The Seattle Times won the Carolyn C. Mattingly Award for Mental Health Reporting for its coverage of insurance barriers to mental health care, the National Press Foundation announced Monday.
The award, a national honor recognizing “exemplary journalism that illuminates and advances the understanding of mental health issues and treatments,” was established in 2014 by the press foundation and the Luv U Project. The nonprofit Luv U Project focuses on mental health and was founded in memory of Mattingly, a Maryland philanthropist and activist.
Reporters Michelle Baruchman and Hannah Furfaro, artist and animator Jennifer Luxton, and video journalist Lauren Frohne received the award.
The stories that were recognized covered topics related to insurance and mental health, including how low reimbursement rates discourage therapists from accepting insurance, how insurance companies’ online directories are often outdated and inaccurate, and how insurers have created particular barriers to care for young people seeking help for deadly eating disorders.
The eating disorder project, “Not sick enough,” featured an animated video by Luxton and Frohne telling the story of a teen’s fight to get her care covered.
“Insurance often ‘feels like an impossible topic to write about,’ but these reporters did so in a way that was both fascinating and clarifying,” the National Press Foundation said in a news release, citing the contest’s judges. “The series showed that while federal law requires mental health to be covered at the same level as physical health, insurers often fail to live up to that standard — with little oversight.”
The Seattle Times’ Mental Health Project is a four-person team that has covered mental and behavioral health in Washington state since 2021. Furfaro is still on the team, while Baruchman is now a reporter in Atlanta.
Supported by funding from the Ballmer Group, the Mental Health Project has explored a wide range of topics from Washington state’s struggles to care for people with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia to the reasons why it’s so difficult for Washingtonians to find a therapist.
The team has previously been recognized in contests including the Best of the West, which gave the team two awards for explanatory reporting, and the Association of Health Care Journalists, which honored Furfaro with a first-place national award for health care beat reporting in 2022. More of the team’s work can be seen at seattletimes.com/mental-health.
