The Marshall Project has won two 2025 Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association in the categories of hard news and podcasts.
“We are honored to be recognized with two Edward R. Murrow Awards this year. These projects exemplify our mission: to produce rigorous, impactful journalism that exposes failures in the justice system and informs the public debate,” said Geraldine Sealey, acting Editor-in-Chief of The Marshall Project.
In the hard news category, The Marshall Project and The Frontier were honored for our joint investigation, “This Company Promised to Improve Health Care in Jails. Dozens of Its Patients Have Died.” The reporting examined the rapid expansion of Oklahoma-based Turn Key Health Clinics and revealed how its policies and practices endangered patients across 10 states. The story was reported by The Marshall Project’s Cary Aspinwall, The Frontier’s Brianna Bailey and freelancer Sachi McClendon, and edited by The Marshall Project’s Dave Mann and Leslie Eaton. The project also included data analysis by The Marshall Project’s Geoff Hing, design and video editing from Celina Fang, videography and video editing from freelancers Belle Cushing and Cassandra Giraldo, and photography by freelancer September Dawn Bottoms.
The coverage took more than a year of dogged reporting to determine the number of deaths and to find out the reasons behind them. The team reviewed nearly 200 lawsuits against the company. Verifying the serious allegations in those suits proved challenging because the company had settled several cases with agreements that prevented plaintiffs and attorneys from speaking with us, and many documents in court files were sealed.
Reporters faced challenges obtaining records in dozens of counties across 10 states. A number of counties with Turn Key contracts stonewalled our requests for communications, policy documents, contracts and payment records. The reporting team found that at least 50 people who were under Turn Key’s care died during the past decade. Our reporting unearthed company policies and practices that have endangered people in jail, especially those with mental illness.
The investigation examines several of those cases, including an Oklahoma mother and baker, Shannon Hanchett, who ended up in a jail cell after calling 911 during a mental health crisis. Her family pleaded for her to be sent to a mental health facility instead, but she remained in jail under Turn Key’s medical care, until she died.
The Marshall Project also received a Murrow Award in the podcast category for “The Fifth Branch,” produced in collaboration with Tradeoffs, a health policy journalism outlet. The three-part narrative podcast series from Ryan Levi and Dan Gorenstein at Tradeoffs and The Marshall Project — and an accompanying story by Christie Thompson — explores how cities around the country are creating a new generation of first responders to handle 911 calls involving mental illness, addiction or homelessness.
The podcast was reported by Levi, with help from Marc Maximov. It was mixed by Andrew Parrella, with help from Cedric Wilson. Cate Cahan was the podcast series editor, and Dan Gorenstein was executive editor.
The series zooms in on Durham, North Carolina’s HEART program, one of the most robust alternative response programs in the country. Levi focused on three key issues: How do you get buy-in for this kind of radical change, especially from law enforcement? Has HEART made Durham safer? And what scope and scale should a program like HEART be aiming for?
Our reporting tackled these questions with a combination of rigorous on-the-ground reporting, data analysis, and human-focused narrative storytelling. Tradeoffs reporters spent eight months in Durham, riding with unarmed teams to emergency calls and talking with more than 50 city leaders, social workers, police officers, 911 dispatchers, activists, business owners and people helped by HEART.
There has been a wave of reporting on these programs as they popped up across the country. But this series is among the first to take a truly in-depth look at whether they really are on their way to becoming the revolution in public safety they once promised, and what it would take to get there.
These awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association recognize strong local and national news stories that “uphold the RTDNA Code of Ethics, demonstrate technical expertise and exemplify the importance and impact of journalism as a service to the community.”
The recognition underscores The Marshall Project’s continued leadership in criminal justice journalism. Founded in 2014, the nonprofit newsroom has won two Pulitzer Prizes, been named a Peabody finalist, and published thousands of stories in partnership with local and national media outlets across the country.
