The Health Coverage Fellowship is designed to help newspaper, radio, and television reporters and editors do a better job covering critical health care issues. Each year ten journalists are selected from across the country for an intensive nine days of training.

The fellowship focuses on issues ranging from public health and mental health to covering the uninsured, controlling skyrocketing costs, and upgrading quality. More than 70 speakers participate each year, including top health officials, policy experts, and researchers. The program also brings its journalists into the field to watch first-hand how the system works, from walking the streets at night with mental health case workers to riding in a Medflight helicopter.

The fellowship, which is about to enter its eleventh year, is housed at Babson College’s Center for Executive Education in Wellesley, and is sponsored by the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation in collaboration with other charities. The fellowship is directed by Larry Tye, a former Nieman fellow who covered health and the environment for 15 years at the Boston Globe and has written six books. The residential part of the 2012 program will run from April 27-May 5.

The program continues after fellows return to their stations and papers. For the following year, fellows attend half-day follow-up sessions and continue to consult with Larry Tye on story ideas, source suggestions, and general mentoring. The fellowship maintains a web site where participants can post their stories and stay connected to their class and other program alumni.

The Health Coverage Fellowship differs in key ways from other journalism fellowship programs. Most take seasoned journalists away from their jobs for a full year, require employers to pay part of the cost, and do little practical training. The residential part of the Health Coverage Fellowship lasts just nine days, the program requires no financial contribution from media outlets, and the training ensures that reporters and editors come back with a list of story ideas and an address book full of new sources.

December 2 is the deadline to apply to the 2012 program; an application can be downloaded from the right side of this page. To get a better sense of the fellowship, you can also download the 2011 schedule and a list of all our past fellows.

For more information, contact Larry Tye at larrytye@aol.com, or Anna Gosline at Anna.Gosline@bcbsma.com.