A story of hope: Rosalynn Carter's mental health advocacy 'changed journalism — and journalists'

Carter's advocacy created a framework for much of the
progress on mental illness in America. (Photo by Ric Feld, AP)

One reporter's journey to understanding the role journalism could play in improving Americans' lives began with Roslyn Carter's mental health advocacy. A condensed version of Aaron Glantz's NPR story is shared below.

"So much of who I am today is the result of receiving a Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellowship from The Carter Center 15 years ago.

"When I met former first lady Rosalynn Carter in Atlanta in 2008, I was accomplished — having written one book and under contract for a second — but I was also broken after three years reporting in Iraq and an equal amount of time chronicling challenges veterans faced back home. I wrote without purpose, drifting from story to story and full of rage at what I saw as the U.S. government's failure to take seriously the human consequences of the war it began.

"Mrs. Carter was the first person to ever ask me how my journalism would make an impact. It was such an obvious question that it changed my life.

"These days, the question of impact is regularly discussed in newsrooms, especially on investigative desks. But at the time, considering the purpose of one's journalism was often considered taboo. . . .Her challenge, laid out softly in her gentle Southern drawl, gave me a way to channel my trauma. I could deploy it, and the entire journalism toolbox, into making people's lives better.

"All my work since and the change it has made — the fact the VA now tracks veteran suicides in an effort to prevent them, that 500,000 fewer veterans are waiting for disability benefits, that 100,000 fewer are on government-prescribed opioids, and more — can all be traced back to Mrs. Carter and her vision that journalism should have a greater purpose, to fight stigma and make change.

"As she did with her other fellows, she watched my work closely, sending congratulatory letters when my reporting won major journalism awards. She took me seriously, which made me take myself seriously. . . . Since Carter's death, I've been crying — as I share memories with some of the more than 200 other journalists who have held the fellowship that bears her name. Even those who held the fellowship after Mrs. Carter's health began to slip when she could no longer attend in person and provide notes spoke of the impact she had on them.

"Carter was a visionary. When she established the Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellowship in 1996, the entire conception of mental health as a journalism beat was not well established. Screaming headlines in newspapers and chyrons on the nightly news proclaimed people to be 'crazy' or 'insane.' The idea of reporting with the expressed purpose of fighting stigma and improving conditions for people with mental illness was foreign to most editors and publishers. . . . Through deliberate work over more than two decades with hundreds of reporters; Carter changed that."