Aaliyah Bowden covers healthcare for The Charlotte Post, which reports on the African American community in Charlotte, North Carolina. Bowden interned at North Carolina Health News, a nonprofit news organization, during the peak of the pandemic, reporting on health issues across the state. Her story on food handlers and farmers testing positive for the coronavirus was republished in The Siasat Daily in Hyderabad, India. Bowden won an award for her story on North Carolina’s historically Black colleges and universities keeping COVID-19 cases low during the fall 2020 semester. As a student at North Carolina Central University, she was the co-editor of the Campus Echo, reporting breaking news and feature stories, and scoring interviews with fashion designer Dapper Dan and singer and actress Keke Palmer. Bowden, from Jacksonville, North Carolina, aspires to start a health magazine solely devoted to covering the health of Black women.
Beat: Healthcare, African-American community in Charlotte
The Report for America Corps member concentrates on reporting health in the Black community. Historically, Black Americans have less access to health care and lag other ethnic groups in maladies such as hypertension, cancers and maternal deaths. The reporter writes on all platforms: print, digital, video and audio.