“We don’t think about what happens with people who are mentally ill – they are just shipped to these warehouses, completely forgotten,” Anthony Cormier, an investigative journalist at the Tampa Bay Times, asserted in a phone interview. “Most of us don’t know and don’t care what happens when they are behind that fence. I didn’t even know this world existed.”
There are thousands upon thousands entering the system each year, and, until the investigation Cormier worked on with his colleague Leonora LaPeter Anton, he would have never known that the government shielded the harsh realities of what occurs in mental institutions with a wall of secrecy.
Anxiety, Bipolar disorder and depression are only three mental maladies that plague the nation, of which mental institutions are, at times, the go-to hub to assuage these ailments. Some mental institutions introduce patients with daily care and assistance. Some offer professional help with a guided prescribed-medication calendar. Others, like the six largest hospitals in Fla., decided to remediate patient issues with a vile and shocking treatment: violence.
The two aforementioned reporters, as well as Michael Barga of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, were the recipients of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in investigative journalism “for a stellar example of collaborative reporting…that revealed escalating violence and neglect in Florida mental hospitals and laid the blame at the door of state officials” (The Pulitzer Prizes). In a five-part investigation with intertwined updates, the hard-hitting news story exposed a crude exposition of how Fla.’s $100 million budget cut impacted far too many individuals. The premise of the investigation is insightfully ironic: as some people may think that mentally-ill people pose danger to the outside world – and, as a result, should be admitted to a mental hospital – they were the ones who felt danger inside, with no way out.
However, this topic was not originally the initial investigation Cormier and Anton had in mind. In a phone interview with Cormier, he disclosed that they were set on investigating disparities in the judicial system but, when he had the opportunity to look at database files, he noticed unusual “I” and “M” markings on some individual records. “We were shocked to learn that there were so many people [with these markings] and we were really determined to figure out what the end game was for them, and that was the genesis for the investigation,” Cormier said. He explained that these “marked” individuals took a long time in the courtroom and, eventually, the ambiguity came together: these were mentally-ill patients in institutions fighting for their rights.
The use of multimedia played an incredibly vital role in this particular investigation. Before diving into the cumulative report, the Tampa Bay Times and the Herald-Tribune created a project digital page with a beautifully-arranged web of research for audiences to browse at their convenience. Photos arranged in a gallery format at the top of the page speaks volumes when no written or verbal words are present. They are all presented in black-and-white to garner the effect of deep sorrow and disarray. One family is holding a picture frame of an individual, inferred as one to have suffered violence at one of Fla.’s mental hospitals. Another photo elicits a more gruesome approach: a headshot of a woman, holding up a torn picture of half of her face, depicting blooded and bruised areas that were once visible on her skin. When one scrolls down the Web page, he would notice, in bold print, the words “Insane. Invisible. In danger.” With the use of a multimedia gallery and a strong headline, the audience inevitably knows that this is an issue that took layers of investigating to uncover.
Anton and Cormier curated this investigation as a digital experience as if they were taking the reader on an investigation themselves. This makes the entire story more engaging and relatable to the reader. In a phone interview with Anton, she said that despite a reader working in a mental institution – or suffering from mental illness – this story is universal. “The violence was just so intense,” she said. “Having employees get beat up and thrown down on stairs [through multimedia] was really impactful and really showed the readers the extent of the problem.” In the first part of the investigation, there are a few lines of copy that the reader has to scroll through before reaching the first in-depth article of the investigation. This is almost reminiscent of virtual gaming programs where a user must walk through a digital tutorial explaining the gist of what is expected next. Here are the initial words that the reader absorbs which can only be described as appalling:
Anxiety, Bipolar disorder and depression are only three mental maladies that plague the nation, of which mental institutions are, at times, the go-to hub to assuage these ailments. Some mental institutions introduce patients with daily care and assistance. Some offer professional help with a guided prescribed-medication calendar. Others, like the six largest hospitals in Fla., decided to remediate patient issues with a vile and shocking treatment: violence.
