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Simon Owens

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Washington, D.C.
As seen in: Simon Owens's Media Newsletter, Apple Podcasts, LinkedIn, Medium, PBS, The Atlantic, How to Write for a Living, New York Magazine, Scientific American, So What?, Substack and
Covers:  public health, science, health, policy, technology
Doesn't Cover: produce launches
Tech and media journalist. Email me: simonowens@gmail.com. Full bio in link below.
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How 'Grammar Girl' turned a single hobby podcast into a growing media network

How 'Grammar Girl' turned a single hobby podcast into a growing media network

www.niemanlab.org — Mignon Fogarty thought she'd arrived at the podcasting scene too late. It was 2006, and as a science and technical writer, she was trying to promote a science podcast she hosted, without much success. At first, it simply consisted of Fogarty reading her own science articles out loud and recording them - but then she began interviewing scientists and researchers. "That was really time-consuming and technologically difficult to record interviews," she told me. She promoted it on online forums and even went to colleges and posted fliers, but despite it winning some awards and even being featured in iTunes, the podcast didn't gain much traction.
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NPR's StateImpact project explores regional topics through focused, data-driven journalism

NPR's StateImpact project explores regional topics through focused, data-driven journalism

www.niemanlab.org — Scott Detrow heard a rumor, and like any good reporter, he set out to determine whether it was true. Detrow, who has spent several years covering state politics and government for seven public radio member stations in Pennsylvania, had been told anecdotal claims that the expansion of drilling wells in recent years has drastically increased the burden on emergency service providers in the state. But the drilling industry, which opened 4,000 new wells in 2009 alone, is a controversial topic in Pennsylvania, and Detrow said both the opponents and proponents rarely agree on even the most basic facts.
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How a photographer generated over $100,000 through Facebook

How a photographer generated over $100,000 through Facebook

www.niemanlab.org — When I asked Craig Finlay how Facebook became a major lead generator for his wedding photography business, he interrupted me mid-sentence. "It's not a major lead generator," he said. "It's the entirety of the business." Finlay's experience is a neat case study in the power of social marketing. Up until 2010 or so, photography had been mostly a hobby. He was an avid practitioner of urban exploration, a term for photographers who enter - oftentimes illegally - abandoned buildings and urban structures to photograph their interiors. I accompanied Finlay on one of these trips in 2009, sneaking into a small-town Illinois college that had been abandoned for more than a decade.
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Is the Huffington Post reinventing the art of liveblogging?

Is the Huffington Post reinventing the art of liveblogging?

www.niemanlab.org — A few days ago, I clicked on a link to an Associated Press article published at the Huffington Post and reporting on a new AP poll that found widespread support for the Occupy Wall Street movement. Like hundreds of other news outlets, HuffPo subscribes to the AP and runs its articles to supplement the original content the AOL-owned company produces on its own. A curious thing happened when I finished the article, however: I didn't stop reading. At the bottom of the piece, I came across a liveblog that published up-to-the minute news on the protests.
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Can Todd Park Revolutionize the Health Care Industry?

Can Todd Park Revolutionize the Health Care Industry?

The Atlantic — His title is chief technology officer, but at HHS, Park is the entrepreneur-in-residence, inspiring others to make government data accessible Todd Park genuinely intended to retire. At the age of 24, he'd co-founded what would become a thriving health care technology company called Athenahealth, and nearly 10 years later he made a fortune when the company went public with a market capitalization exceeding $1 billion. His wife Amy, who he'd met when he was at Harvard, had long wanted a husband who wasn't glued to his career seven days a week, and the couple had been putting off having a child.
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The Hackers Who Keep the Washington Post Running

The Hackers Who Keep the Washington Post Running

The Atlantic — Dan Drinkard and his fellow programmers are constantly juggling projects that add value to the paper's reporting on the web Development of a tool that would allow WashingtonPost.com visitors to read tweets written in Russian came after an offhand comment from Cory Haik. In fact, when I interviewed the deputy editor of universal news in her office last week, she couldn't quite remember how her idea had been relayed to one of the news producers on the Washington Post team. All she knows is that a few hours later, the app was finished and had launched on the site.
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The Legal Perils of Giving Medical Advice on the Internet

The Legal Perils of Giving Medical Advice on the Internet

U.S. News & World Report — Before Ronald Hines opened up a letter from the Texas Board of Veterinary Examiners last March, it had never occurred to him that he might be breaking the law. At the age of 69, Hines has spent almost his entire adult life helping and caring for animals. After graduating veterinary school in 1966, he traveled to all corners of the globe while enlisted in the U.S. Public Health Service. He left the service in the 1980s after suffering a debilitating injury, and later became a veterinarian. [PHOTOS: Free Clinic Offers Medical Services to the Uninsured] Hines ran his own clinic in Sarasota, Fla.
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Tea Party Libertarians and Small Organic Farmers Make Strange Political Bedfellows

Tea Party Libertarians and Small Organic Farmers Make Strange Political Bedfellows

U.S. News & World Report — Laura Bledsoe didn't set out to join a political movement, she merely wanted to serve what she considered a sustainable meal. In October 2011 she and her husband Monte decided they wanted to host what they called a "farm to fork" event in their home. They own a small farm 50 miles outside of Las Vegas. "We advertised it as a zero mile footprint," she recalls. "It's been shown that the bulk of our food travels 1,500 miles to get to our plate and we were advertising the fact that this was, for the most part, food prepared directly on our farm."
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The Grassroots Movement to Change the Nation's Public Restroom Laws

The Grassroots Movement to Change the Nation's Public Restroom Laws

U.S. News & World Report — When Lisa Bain first noticed the look of pain and horror on her daughter Ally's face, she didn't need to ask her what was the matter. The two were shopping in an Old Navy outside of Chicago, and Ally, then 14, had suffered from Crohn's disease for nearly three years. Few people will ever understand the fear and anxiety someone with Crohn's feels at the thought of appearing in a public place while in the throes of a flare up. An immune disorder, Crohn's (and similar diseases like ulcerative colitis) is characterized by inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, resulting in diarrhea, abdominal pain, and bleeding.
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