Sharmila Venkatasubban is a senior editor and health reporter at the Florida Trib. Before joining Report for America, Venkatasubban was a reporter, editor, and researcher for local and international news outlets for two decades. She got her start at alt-weeklies in Pittsburgh and has worked at BuzzFeed News, Al Jazeera Media Network, and, most recently, at CNN. Venkatasubban has helped shape crucial stories at the height of #MeToo, as well as investigations across fields including education, health care, law enforcement, and government accountability. At AJ+, she was part of a team that won an Emmy Award for its coverage of the war in Gaza.
Beat: Senior Health Accountability Reporter
Florida is often at the forefront of national health policy news — mostly appearing in rankings as one of the worst states for health care access, affordability, and outcomes. There are whole regions of Florida that have no dedicated health reporting at all. Most of the professional reporters covering health work for paywalled legacy newspapers or business journals, or, at the statewide level, for niche or ideologically aligned outlets. The Florida Trib proposes a Report for America corps member dedicated to accountability reporting on health policy and outcomes statewide. This reporter would be based in Jacksonville and work with our news partners across Florida to bring high-impact reporting to millions of Floridians outside a paywall and in a variety of formats. With 1 in 5 Floridians receiving expiring health care subsidies — by far the most in the country — the number of uninsured in the state is expected to double within a year. Combined with spiraling housing costs, health care access and affordability will be a major story affecting millions across the state. Floridians deserve to have free access to reporting that illuminates problems and solutions and holds government leaders accountable.