25 January 2007 - With “new media” outlets popping up all over the Internet, many health care communicators are eager to start webcasting. A good first step: MJ Vilardi's hands-on course in digital video production and podcasting, "Producing Your Own Health Care News" at the American Medical Association's Medical Communicators Conference In Tampa April 12 - 15 2006.

Aimed at helping create professional quality video segments with inexpensive equipment, and then get that video on the web, the course was popular at last year's conference in Phoenix.  Participants will learn fundamentals of digital video and podcasting; new features include a list of "Seven Things You Must Know About Video Podcasting."  Learn more about the Conference here .

VCA founder Vilardi will also participate in a pre-conference panel discussion, "Diagnosis Critical: Using New Technologies to Communicate Your Health Care Message," moderated by Dr. Bruce Dan, Managing Editor of The Patient Channel. The discussion will be held the morning of April 12th; other panelists include Brian McDonough, Elizabeth Tracty, Jack Hubbard, and Anton Zuiker.

14 March 2007 - What is a journalist? The answer used to be pretty simple, before blogs and podcasts allowed anyone to report or comment on events. Now the issues are murkier: a 24-year old blogger has been in jail for six months for refusing to give prosecuters access to video he shot of a demonstration. The young man claims he's exercising his First Amendment rights and protecting his sources. Is he a journalist?

What about Matt Drudge, muckraker extraordinare, who regularly scoops the networks and big newspapers, and whose website gets hundreds of millions of hits each month? He's without formal training in communications, and is regularly denounced by the MSM (mainstream media), yet his site is checked every day (sometimes every hour) by influential people in government, industry, and, yes, the MSM. The Drudge Report and a multitude of other sites have become popular news outlets thanks, in part, to tools and technology that get easier to use every day.

VCA's own MJ Vilardi will participate in a provocative discussion of the growing impact of these new tools and techniques this week at the Conference of the Association of Health Care Journalists in Los Angeles. The four-day conference (March 15-18 at the Hilton Los Angeles/Universal City), features a broad range of health care newgatherers and newsmakers, including California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who will discuss the details and national implications of his groundbreaking state healthcare policy. More about the Conference here.

Vilardi joins three other panelists to discuss "Learning to Operate in a Multimedia Environment" in a class Sunday morning, March 18th, at 11 am. If you're in LA this week, please stop by for some fascinating conversation about the future of health care journalism. Can't make it? Watch this space for a full report!