We skipped a week last week, but we're going to take that interview and share it in a future newsletter, paired with another episode, which will make sense when you see the subject.
But this week, our podcast interview was with Nada Hassanein. Nada is a staff writer and health care reporter for Stateline, covering state policy decisions with a focus on inequities. She's been with them for a year and a half. She is a 2015 graduate of the University of Central Florida and also has experience at the Tallahassee Democrat and USA Today.
Stateline provides free coverage of health care, education, the environment, and other issues that shape lives. It was formerly part of The Pew Charitable Trusts and is now part of States Newsroom.
Here's a short excerpt from our conversation with her. Hope you'll read and then listen to the interview.
Can you describe your background for us and if there's anything within your family or otherwise that foreshadowed the fact that you've become a storyteller?
As a Middle-Eastern North-African immigrant who grew up in the states, in a household where the news is always on, I saw how many communities were misunderstood and misrepresented, often including my own, largely due to a lack of diversity within media staffing that I saw growing up. I wanted to be a part of a greater representation and lend to that. I think the lens and experiential knowledge can definitely shine through people's writing.
I watched a video of you on YouTube talking about your experience where you said you felt ‘othered’ growing up. How did that influence your future as a journalist?
Yeah, I wore hijab for over a decade because of my background as an Arab American. Having experienced various types of microaggressions, racism, seeing my community having to deal with and answer to various misperceptions and generalizations, all of that, I think, really informs how I go about reporting on diverse communities who have experienced interpersonal, systemic, and structural disparities.
Thanks for reading The Journalism Salute Substack! This post is public so feel free to share it.
You wrote about how the census made changes that lead to more data on the health of Middle Eastern and North African people living in the United States. In past years their ethnicity would be white, but things were changed. Can you take us through that story from where it started to where it finished?
Me and many other MENA people will tell you that we didn't have a specific box to check on official forms in the U.S. We're assigned a race that we didn't identify with. So I think having that experience plus being a health reporter, combing through public health data and census data, looking at disparities, you notice that MENA is not often there.
So I've been paying attention to the census changes ever since they've been proposed and wanted to show a tangible way that such representation can affect data and health, and what we know about health.
What journalism issues are you most passionate about?
Initiatives that seek to protect and elevate awareness around journalists and countries and regions where the job of holding authority accountable and writing about truth is not welcome or safe.
Also, new initiatives around reporting on global health inequities and environmental justice and climate change and how news sites are writing about such topics by collaborating across borders and across languages to reach more readers.
How do you view your purpose in terms of what you're doing
It's a privilege and a responsibility. I really take it very seriously that my sources are trusting me with their stories. That, combined with persistence and empathy and holding authority accountable is collectively part of how I view my purpose as a journalist.
What advice do you have for the younger generation of journalists on filling voids in the industry?
Do it. Be a part of filling the gaps. We need more and we need more diversity in your pen, and your mind and your lens matter. Don't let fear hold you back from filling that gap.