, it showcased the value of diverse perspectives and community-centered reporting, laying the groundwork for future initiatives.
ABC 17
California Healthline
Capital B
Chattanooga Times-Free Press
Connecticut Health Foundation Health News Roundup
Enlace Latino NC
Greenwood Commonwealth (MS)
Health Tech Nerds (reading list)
It may be forthcoming in a Punjabi publication as well.
KFF Health News’ Morning Briefing
KVPR (public radio).
KVUE
Las Vegas Sun
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Newsbreak
Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal
Phil Lewis’ award-winning What I’m Reading (newsletter)
Race Inquiry
San Antonio News-Express
Solutions Journalism Network (newsletter + website)
The 19th*
The Fresno Bee
The Hill
URL Media
Virginia News Reader
Yahoo News
Yahoo News
Yakima Herald-Republic
YES! media (national)
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