Randy Bracht
Randy Bracht is a reporter and editor at GCJ News who focuses on how local health services and public institutions deliver care and oversight in the communities he covers. His work blends policy, practice, and human impact, following decisions by health boards, hospitals, and public agencies through to what they mean for residents. He consistently writes in a detailed, explanatory style that foregrounds the structure and responsibilities of local bodies, rather than just the headlines of their decisions.
Community health services and hospital programs
Bracht’s health coverage often starts at the point of care, with stories that explain new services in concrete terms for patients and families. In his report on Columbia Basin Hospital’s advanced wound care program, he outlines how the service fits into “whole person care,” showing that wound treatment is one part of a broader approach to managing patients’ health conditions locally.
He describes how patients enter the program through referrals from primary care providers and notes that interested patients can contact the hospital or visit its website for more information, signalling a practical, service-oriented angle. The article anchors clinical detail in accessibility, highlighting local availability of advanced care that might otherwise require travel, and positioning the hospital as a hub in the regional health network.
That focus on accessible, specific information about services distinguishes his coverage from more generic health reporting that might only note the launch of a program. Bracht treats institutional initiatives as operational changes in how people actually receive care, emphasizing referral pathways, program scope, and how new offerings integrate with existing local healthcare infrastructure.
His health service pieces are written for readers who need to understand not just that something exists, but how to use it.
Public health governance and regulatory decisions
Bracht regularly covers decisions by local health boards and districts, explaining how they manage costs, benefits, and regulatory powers. In his story on employee incentive programs adopted by a health board to reduce costs, he describes how employees can re-enroll during open enrollment periods or qualifying life events, and then steps back to summarize the broader role of local health jurisdictions in community health, disease prevention and control, food establishment permitting, and environmental safety including septic systems.
This blend of specific policy detail and institutional context reflects a governance-focused approach to the health beat.
His coverage of health officials seeking a ban on kratom sales within the county shows a similar pattern. Bracht reports the district’s position that kratom is not a safe or approved method for managing pain, anxiety, depression, or opioid withdrawal, presenting the regulatory push alongside the stated rationale. Rather than framing the story purely as a controversy, he emphasizes the institutional stance and the mechanisms local authorities use to protect public health.
Across these pieces, his distinguishing trait is clear: he treats public health governance as a system of powers and responsibilities, carefully explaining what agencies do, why they act, and how their decisions change the rules on the ground.
County budgets, utilities, and large public projects
Although his beat centers on health, Bracht’s reporting extends into county government and public utilities, especially where budgets and infrastructure shape essential services. In his coverage of the county’s $325.5 million budget, he explains that three elected commissioners levy taxes and adopt an annual balanced budget built from operational proposals submitted by department heads and other elected officers. That level of structural detail turns a routine budget story into a guided tour of how local government allocates resources and exercises fiscal authority.
His reporting on the construction of a new service center for a public utility district follows the ceremonial groundbreaking but quickly moves into explaining the project’s physical scope and its relationship to other major facilities nearby.
In another piece, he covers a solar energy project expected to produce 120 megawatts of clean, renewable power by the end of 2027, framing it within the utility’s broader efforts to meet long-term clean energy targets. He also reports on measures like the SAVE Act and their projected impacts on local elections, indicating an interest in how state-level policy reshapes local governance and administration.
Across these stories, Bracht brings the same institutional lens he applies to health: commissioners’ duties, utility planning, and energy targets are described in clear terms that reveal how decisions made in boardrooms and ceremonies translate into real changes in public services. His coverage of legal disputes, such as the dismissal of a school district teachers’ labor lawsuit, likewise focuses on formal outcomes and processes, rather than personalities. For communications professionals, this means he engages most deeply with stories that have concrete implications for public agencies, budgets, and service delivery.
Community events, memorials, and local incidents
Bracht also maintains a steady stream of coverage on community events, memorials, and incidents, filling out a picture of local life that sits alongside his institutional reporting.