The two aforementioned reporters, as well as Michael Barga of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, were the recipients of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in investigative journalism “for a stellar example of collaborative reporting…that revealed escalating violence and neglect in Florida mental hospitals and laid the blame at the door of state officials” (The Pulitzer Prizes). In a five-part investigation with intertwined updates, the hard-hitting news story exposed a crude exposition of how Fla.’s $100 million budget cut impacted far too many individuals. The premise of the investigation is insightfully ironic: as some people may think that mentally-ill people pose danger to the outside world – and, as a result, should be admitted to a mental hospital – they were the ones who felt danger inside, with no way out.
However, this topic was not originally the initial investigation Cormier and Anton had in mind. In a phone interview with Cormier, he disclosed that they were set on investigating disparities in the judicial system but, when he had the opportunity to look at database files, he noticed unusual “I” and “M” markings on some individual records. “We were shocked to learn that there were so many people [with these markings] and we were really determined to figure out what the end game was for them, and that was the genesis for the investigation,” Cormier said. He explained that these “marked” individuals took a long time in the courtroom and, eventually, the ambiguity came together: these were mentally-ill patients in institutions fighting for their rights.
The use of multimedia played an incredibly vital role in this particular investigation. Before diving into the cumulative report, the Tampa Bay Times and the Herald-Tribune created a project digital page with a beautifully-arranged web of research for audiences to browse at their convenience. Photos arranged in a gallery format at the top of the page speaks volumes when no written or verbal words are present. They are all presented in black-and-white to garner the effect of deep sorrow and disarray. One family is holding a picture frame of an individual, inferred as one to have suffered violence at one of Fla.’s mental hospitals. Another photo elicits a more gruesome approach: a headshot of a woman, holding up a torn picture of half of her face, depicting blooded and bruised areas that were once visible on her skin. When one scrolls down the Web page, he would notice, in bold print, the words “Insane. Invisible. In danger.” With the use of a multimedia gallery and a strong headline, the audience inevitably knows that this is an issue that took layers of investigating to uncover.
Anton and Cormier curated this investigation as a digital experience as if they were taking the reader on an investigation themselves. This makes the entire story more engaging and relatable to the reader. In a phone interview with Anton, she said that despite a reader working in a mental institution – or suffering from mental illness – this story is universal. “The violence was just so intense,” she said. “Having employees get beat up and thrown down on stairs [through multimedia] was really impactful and really showed the readers the extent of the problem.” In the first part of the investigation, there are a few lines of copy that the reader has to scroll through before reaching the first in-depth article of the investigation. This is almost reminiscent of virtual gaming programs where a user must walk through a digital tutorial explaining the gist of what is expected next. Here are the initial words that the reader absorbs which can only be described as appalling:
“Many nights, Tonya Cook made her rounds alone. She walked the halls of one of Florida’s most dangerous mental hospitals clutching her clipboard to her chest, trying not to think too much about the patients in her care. All of them were men. Many were schizophrenic, violent. One had chopped up a diabetic amputee and scattered him in parts through the woods of Dixie County. One night in 2012, she walked the ward again, a single orderly watching over 27 men. Her nearest coworkers were upstairs, out of sight. They didn’t see what a security camera captured – a patient holding a radio antenna fashioned to a jagged point. He calmly approached Cook as she sat looking over her notes. Then he swung.”
These words are a power play into the investigation because the copy that followed next was “Eyebrow. Lip. Temple. Eye socket.” Each part of Cook’s face was uncovered one by one, as each part appeared in the copy on the digital page. And, not to mention, this was the exact picture that was first shown in the gallery at the top of the screen. How Anton and Cormier pieced their investigation with multimedia enforces the message – in thriller-filled, feature fashion – that these mental hospital conditions are impeccably revolting.
