Q&A with Julia Craven

As the federal government brings Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement to the mainstream and more Americans are getting their health news from influencers, Julia Craven has some ideas for how things can get back on track.

I spoke to Craven about her journey into journalism, storytelling and how publications can renew faith in medical expertise.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. This piece is the longer version of my first assignment for my Health Reporting graduate course.

What made you want to get involved in journalism?

I feel like it chose me. I was bumbling and all over the place when I was in college. I had a chat with a mentor. She said “you like writing to be on the paper.” I did it and got accepted.

One of my first stories was this woman whose husband has just passed. He owned a famous waffle shop on my campus. I was interviewing his widow and she said it was “so easy to talk to you.”

She felt like I was doing the human part, her favorite memories, how she remembered him outside of the technicalities and the paperwork. I remember being like “I like hearing that. This feels right.” So that’s what I decided to do.

Where did you learn the “Human part”?

It came from hearing people tell stories my whole life. Hearing them talk to each other and about each other in such a relatable and familial way is where I think I picked it up from.

I come from a family of yappers.

What about health journalism, specifically?

I had an editor who encouraged me to write about things that I cared about. He was picking up that I didn’t like writing about politics. I was on my own health and wellness journey. I was really into it.

He said “work should be things that you care about.”

How does the scientific research of healthcare relate to policy?

I think they go hand-in-hand for a lot of reasons. For instance, substances aren’t regulated by the FDA but medications are. The policies of HHS, CDC, FDA, etc… very directly affect how science, health, and wellness cascade down to the general population.

Also, in our country, policy has always been a determinant of what people have access to. Top of mind now is having to work a certain number of hours or volunteer to qualify for SNAP or Medicaid. I see policy as a solution—it can be—but I also see it as the connective tissue between everything related to people’s wellbeing.

What role do you think journalists play in influencing policy?

Influencing policy is directly related to letting people know about it. In your reporting, if you go into it as something happening to these [specific] people. There’s the journalism that lets people know that this is happening, then there’s how it’s happening. Then there’s the investigative aspect of why this is happening.

It’s good to let people know “why and how”, but the “why” is how we really start getting into impact. Not only why this is happening to a certain group of people but how it’s affecting them; the actual humans on the other side of this policy. We tell the stories and try to get a human face attached to them, to serve as that human aspect. Even if that’s just bolstering what a community is already doing. Elevating them and giving them a platform to speak or raising enough hell, creating outrage, can create some very tangible changes in people’s lives.

Do you think your path to journalism would work today?

Oh my God, no. I hope I’m wrong, but I got into it by writing my own stuff for free just to get my name out there. Then I went to a digital outlet, HuffPost, during digital media’s heyday. The industry has changed so much in the past 11 years. I just don’t see how the same entry can be made in the industry.

There were some good things about being able to be scrappy and get your foot into journalism—which we know is very classist and excludes many groups of people.

My optimism is that maybe there are more journalists of color from that time period, trying to get in the door. The landscape is very different now; you don’t have⁠ to work at an outlet. You can freelance or you can have a Substack.

How did Healthy Futures begin? Was Substack your first choice?

It began in 2016 as a TinyLetter called Bruh. It was just my reaction to news at the time. It eventually became Healthy Futures as things evolved. I got on Substack because I knew someone on Substack. It just happened.

What does a typical day look like for you?

I get up, I do my morning routine. I wake up at 7 a.m. lately. I workout, I read. Then I come in and read the news. I decide if I want to pitch a story. Write, read, pitch, and repeat.

The Library of Black Wellness is a “living archive” what does that mean? Who contributes to it?

Living archive means it’s constantly being updated. Whenever there’s something that I think fits there, I like to put it there. There are a lot of ways for people to contribute to it. The main one is under the “About” page. The genesis of that was that I was reading a lot about ancestral health and wellness. I thought people should see it.

I’ve been doing it for just under a year. About 10 months. I think I started working on it in earnest last May

How do you feel about the state of health/wellness journalism these days?

Health and wellness journalism is at a very critical point and it has been for the better part of a decade (2020). I think people started taking it more seriously after COVID. Right now we’re at a moment where RFK is doing his best to turn everyone into carnivores or whatever and there’s tons of misinformation.

Most people are getting their health and wellness information from influencers or others who aren’t qualified to talk about this information. That doesn’t mean all influencers don’t know what they’re talking about but a lot of them don’t. People feel a deep distrust in medical and science institutions. Health and wellness journalism has an opportunity to rise to the occasion—so to speak—and meet people where they are. I think that’s the biggest thing that it hasn’t done.

I find a lot of health journalism seems like it’s talking at people. Then a lot of wellness isn’t taken as seriously as it should be. There has to be a meshing of the two. When there’s rigorous health and science reporting, it shouldn’t be so dense that the majority of readers who need that information need an extra layer of translation to get it.

It’s as simple as sitting down and trying to figure out where people are coming from, even if they’re wrong. Coming from someone who’s interviewed a lot of anti-vaxxers—like, they’re wrong—but what changes if I just tell them that they’re wrong; if I don’t hear why they believe what they believe. Ask “why do you believe this” or “where did you get that information from?”

You’re not going to be able to level with everybody, but in my experience, a lot of those experiences tend to go very well. I do think the primary thing that reporters can do is not judge the people they’re interviewing, even if you know, factually speaking, they’re wrong.

Health and wellness journalists also shouldn’t treat everyone they’re talking to like a politician. When a person has power, particularly institutional power—like don’t try to level with RFK about vaccines, hold him accountable. But Joe from down the street might just be scared because all he’s ever heard about doctors is that they don’t listen to Black people and Tuskegee (The Tuskegee Experiment). He just needs someone to sit and talk with him; show him the real information and talk through it with him. Obviously not every reporter is going to be able to do that for every story, but it’s a start.

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to learn more about Craven’s work, you can subscribe to Healthy Futures, check out The Library of Black Wellness, or follow her on social media.