The series “Distressed” examined the life of Juan Gabriel Torres, whose ex-girlfriend and children built this memorial near the spot in Las Cruces where he was shot to death by police officers in 2016.
A journalistic project led by NMPolitics.net joins a Netflix documentary, a New York Times bestselling book and The Players’ Tribune, among others, in receiving national awards from the organization Mental Health America.
The organization gave its 2018 media awards to six projects, including the 2017 series “Distressed,” which examined behavioral health in Southern New Mexico. The series was the result of a months-long collaboration between NMPolitics.net, the Las Cruces Sun-News and KRWG that sought to quantify problems with the region’s struggling system, make the issue tangible through strong storytelling, and seek solutions.
The awards recognize “journalists, authors, digital platforms, media outlets, television shows and filmmakers that have not shied away from the issues of mental illness and addiction – and in doing so, have educated, informed, and helped break down stigma and shame around these issues,” according to a news release from Mental Health America.
“I’m so proud of the journalists who worked on this project,” said NMPolitics.net editor and publisher Heath Haussamen, the series’ editor and coordinator. “Their efforts to understand the scope of the problem, seek ideas for building stronger systems and tell people’s stories are a model for investigative journalism done right.”
Sun-News reporters Carlos Andres López and Diana Alba Soular and photojournalist Robin Zielinski collaborated with Haussamen to produce a four-story, two-video package on behavioral health, which published in November 2017. KRWG’s Anthony Moreno also contributed reporting to the series.
The awards will be presented in June at Mental Health America’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. The organization is a community-based nonprofit dedicated to addressing the needs of those living with mental illness and promoting the mental health of all Americans.
The other recipients of the group’s 2018 awards are:
- The Da Capo Press and New York Times best-selling book Playing Hurt: My Journey from Despair to Hope, authored by the late John Saunders with John U. Bacon. In Saunders own words before his passing: “Playing Hurt is not an autobiography of a sports celebrity but a memoir of a man facing his own mental illness, and emerging better off for the effort. I will take you into the heart of my struggle with depression, including insights into some of its causes, its consequences, and its treatments.”
- The Netflix original series, 13 Reasons Why, for elevating the dialogue across the county between parents, students and mental health advocates on the epidemic of teen suicide, depression and bullying.
- The documentary Suicide: The Ripple Effect, by filmmakers Kevin Hines and Greg Dicharry. The film highlights the journey of Kevin Hines, who at age 19 attempted to take his life by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge. Today Hines is a world-renowned mental health advocate, motivational speaker and author who travels the globe spreading a message of hope, recovery and wellness.
- The online platform The Players’ Tribune, a new media company that provides athletes with a platform to connect directly with their fans, in their own words. This past year, TPT focused a great deal on mental health issues, highlighting raw and personal stories from the NBA’s Kevin Love, Channing Frye and Keyon Dooling; the NHL’s Ben Scrivens, Corey Hirsch and Clint Malarchuk; and more.
- Kentucky Education Television (KET) for “Inside Opioid Addiction,” an ongoing, multi-faceted program to bust stigma, strengthen understanding and facilitate a recovery-focused revolution in opioid addiction.
The behavioral health series “Distressed” has won three other awards. In March it took home the New Mexico Press Women’s first-place award for investigative reporting. And the series has twice won national awards in competitions among newspapers in the USA Today Network, which includes the Sun-News.
The series was made possible by a $5,000 grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
Read the series by clicking here.