This feature style is continuously repeated throughout the entirety of the investigation with the use of personal narratives of victims. Stand-alone sentences added a strong effect – examples such as “They stomped him to death.”; “They stopped checking on patients.”; “Inside, past the bubbling fountains and manicured hedges, things seem to get worse year after year” – truly heightened the intensity of major problems inside the doors of these mental hospitals.
While Fla. mental hospitals neglected their patients, Anton and Cormier certainly did not neglect the essential facts to formulate their flexible creativity with their feature-style approach. They discovered that raw chicken blood was dripping on the tops of hard-boiled eggs that were about to be served to patients, realized that two-year broken fire extinguishers were painted shut in one institution (and the central fire alarm “no longer triggered an alert, putting 300 patients at risk”) and even traced bugs in the cakes baked at another institution.
The reporters took their ghastly discoveries to state officials, specifically the state Department of Children and Families, to which DCF Secretary David Wilkins said, “If the average person saw those facilities, they would be ashamed.” Yet, it was not long before both reporters uncovered that under Wilkins leadership from 2011 to 2013, “maintenance budgets dropped by 12 percent – about $2 million.” Even with these budget cuts, the fourth part of the investigation states that Fla. spends at least $50 million to aid criminal defendants back to better health as a method to avoid time in prison. Anton and Cormier certainly have found flaws in not only mental hospital conditions but also in the business model of the hospitals themselves, with money flow confounding.
The feature style was even embedded in violence reports. In North Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center, a fight that erupted between two patients was explained in the investigation with this description: “Then Lewis stood up and stomped Mosley’s head. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Lewis walked away, leaving Mosley unconscious on the floor for 30 seconds. Still, no help came.” This vivid description is accompanied by a video surveillance clip with a “graphic content warning” attached, allowing the reader, if they wished to see the horrific reality of this particular mental hospital, to piece together the number of punches Lewis threw at the other patient and the shameful result of Mosley left senseless. Further surveillance footage was surfaced shortly after in the “Closed-circuit chaos” investigation update. Despite gruesome footage, Cormier believes these never-before-seen clips powerfully added to the investigation.
“They were not supposed to be released to the public but, once I obtained the footage for the sources, I realized they were really shocking, really visceral,” Cormier remembers. “We didn’t want to be exploitative but we knew that the public needed to see them. We thought, ‘when the public gets a look at this, they may actually push for change, make the system better.” Violence truly took a turn for the worse when patient Daniel Kellond punched another patient over a biscuit at Treasure Coast Forensic Treatment Center. Not only did videos foster the investigation but police reports also showcased the tangibility of these brutal observations. Two patients beat fellow living mate Miguel Menendez-Camera because “he thought he was a snitch.” When the so-called snitch threw urine on the two admitted bullies, the duo stomped him to death. A police report was shown on the Web page addressing the incident.
While Anton and Cormier backed up their observations with sufficient evidence and personal interviews, a great obstacle in their plight for justice arose with legal terms of disclosing patient names in Fla. To protect abusers, “all records concerning reports of abuse, neglect, or exploitation of the vulnerable adult…shall be confidential,” according to Florida Statute 415. Anton and Cormier transformed what seemed to be a stumbling block in their investigation into an open door to empathize with the families of victims outside of the mental hospital corridors. Reporters honed in on Rachelle McNair, mother of an admitted patient who died, who was denied access to her son’s medical records and, therefore, was left with no clarity as to his actual cause of death.
