MindSite News, the nation’s only national news outlet reporting exclusively on mental health, is pleased to announce that two MindSite News reporters have won awards for excellence in journalism.

Josh McGhee won a 2024 Studs Terkel Award from Chicago-based Public Narrative. McGhee’s award-winning body of work covers the intersection of criminal justice and mental health. It includes reporting on solitary confinement, police response to mental health crises, and racial disparities in prosecutions of gun possession charges. McGhee is a 2024 Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Fellow and a Maynard Institute Fellow. Last year, he won the Peter Lisagor Award for the best reporting on crime and justice in a small outlet.

“Josh creates fresh, important work that taps into and spotlights underserved communities,” said Britt Julious of Engage Public Narrative. “His ability to craft insightful pieces speaks to the sort of compassionate, intersectional mindset that makes for a great winner of the Studs Terkel award.”

MindSite News is especially honored that McGhee received an award named in honor of Studs Terkel, who created compelling oral histories of ordinary working people and was blacklisted during the McCarthy era “for taking a certain stand on things and never retracting,” as he once said. 

“I am deeply appreciative of this award because people have trusted me to tell stories about their most personal moments,” McGhee said. 

Celeste Hamilton Dennis received a beat reporting award from the Association of Health Care Journalists for a package of stories focused on mental health solutions. The stories shed a spotlight on undocumented migrants’ efforts to become licensed mental health professionals through a groundbreaking California program, Black doulas reducing birth complications, Southern Black churches supporting dementia patients, and a dental clinic in Oakland that screens for depression. The dental story led to inquiries from the American Dental Association, other dental clinics and dental schools interested in incorporating the clinic’s process into dental training.

This reporting was supported by the Sozosei Foundation, the California Health Care Foundation and the NIHCM Foundation.