Jocelyn Wiener, an award-winning Bay Area journalist with international experience, will join CalMatters to write about Californians and their experience with health care.

Wiener worked recently as a freelance writer on a compelling series for CalMatters about mental health. The series, titled “Breakdown,” profiled intimate experiences with suicide, family stress and homelessness as well as the comments from industry and political leaders about why the mental health system is considered so dysfunctional. The series was featured in a CalMatters-produced segment on PBS Newshour and it received a first-place award from the Society of Professional Journalists in Northern California.

Weiner worked previously at the California Health Care Foundation’s Center for Health Reporting and she covered social issues for the Sacramento Bee. As a freelance reporter she also wrote stories from India and Latin America and she lived in Central America several years as a Fulbright Scholar studying youth and gang violence. She speaks fluent Spanish, graduated from Stanford University and has masters in journalism from Columbia University.

CalMatters is significantly increasing its coverage of health issues. In addition to Wiener, CalMatters reporter Elizabeth Aguilera will continue to cover health issues from Los Angeles and a third reporter will be added soon based in Sacramento.

CalMatters would like thank the California Health Care Foundation, First 5 Los Angeles, and the Blue Shield of California Foundation for supporting our health care coverage.

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Want to submit a guest commentary or reaction to an article we wrote? You can find our submission guidelines here. Please contact CalMatters with any commentary questions: commentary@calmatters.org

Co-Founder David Lesher is a veteran California journalist and state policy expert. He co-founded CalMatters in 2015 and led the organization as Editor/CEO until December 2018, when he continued to serve...