His autopsy recognized that he had “10 times the normal amount of Thorazine in his system – enough to stop a man’s heart,” but this has a fuzzy correlation to why the cause of his death was “natural.” Unable to comb through various records, both journalists had to craft a method to bring light to the rising number of incidents that occurred at Fla. mental hospitals. After the DCF said there were about 450 cases of injuries or attacks in a six-year time frame, the Times/Herald-Tribune recognized nearly 1,000, as expressed in a bar graph illustrating the numerical inconsistency (And, two months after the October investigation, Anton and Cormier updated their research to inform audiences that 41 assaults continued). The co-investigators also used public records on thousands of Fla. police calls to make a “first-of-its-kind database, representing the most comprehensive list of injuries and violent episodes ever created for Florida’s mental institutions.” Cormier notes that state records outlined some levels of violence, but there were still aspects that were fuzzy. “We went to local police departments, and I was shocked that it actually worked,” Cormier says. “We were able to supplement our documents from the state with police reports because the state was not recording the 250 episodes of violence that were reported to local police.”
Anton and Cormier continued to focus on the stark reality of Fla. mental hospitals with the third part of their investigation – a case study of patient Anthony Barsotti. In their strategically-curated headline, “In the end, it wasn’t Anthony Barsotti’s demons that killed him,” the reporters explored how the conditions at a Gainsville treatment center were certainly not representative of patient-first care. Caregivers – a generous title alluded to workers in this specific case – only put a Band-Aid on Barsotti’s finger when he woke up with a cracked skull and stalled to call 911 during truthful turmoil. This led the reporters to come to a harsh reality: “When injuries occur, overworked employees…often leave patients to fend for themselves.” Anton explained, via phone interview, that the reason these employees were reluctant to call 911 because they wanted to keep costs to a minimum, as the mental institutions pay these bills. However, this added to the turmoil at these institutions, this reason strongly influencing Anton to hone in on a personal account of Barsotti’s life.
Transitioning to a personal narrative of Barsotti’s life is a Web page photo of Barsotti as a little boy with his parents. The reporters then described some dusty photos they found of Barsotti: him in a red and white jumpsuit at Christmas, smiling from ear to ear; an eager young boy with a red backpack on the first day of kindergarten; a happy-go-lucky, 9-year-old making coleslaw with his grandfather. A documentary-life effect was created, offering a more personal touch into the investigation than just blood, death and despair. The fond memories of childhood were then followed up by Barsotti beginning to express “bizarre behavior,” leading Barsotti’s father to realize that his son could no longer control his behavior; he commented that “it was so sad.” Moreover, Anton and Cormier continued to incorporate relatability into their investigation by not referencing this man as “Barsotti,” but rather as “Anthony,” giving the narrative a natural and story-like ambiance. Cormier shared that including an anecdotal style to the investigation impacted his audience. “With these investigations, you have to nail down the facts and that can be kind of black-and-white, and often it doesn’t resonate as well as stories do,” he says. “We wanted to do a deep-dive on all the events that led up to the night [Barsotti died] to reinforce their anger as a sequence of events.”
A powerful piece of their investigation is the juxtaposition of their observations. First, the reporters detail how Anthony stopped eating and taking his medication while at the Gainesville hospital, describing him as six-feet tall and diminishing to 127 pounds. Then, the reporters state that despite his increasing malnourishment, Anthony still has the energy to swing into many patient-related attacks at the institution. These two minor observations, in the mix of others which are more intense, expand the scope of the investigation tenfold: violence truly plagues Fla. mental hospitals.
This feature included expert sources to fill in some gaps that were unaccounted for due to document inaccessibility. The reporters interviewed Bill Baxter, the Gainesville hospital administrator at the time of Anthony’s death, who said without hesitation that if there was no issue of staffing shortages at the institution, Anthony’s life could have been said. Likewise, both Anton and Cormier referred to the link between staffing shortages and institutional violence as “the most shocking aspect of his investigation.” This Fla. mental hospital was further exposed by an interview with Dr. Lisa Flaherty, a neurologist at Northside Hospital in St. Petersburg, who reviewed Anthony’s autopsy report. She is another one that believes Anthony’s demons were not the only thing that killed him, but that “based on the symptoms described in mental hospital records, Anthony likely could have been saved in the three hours after he hit his head, before his brain was irreparably damaged.”
