Two Herald reporters are being honored with the Selden Ring Award this week for their "Innocents Lost" series that chronicled the abuse and neglect deaths of 477 Florida children. Here they share how they reported the project.
Community Safety
A documentary premiering on PBS on Monday tracks the lives of Chicago teens struggling to regain their footing and stay in school after their home lives have fallen apart. The film's three heart-wrenching human stories give deeper meaning to the abstractions of statistics.
After an onslaught of media reports suggesting that depression was the cause of the Germanwings tragedy, people are too readily blaming mental illness as the enemy of public safety. That can make it harder for others to overcome the stigma associated with mental illness.
In Baltimore, violence has marred countless lives. But Baltimore Sun reporter Andrea McDaniels wanted to explore the deeper, long-lasting effects of violence. Her extended reporting crystalized in an award-winning three-part series. Here she shares the challenges she faced and lessons learned.
"Sure, I knew hundreds of residents died in homicides or were hurt and even disabled during assaults,” said McDaniels. "But I wondered if there was something deeper going on that needed to be explored.”
Photojournalist David Gross hatched a plan to crowdfund a project in which he'd photograph and offer art therapy to Syrian refugee children. It did not go as planned. Here he shares some of the lessons he learned along the way, and the images he captured.
“Health care is what happens when things go wrong,” Dr. Anthony Iton says. “Health care doesn’t actually make you healthy — it prevents you from deteriorating rapidly.” The broader forces that really shape health, he argues, are what journalists and policymakers should really be focusing on.
As California's statewide figures drop, Del Norte County has seen its domestic violence rate skyrocket. That raises a question: How are domestic violence survivors in this rural community on the Northern California coast faring after reporting abuse?
For more than a year, Baltimore Sun reporter Andrea K. McDaniels and photographer Lloyd Fox have examined the unseen impact of violence — on children, caregivers and victims’ relatives.
The Michael Brown case has come to symbolize popular disillusionment with finding justice, but it's also about quality-of-life issues and resources for poor residents in places like Ferguson, a majority black suburban city where poverty is prevalent.