Applications are now closed for the 2025 Carolyn C. Mattingly Award for Mental Health Reporting. The award is open to U.S.-based journalists, in any medium. It recognizes exemplary journalism that illuminates and advances the understanding of mental health issues and treatments for the illness.
The National Press Foundation and the Luv u Project established this award in 2015 to honor excellence in mental health reporting. It is named in memory of the Potomac, Maryland, philanthropist and activist. Mattingly’s family decided to establish the award in the aftermath of her tragic death in 2014.
Mackenzie Mays of Bloomberg Law and Jon Schuppe of NBC News have won the 2025 Carolyn C. Mattingly Award for Mental Health Reporting from the National Press Foundation.
Mays and Schuppe’s yearlong investigative series, “Pregnancy Behind Bars,” reveals the systemic failure to provide adequate maternal and mental health care to pregnant women in jails across the United States.
The judging panel also awarded a strong honorable mention to Sarah Stillman for her investigation, “Starved in Jail” and the companion piece “Starved for Care,” a collaboration with the Investigative Reporting Lab at Yale, where Stillman is a professor. The pieces trace the mental health histories and crisis situations of more than two dozen people who died from lack of food or water while in U.S. jails.
Sarah Wildman, a writer and editor of The New York Times’ opinion section, won NPF’s 2024 Carolyn C. Mattingly Award for Mental Health Reporting for her coverage on 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 2023 Carolyn C. Mattingly Award for Mental Health Reporting went to The Seattle Times for its series untangling the complex maze of insurance coverage for mental health conditions.
Seattle Times mental health reporter Hannah Furfaro investigated patterns of insurance denials to reveal that some patients with eating disorders were essentially given the message that they would have to starve more to get doctor-recommended care.
Lauren Frohne and Jennifer Luxton created an animated video, which NPF judges praised for “allowing a teen’s voice to be heard” regarding her experience with insurance denials.
Judges also noted Seattle Times mental health reporter Michelle Baruchman’s strong conceptual approach to telling the story of “ghost therapists” and why it seems so hard to find a therapist who will take your insurance.
