The Alliance for Women and Media revealed winners of the 49th annual Gracie Awards on Thursday, and two WFAE journalists were honored for a major series published last year.
WFAE’s Dana Miller Ervin and Mona Dougani worked in collaboration with the Public Broadcasting Service series FRONTLINE on “Fractured,” an 11-part series. The work was supported in part by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The series found that hundreds of the state’s jail inmates were languishing in jail while judged not capable for trial due to mental illness. This disparity was caused by the lack of available psychiatric hospital beds in North Carolina.
The series uncovered that among three physiatric hospitals in North Carolina, there are only a total of 894 beds available. But only 600 of those beds are usable due to statewide staffing issues. Just over 20 years ago, there were double the number of beds available for use.
In July, WFAE’ hosted "Fractured: A Public Conversation" at the WFAE Center for Civic & Community Engagement in front of a live audience. Ervin was joined by Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Kody Kinsley, Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather and Richard Wells, an attorney from Guilford County.
The Gracie Awards “celebrate outstanding achievements in media dedicated to women, by women, and about women across diverse platforms in news and entertainment.”
The investigative series has also won top honors in the Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas in November 2023 and is a semifinalist for the national Goldsmith Awards.
You can listen to the entire series here.