The opioid crisis
Your Voice Ohio/The Ohio Media Project
Below are notes from our 5-9-17 statewide phone conference and developments since then.–Doug Oplinger
About 20 people representing the following news outlets participated 5-9-17. Did I miss anyone?
Akron Beacon Journal
Akron-Canton-Cleveland-Kent WKSU/NPR
Canton Repository
Chillicothe Gazette
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Columbus WSYX
Metro Health – Cuyahoga County
Dayton Daily News
Fremont News Messenger
Lima News
Marietta Times
Warren Tribune-Chronicle
Youngstown WFMJ
Youngstown Vindicator
Your Voice Ohio/Jefferson Center
Outline of the project
Listen to the audience, help pinpoint solutions, change the message from one of desperation to one of resolution/hope.
Provide the following 3 elements in our enterprise coverage:
- Stories about people to show the diversity of experiences with emphasis on victories
- Graphics to illustrate vividly the situation
- Solutions on which they can act
Steps to get there:
- Maintain a prominent display on local news platforms of basic actionable information for individuals
- Assemble and display data to illustrate the reality in each county, pinpoint hotspots
- Be open, transparent about our work
- Journalists convene small-group neighborhood gatherings in hotspots, help them discuss shared/diverse experiences and arrive at individual and group actionable items, report on the process, both in the meeting and on the neighborhood progress afterward
- Diverse stories of struggle AND progress in dealing with the heroin crisis, and ending each story with solutions on which people can act.
Step 1: Basic actionable information. What do individuals want?
“Who can I call about……….”
“What do I do if……..?”
(do we know what people need?)
Send out questions asking the audience for help
Step 2: Data
Jona Ison of the Chillicothe Gazette: Ohio Department of Health has comprehensive database of addresses where OD deaths occurred, name and zip code of the victim, through 2015. Some counties have this data and will provide it now.
(Jona has since shared the database obtained by the Gazette. It provides a wealth of info – type of OD, age, gender, race; does not have addresses, which will allow us to go to neighborhood level. I will make a request to the Ohio Department of Health for the complete database.)
Some police departments very forth-coming with reports allowing intricate mapping. Some counties aggressive at collecting and analyzing complex data to pinpoint education and intervention.
Story idea: Which counties are making progress because of their aggressive use of analysis, and which counties could benefit from this effort?
Uneven understanding of HIPPA across Ohio? Police in some communities separate HIPPA from crime. EMS units see HIPPA as a roadblock. Deaths eliminate HIPPA protection?
Step 3: Open, transparent about our work.
Visit:
www.Yourvoiceohio.org and follow yourvoiceohio.org and Doug Oplinger on twitter and facebook
Request:
- Share links to stories that reflect enterprise, new ways of bringing change.
- Those will be posted in the above locations and also shared through emails and on Slack. Contact Andrew Rockway for invite to Slack.
- Let Doug or Andrew know if you’d like your organization to be included on the yourvoiceohio.org members list.
Step 4:
Small problem-solving groups convened by news outlets
Question:
How quickly can the neighborhood conversations begin, how will they happen?
Andrew Rockway at Jefferson Center civic engagement organization advising Oplinger on development of a discussion guide for these sessions. Will work with Oplinger and some news outlets in pinpointing neighborhoods, calling meetings and experimenting with the conversations.
Unless news outlets already have comprehensive data showing which neighborhoods are hotspots, we need to get the database from Ohio Department of Health.
Timeline:
Develop discussion guide in June
Obtain comprehensive database asap
Experiment initially in Akron, Mahoning Valley, Marietta
Step 5 – Narratives of struggle and success, with graphics and actionable solutions.
These require commitment of reporters, editors and news outlet managers. Special presentation required.
Examples:
Gannett had an Ohio special projects team.
Check out the Chillicothe Gazette’s presentation.
http://www.chillicothegazette.com/topic/669d2af6-d131-433a-92a9-1a070b3ba81e/the-overdose-dilemma/
Developments and observations:
- Visited Marietta Times and WMOA radio in Washington County, will partner with them on a small-group conversation. Pills were a problem in rural schools. Loss of manufacturing has been a blow to the valley.
- Visited: Warren Tribune, Youngstown Vindicator, WFMJ-TV/NBC, Youngstown City Club, will do a small-group conversation there. Economy there was upended in the 70s and 80s, never recovered. The region is ripe for a major grassroots effort to define its future regarding heroin and the economy.
- Visited WSAZ-TV/NBC, dominant Huntington television station for Ohio Valley with audience in WVa, Ky, and Ohio (Scioto, Lawrence, Pike, Jackson counties). WSAZ may be in the worst of the national epidemic. News director Dan Fabrizio (OSU grad, formerly of Columbus TV,) willing to share. Says they’ve tracked heroin coming down expressways from Detroit. Have had reporters there. Done stories on people trying to change their lives. Also broadcast a police video of a man being revived with Narcan.
- Visited Jona Ison at Chillicothe Gazette. She has done great work in conjunction with the Gannett Ohio collaborative effort. Gannett’s work is an example of what can be done.
- From Ashley Bunton, Washington Court House Record Herald, who visited families in rural southwest: Heroin in some cases is a family affair, a culture, a way of life.
- Visited Columbus Radio Group, Cox Ohio (Dayton, Springfield, Hamilton-Middletown, Yellow Springs WYSO public radio and WKRC-TV (Sinclair) in Cincinnati
- Recurring themes: Areas that have lost high-paying jobs seem most prone to abuse; areas with lower rates of college education most prone to abuse.
- Questions: Is the lack of availability of Narcan in rural communities, and inability of local EMS to respond quickly, the reason for higher death rates? In some communities, police are arresting people when Narcan is used. If we’re looking at solutions, how does these practices affect the death rate, and how does that deter abuse in comparison with other counties?
- What do numbers show us about incarceration of women for drug crimes at the Dayton Correctional Institute. Listen to WYSO’s powerful series: Women’s Voices
