2013 NCDJ Awards Archive
The following entries for the 2013 Katherine Schneider Journalism Award for Excellence in Reporting on Disability all earned points from judges for the quality of reporting on disability issues.

AWARD WINNERS

Overview: The result of an 18-month investigation by Gabrielson for California Watch and its parent organization The Center for Investigative Reporting, “Broken Shield” exposes the routine failures of police to protect the developmentally disabled at California care institutions. The multipart series details how the Office of Protective Services, a police force charged with protecting the state’s most vulnerable citizens, botched investigations into claims of rape, torture and beatings of patients by staff members at development centers. Carrie Ching and Marina Luz produced an animated video, “In Jennifer’s Room,” to accompany the report, which also won the 2012 George Polk Award and the 2012 IRE Award and was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize.

Overview: Pulitzer Prize winner and columnist Gareth Cook chronicles the story of the innovative Danish company Specialisterne, which employs people with autism to gain a competitive advantage in the business world. Founded by Thorkil Sonne, the father of a son with autism, Specialisterne (Danish for “Specialists) employs high-functioning autistic adults who are hired out as consultants. Sonne established the company in the belief that workers with autism could be the best person for certain roles.

Overview: An abridged excerpt from the feature documentary “Shot in the Dark,” “Playing by Ear” profiles one young man’s dedication to the Paralympic sport goalball for the visually impaired. Filmmakers Denis and Emam follow one of New York State’s top goalball players Ibrahim Shahadat, who has a rare degenerative eye disease.

Overview: One-time Everest climber and Dartmouth alumnus Barry Corbet was paralyzed from the waist down in a helicopter crash in 1968. “Second Chapter” profiles how the thrill seeker transitioned to life in a wheelchair and became a high-profile advocate for the disabled.

FINALISTS

Presented in alphabetical order by title of entry

Overview: While making university websites and course content accessible to students and employees with disabilities may be the law, many institutions are far from compliance. Campus Technology looks at three key elements of a more proactive approach to accessibility on campus. These include building accessibility into the IT procurement process, training faculty to make online courses and content more accessible and sharing best practices across the higher education system.

Overview: Hundreds of  boarding homes provide shelter and care to mentally disabled people in San Antonio with little to no regulatory oversight. In this series of articles, social services reporter Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje enumerates the haunting experiences of boarding home residents and their families, portraying a system that provides little help to those in financial and medical need.

Overview: Many doctors’ offices are ill prepared to offer even routine care to patients with disabilities. Through personal experience and an overview of a recent medical study, Dr. Pauline Chen lays bare a culture of discrimination against disabled patients by exposing offices unable to accommodate special equipment or outright refusing to book appointments.

Overview: Andrew Cunningham is a typical 13 year-old. He complains about studying and spends hours playing on Xbox Live with friends. The only difference is he was born with a rare form of muscular dystrophy and gets around with the use of  a powered wheelchair. Andrew finds a brother and guide in 21-year-old Tony Reuter, born with brittle bone disease and facing a milestone of his own. Andrew Hida first began reporting the story for a class project and eventually turned it into a master’s thesis and an International Motion Art Award-winning documentary.

Overview: Marine Corps veteran Ian Welch was wounded in a roadside attack during his first tour in Iraq in 2003 but continued to serve two more tours before military doctors determined his post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury qualified him as disabled. Today, Welch lives in Texas with his girlfriend, Katie Brickman, who earns a small stipend as his primary caregiver under a recent federal program for badly disabled veterans.

Overview: Forty formerly marginalized deaf parishioners are finding spiritual guidance and comfort in a unique church in Matadi, a coastal capital town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The pastor of Yhwh Sabaoth uses the director of the only school for the deaf in the Bas-Congo province to translate his sermons into sign language. Article in French; read in Google Chrome for English translation.

Overview: Snatched from a marketplace in Sudan and sold into slavery at the age of 6, William Mawwin became one of millions of people in the world to endure some form of involuntary servitude. Arizona State University English Professor Melissa Pritchard’s essay details Mawwin’s journey from a lost boy of a war-torn Sudan to a refugee in Egypt, where he lost his right hand and most of the fingers on his left in a work accident, and finally to a college student in America.

Overview: More students with disabilities are pursuing higher education than ever before. New accessible technology along with disability assistance is helping students such as Esha Mehta and Bill Casson earn graduate degrees at institutions like the University of Colorado. But still some gender and minority gaps remain, with more women attendingcollege and more white students attending both undergraduate and graduate school than minority students.

Overview: Rapidly and surely, Zach Thibodeaux is going blind — the result of a degenerative disease called cone-rod dystrophy that destroys the cells of the retina. Mark Ramirez followed Zach for two years, through the third and fourth grades as the Dallas boy learned what it would mean to be blind, find new hobbies and spread awareness of his incurable disease.