The aforementioned distribution of money to criminal defendants, according to Cormier, was a tremendous factor influencing the state of Fla. mental hospitals. The reporters decided to interview Miami-Dade County judge Steve Liefman who, like Anton and Cormier, was working to reform the Fla. mental health system. Liefman honestly stated, “Rather than appropriating additional funding to keep up with [the demand for more treatment beds], Florida simply shifted resources from the civil system to pay for the forensic system.” Still focusing on personal narratives of the victimized, the reporters accentuate the facts more prominently with an evaluation of how Texas and New York fund mental hospital improvements, underlining how Fla. fails to make these necessary program advancements. Shifting the story from an issue to violence to one of the government is essential to the piece. The fifth part of the investigation highlights a trend of those with mental issues heading to prison, one after the other. Now, it is not just an investigation – it is a call to action for Fla. lawmakers and mental institution administrators. And the Tampa Bay Times and Sarasota Herald-Tribune are not finished, even four years later; the “join the conversation” tab on the investigation’s Web page encourages further discussion about this heavy topic.
Despite the incredible investigative work Anton and Cormier submitted to the press – a work that had a total estimate of 21,000 words – other extraordinary for the 2016 investigative journalism category was considered for the Pulitzer Prize. Anton commented that if she and Cormier had not spent the entire 18 months to investigate this issue, they would have never uncovered the “dozens and dozens of bone injuries and other horrors.” Also nominated was a similar story investigating correction officer violence against inmates in New York state prisons by The Marshall Project and The New York Times, as well as a story exposing unfair business practices in court by The New York Times (The Pulitzer Prizes). While those works are other examples of exemplary journalism, unmasking the hair-raising realities of Fla. mental hospitals spoke volumes to economic, political, social issues in the state and can improve future issues that may arise in mental institutions, according to Cormier. “Other journalists and other states can look at this case next time they consider cutting the budget to their mental health system and, maybe, they will go ‘well, this is what happens when you do that, so let’s be very judicious on the decisions we make.’”
This feature style is continuously repeated throughout the entirety of the investigation with the use of personal narratives of victims. Stand-alone sentences added a strong effect – examples such as “They stomped him to death.”; “They stopped checking on patients.”; “Inside, past the bubbling fountains and manicured hedges, things seem to get worse year after year” – truly heightened the intensity of major problems inside the doors of these mental hospitals.
While Fla. mental hospitals neglected their patients, Anton and Cormier certainly did not neglect the essential facts to formulate their flexible creativity with their feature-style approach. They discovered that raw chicken blood was dripping on the tops of hard-boiled eggs that were about to be served to patients, realized that two-year broken fire extinguishers were painted shut in one institution (and the central fire alarm “no longer triggered an alert, putting 300 patients at risk”) and even traced bugs in the cakes baked at another institution.
The reporters took their ghastly discoveries to state officials, specifically the state Department of Children and Families, to which DCF Secretary David Wilkins said, “If the average person saw those facilities, they would be ashamed.” Yet, it was not long before both reporters uncovered that under Wilkins leadership from 2011 to 2013, “maintenance budgets dropped by 12 percent – about $2 million.” Even with these budget cuts, the fourth part of the investigation states that Fla. spends at least $50 million to aid criminal defendants back to better health as a method to avoid time in prison. Anton and Cormier certainly have found flaws in not only mental hospital conditions but also in the business model of the hospitals themselves, with money flow confounding.
The feature style was even embedded in violence reports. In North Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center, a fight that erupted between two patients was explained in the investigation with this description: “Then Lewis stood up and stomped Mosley’s head. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Lewis walked away, leaving Mosley unconscious on the floor for 30 seconds. Still, no help came.” This vivid description is accompanied by a video surveillance clip with a “graphic content warning” attached, allowing the reader, if they wished to see the horrific reality of this particular mental hospital, to piece together the number of punches Lewis threw at the other patient and the shameful result of Mosley left senseless. Further surveillance footage was surfaced shortly after in the “Closed-circuit chaos” investigation update. Despite gruesome footage, Cormier believes these never-before-seen clips powerfully added to the investigation.