His “In other news” roundups include items like Pioneer Day at a local museum, 9/11 remembrance observances, Library Card Month promotions, and a fatal tractor accident, showing a willingness to combine civic commemoration with hard-news incidents in a single package. In Memorial Day coverage, he reports ceremonies at multiple cemeteries honoring U.S. military personnel who have died in service and includes historical figures such as the more than 1.1 million military men and women killed defending the United States since the American Revolution, quoting local veterans’ leaders to capture the tone of the events.
His business and development stories, including a ribbon-cutting that brings a new company into a former department store building, focus on the reuse of physical spaces and the visual details of signage and design. Many of these pieces carry his own photo credits, indicating that he often documents scenes visually as well as in text. The combination of precise descriptive reporting and photography creates a record of how institutions, businesses, and residents interact in public spaces - whether at ceremonies, accidents, or openings.
This layer of coverage reinforces his core through-line: institutions and communities are always linked, and his reporting pays close attention to where that link is visible and concrete.
4 more health journalists.
Alanna Smith
Alanna Smith is a national health reporter whose work links health policy and politics to real access to care, with a constant focus on health equity, infectious disease and the toxic drug crisis. She reports for The Globe and Mail on infectious diseases, hospitals and long-term care, mental health, drug policy and the pressures on health systems in Western Canada. Her stories connect big-picture decisions to patients, families, front-line workers and volunteers, showing how funding, privatization and federal standards shape public care. She has covered trauma care inequities, proposed public‑private models in Alberta, drug toxicity and overdose policy, respiratory virus surges, measles elimination, gene‑editing advances and gender‑affirming health care laws. Her work combines narrative reporting, data, legal and policy analysis, and has been recognized by national journalism and press freedom organizations.
Allan Levine
Allan Levine is a historian and author whose journalism uses the past to explain present-day issues. He writes for the Winnipeg Free Press, including the Now & Then column, which examines current events through history. His subjects include public health, disease, medical treatment, health systems, politics, social conflict, strikes, wars, antisemitism and Canadian public life. His polio reporting traces Manitoba epidemics, hospital pressures, treatment, mortality and the arrival of vaccines through archival data and medical history. He also writes about the Winnipeg General Strike and Jewish communities, including discrimination, rights and security. His work draws on books about Canadian political leaders, Jewish history and the wartime economy, including The Dollar A Year Men. He writes long-form, analytical pieces that combine dates, statistics, policy decisions and narrative storytelling to connect people and institutions with broader historical change.
Angela Amato
Angela Amato is a digital news producer with CTV News, and her coverage is distinct for linking health research and public safety concerns to legal and policy decisions that shape daily life. She reports on health, justice, politics, business, arts and culture, crime and public-interest stories. Her health work covers academic and clinical research, including studies on vaping and lung blood flow, exercise tolerance and early heart dysfunction in young adults. She also reports on motorcycle gang arrests, homicide and death investigations, Indigenous justice stories, wildfire evacuations, ambulance contracts, property taxes, labour negotiations and political advocacy rules. She explains complex findings in plain language and stays close to documents, data and expert sources. Her background includes investigative and daily newsrooms, and she has earned nominations for national journalism awards.
Apoorva Mandavilli
Apoorva Mandavilli covers the collision of infectious disease science, vaccine policy and public health agencies for The New York Times, following how research, regulation and politics shape outbreaks and access to vaccines. She reports on science and global health with a steady focus on infectious diseases and pandemics, including Covid-19, mpox, H.I.V., malaria and tuberculosis, treating them as ongoing global threats. Her work explains complex epidemiology and virology in clear narratives about risk, evidence and the consequences of scientific decisions. She repeatedly returns to vaccine policy, law and misinformation, tracing how court fights and agency disputes affect immunization schedules and public trust. She also reports on global health programs, funding cuts and inequity in care and technology. A longtime science journalist and former founding editor in chief of Spectrum, she has written widely on science and health and received major honors for medical science reporting and pandemic coverage.