Webinar this evening on stigmatizing language re addiction

Reporting on Addiction, a collaborative project of the Opioid Policy Institute and 100 Days in Appalachia, will host a webinar at 7 p.m. ET tonight to discuss how news reporting sometimes perpetuates stigmas surrounding addiction, and how community journalism can do better. Reporting on Addiction aims to decrease stigma and discrimination in news reporting about addiction, and provides free, evidence-based resources for journalists. Click here for more information or to register.

West Virginia University reports: "'Tackling Addiction Stigma by Working with the Media,' held on Zoom, will evaluate the responsibility of journalists, both local and national, when reporting on addiction and the real-world impacts that reporting has in the communities they cover, such as decreased access to addiction treatment and an increase in discrimination against people who use drugs. Panelists will also discuss the ways communities can respond and overcome that stigma, starting with improving the ways journalists report on addiction, as well as the resources that are currently available."

Reporting on Addiction co-founders Jonathan J.K. Stoltman and Ashton Marra will moderate. Stoltman directs the Opioid Policy Institute and Marra is the executive director at 100 Days in Appalachia and a teaching assistant professor in WVU's Reed College of Media. The panelists include:

• Abby Spears, outreach and policy coordinator at River Valley Organizing, "a multi-racial, multicultural working-class organization that radically builds community throughout the Ohio River Valley," WVU says.
• Caity Coyne, a health reporter at the Charleston-Gazette Mail.
• Laura Lander, associate professor in the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute’s Department of Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry.
• Carlos Blanco, director of the Division of Epidemiology, Services and Prevention Research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a component of the National Institute of Health.