“They were not supposed to be released to the public but, once I obtained the footage for the sources, I realized they were really shocking, really visceral,” Cormier remembers. “We didn’t want to be exploitative but we knew that the public needed to see them. We thought, ‘when the public gets a look at this, they may actually push for change, make the system better.” Violence truly took a turn for the worse when patient Daniel Kellond punched another patient over a biscuit at Treasure Coast Forensic Treatment Center. Not only did videos foster the investigation but police reports also showcased the tangibility of these brutal observations. Two patients beat fellow living mate Miguel Menendez-Camera because “he thought he was a snitch.” When the so-called snitch threw urine on the two admitted bullies, the duo stomped him to death. A police report was shown on the Web page addressing the incident.
While Anton and Cormier backed up their observations with sufficient evidence and personal interviews, a great obstacle in their plight for justice arose with legal terms of disclosing patient names in Fla. To protect abusers, “all records concerning reports of abuse, neglect, or exploitation of the vulnerable adult…shall be confidential,” according to Florida Statute 415. Anton and Cormier transformed what seemed to be a stumbling block in their investigation into an open door to empathize with the families of victims outside of the mental hospital corridors. Reporters honed in on Rachelle McNair, mother of an admitted patient who died, who was denied access to her son’s medical records and, therefore, was left with no clarity as to his actual cause of death.
His autopsy recognized that he had “10 times the normal amount of Thorazine in his system – enough to stop a man’s heart,” but this has a fuzzy correlation to why the cause of his death was “natural.” Unable to comb through various records, both journalists had to craft a method to bring light to the rising number of incidents that occurred at Fla. mental hospitals. After the DCF said there were about 450 cases of injuries or attacks in a six-year time frame, the Times/Herald-Tribune recognized nearly 1,000, as expressed in a bar graph illustrating the numerical inconsistency (And, two months after the October investigation, Anton and Cormier updated their research to inform audiences that 41 assaults continued). The co-investigators also used public records on thousands of Fla. police calls to make a “first-of-its-kind database, representing the most comprehensive list of injuries and violent episodes ever created for Florida’s mental institutions.” Cormier notes that state records outlined some levels of violence, but there were still aspects that were fuzzy. “We went to local police departments, and I was shocked that it actually worked,” Cormier says. “We were able to supplement our documents from the state with police reports because the state was not recording the 250 episodes of violence that were reported to local police.”
Anton and Cormier continued to focus on the stark reality of Fla. mental hospitals with the third part of their investigation – a case study of patient Anthony Barsotti. In their strategically-curated headline, “In the end, it wasn’t Anthony Barsotti’s demons that killed him,” the reporters explored how the conditions at a Gainsville treatment center were certainly not representative of patient-first care. Caregivers – a generous title alluded to workers in this specific case – only put a Band-Aid on Barsotti’s finger when he woke up with a cracked skull and stalled to call 911 during truthful turmoil. This led the reporters to come to a harsh reality: “When injuries occur, overworked employees…often leave patients to fend for themselves.” Anton explained, via phone interview, that the reason these employees were reluctant to call 911 because they wanted to keep costs to a minimum, as the mental institutions pay these bills. However, this added to the turmoil at these institutions, this reason strongly influencing Anton to hone in on a personal account of Barsotti’s life.
