Sarah Wildman, a writer and editor of The New York Times opinion section, has won the NPF’s 2024 Carolyn C. Mattingly Award for Mental Health Reporting for her coverage of mental health implications for those who have witnessed or experienced pediatric end-of-life care and how medical teams failed to meet their needs.

The story – “If My Dying Daughter Could Face Her Mortality, Why Couldn’t the Rest of Us?” – is told through the lens of Wildman’s personal experience of her own daughter’s cancer journey and the lack of emotional support she received at the end of her life. Wildman’s daughter, Orli Wildman Halpern, was in cancer care from age 10 through 14.

NPF judges called it “a brutal and beautiful meditation on child loss, on the ways Western ideas about death compromise our ability to live with integrity and authenticity even after a terminal diagnosis.”

The piece flagged systemic issues through personal storytelling, judges said, and could lead to a cultural shift.

“Wildman ambitiously tackles thorny, complex questions about what it might look like to discuss and treat death differently in this country.”

In addition to the first-person account, Wildman also interviewed experts in palliative care and spent more than a year researching and reporting.

Honorable Mention to North Carolina Health News

NPF judges also chose to award an honorable mention this year to Taylor Knopf from North Carolina Health News for her investigation into understaffing at a North Carolina psychiatric hospital and how it has become a “dangerous” place for patients and employees – which hospital officials deny. The series followed questionable practices the hospital employed and was cited in a Senate committee’s investigation.

Staff treatment can be taboo to talk about, mental health reporters on the judging panel said.

“Knopf approached the subject of staff mistreatment with rigor and empathy.”

The National Press Foundation and the Luv U Project established the Carolyn C. Mattingly Award in memory of the Potomac, Maryland, philanthropist and activist after her tragic death in 2014. The award recognizes exemplary journalism that illuminates and advances the understanding of mental health issues and treatments.

The National Press Foundation is grateful for the expertise of this year’s judges:

• Michelle Baruchman, reporter at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Alia Dastagir, author of To Those Who Have Confused You to Be a Person: Words as Violence and Stories of Women’s Resistance Online
• Natalia Guerrero, a senior journalist and editor at BBC Global Features
• Deborah Wang, contributing editor at KUOW Public Radio and a fellow and advisory board member for the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism

Last year, The Seattle Times won for its series untangling the complex maze of insurance coverage for mental health conditions.