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Reporter Alejandra Cancino Awarded Year-Long Journalism Fellowship to Focus on Long-Term Care in America

Press Release

​Chicago, October 6, 2015— Journalist Alejandra Cancino has been named the first recipient of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research Fellowship on Long-Term Care in America. Cancino, a former Chicago Tribune journalist, has worked on numerous beats over the course of her career, including labor and manufacturing.

The 10-month residential AP-NORC Fellowship will enable Cancino to spend the next year in Chicago working with world-class research scientists, health care researchers, and other experts to develop the analytical skills needed to produce research-based enterprise journalism focused on the nation’s long-term care and healthy aging issues.

Cancino, who has been a reporter for the Chicago Tribune for the past six years, was awarded the fellowship after a national competition open to journalists with at least five years’ experience and a demonstrated interest in research-based reporting or issues related to the economics of long-term care in the United States. The fellowship was established by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research with funding from the SCAN Foundation. The AP-NORC Center is a joint venture of the AP and the independent research organization NORC at the University of Chicago.

“Alejandra Cancino is an experienced and respected journalist whose skilled reporting has shed light on important matters of transparency and fair labor practices,” said Trevor Tompson, director of the AP-NORC Center. “The fellowship will provide Alejandra with training in health policy, health care issues, and research methods and their application to journalism on issues of healthy aging and long-term care.”

“This fellowship will provide me with the opportunity to spend the next year investigating and reporting on a topic of great importance to our aging population.” said Cancino. “I am grateful for this opportunity.”

As the AP-NORC Fellow, Cancino will write a series of in-depth stories on issues linked to long-term care and healthy aging that will run on the media platforms of the AP. She will also participate in original AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research projects related to long-term care and healthy aging.

Other elements of the fellowship include:

A senior NORC scientist as a mentor throughout the fellowship. NORC at the University of Chicago carries out many of the largest social science research initiatives funded by the federal government, including the General Social Survey, second only to the U.S. Census as a source of research-based information on many aspects of American life.

A highly individualized training program including one-on-one tutorials, seminars, and the opportunity to audit selected University of Chicago courses.

At the Chicago Tribune, Cancino wrote about non-traditional union campaigns to organize workers in low-wage sectors such as fast food, one union's bid to represent Northwestern University football players and traveled to countless Midwest cities to write about modern manufacturing workers. Her investigative work on a state incentive program that has provided companies with more than $1 billion in tax breaks led to an increase in its transparency and a de-facto moratorium of special tax breaks for large corporations.

Prior to the Tribune, Cancino was a multimedia reporter and a web producer for La Palma, a Spanish-language weekly, and covered weekend crime shifts for the Palm Beach Post.  She’s a board member of SPJ’s Chicago Headline Club and co-captain of the Chicago chapter of Journalism and Women Symposium. Earlier this year, she was a panelist at the Investigative Reporters and Editors annual conference.

Cancino, who was born in Guatemala and raised in Chile and Miami, is a University of Florida graduate. Her AP-NORC Fellowship began Sept. 21.

“Alejandra Cancino is an experienced and respected journalist whose skilled reporting has shed light on important matters of transparency and fair labor practices.”

Trevor Tompson

Director

“Alejandra Cancino is an experienced and respected journalist whose skilled reporting has shed light on important matters of transparency and fair labor practices.”

About The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research
The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research taps into the power of social science research and the highest-quality journalism to bring key information to people across the nation and throughout the world.
www.apnorc.org

The Associated Press is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. Founded in 1846, AP today is the most trusted source of independent news and information. On any given day, more than half the world's population sees news from AP.
www.ap.org


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About NORC at the University of Chicago

NORC at the University of Chicago conducts research and analysis that decision-makers trust. As a nonpartisan research organization and a pioneer in measuring and understanding the world, we have studied almost every aspect of the human experience and every major news event for more than eight decades. Today, we partner with government, corporate, and nonprofit clients around the world to provide the objectivity and expertise necessary to inform the critical decisions facing society.

www.norc.org

Contact: For more information, please contact Eric Young at NORC at young-eric@norc.org or (703) 217-6814 (cell).

The two organizations have established The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research to conduct, analyze, and distribute social science research in the public interest on newsworthy topics, and to use the power of journalism to tell the stories that research reveals.


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