Transitioning to a personal narrative of Barsotti’s life is a Web page photo of Barsotti as a little boy with his parents. The reporters then described some dusty photos they found of Barsotti: him in a red and white jumpsuit at Christmas, smiling from ear to ear; an eager young boy with a red backpack on the first day of kindergarten; a happy-go-lucky, 9-year-old making coleslaw with his grandfather. A documentary-life effect was created, offering a more personal touch into the investigation than just blood, death and despair. The fond memories of childhood were then followed up by Barsotti beginning to express “bizarre behavior,” leading Barsotti’s father to realize that his son could no longer control his behavior; he commented that “it was so sad.” Moreover, Anton and Cormier continued to incorporate relatability into their investigation by not referencing this man as “Barsotti,” but rather as “Anthony,” giving the narrative a natural and story-like ambiance. Cormier shared that including an anecdotal style to the investigation impacted his audience. “With these investigations, you have to nail down the facts and that can be kind of black-and-white, and often it doesn’t resonate as well as stories do,” he says. “We wanted to do a deep-dive on all the events that led up to the night [Barsotti died] to reinforce their anger as a sequence of events.”
A powerful piece of their investigation is the juxtaposition of their observations. First, the reporters detail how Anthony stopped eating and taking his medication while at the Gainesville hospital, describing him as six-feet tall and diminishing to 127 pounds. Then, the reporters state that despite his increasing malnourishment, Anthony still has the energy to swing into many patient-related attacks at the institution. These two minor observations, in the mix of others which are more intense, expand the scope of the investigation tenfold: violence truly plagues Fla. mental hospitals.
This feature included expert sources to fill in some gaps that were unaccounted for due to document inaccessibility. The reporters interviewed Bill Baxter, the Gainesville hospital administrator at the time of Anthony’s death, who said without hesitation that if there was no issue of staffing shortages at the institution, Anthony’s life could have been said. Likewise, both Anton and Cormier referred to the link between staffing shortages and institutional violence as “the most shocking aspect of his investigation.” This Fla. mental hospital was further exposed by an interview with Dr. Lisa Flaherty, a neurologist at Northside Hospital in St. Petersburg, who reviewed Anthony’s autopsy report. She is another one that believes Anthony’s demons were not the only thing that killed him, but that “based on the symptoms described in mental hospital records, Anthony likely could have been saved in the three hours after he hit his head, before his brain was irreparably damaged.”
The aforementioned distribution of money to criminal defendants, according to Cormier, was a tremendous factor influencing the state of Fla. mental hospitals. The reporters decided to interview Miami-Dade County judge Steve Liefman who, like Anton and Cormier, was working to reform the Fla. mental health system. Liefman honestly stated, “Rather than appropriating additional funding to keep up with [the demand for more treatment beds], Florida simply shifted resources from the civil system to pay for the forensic system.” Still focusing on personal narratives of the victimized, the reporters accentuate the facts more prominently with an evaluation of how Texas and New York fund mental hospital improvements, underlining how Fla. fails to make these necessary program advancements. Shifting the story from an issue to violence to one of the government is essential to the piece. The fifth part of the investigation highlights a trend of those with mental issues heading to prison, one after the other. Now, it is not just an investigation – it is a call to action for Fla. lawmakers and mental institution administrators. And the Tampa Bay Times and Sarasota Herald-Tribune are not finished, even four years later; the “join the conversation” tab on the investigation’s Web page encourages further discussion about this heavy topic.
Despite the incredible investigative work Anton and Cormier submitted to the press – a work that had a total estimate of 21,000 words – other extraordinary for the 2016 investigative journalism category was considered for the Pulitzer Prize. Anton commented that if she and Cormier had not spent the entire 18 months to investigate this issue, they would have never uncovered the “dozens and dozens of bone injuries and other horrors.” Also nominated was a similar story investigating correction officer violence against inmates in New York state prisons by The Marshall Project and The New York Times, as well as a story exposing unfair business practices in court by The New York Times (The Pulitzer Prizes). While those works are other examples of exemplary journalism, unmasking the hair-raising realities of Fla. mental hospitals spoke volumes to economic, political, social issues in the state and can improve future issues that may arise in mental institutions, according to Cormier. “Other journalists and other states can look at this case next time they consider cutting the budget to their mental health system and, maybe, they will go ‘well, this is what happens when you do that, so let’s be very judicious on the decisions we make.’”
