Iowa Developmental Disabilities Council presents award to Iowa Capital Dispatch

AMES — The Iowa Developmental Disabilities Council presented its first-ever Media Impact award Wednesday to Iowa Capital Dispatch for “producing impactful reporting that amplifies the voices of Iowans with disabilities.”

The award, presented during the council’s annual conference in Ames, recognizes the online news organization’s reporting about the “abuse, neglect and mistreatment in Iowa’s long-term care facilities,” Council Chairman George Thompson said.

“They’ve been doing it consistently and reporting on information we can’t find ourselves without a lot of work and dedication,” Thompson said. “… The stories they have uncovered are the hard stories we don’t want to hear, but we need to, and so does everybody else. The stories that give us pause to think about how can we fix this situation.”

He said news covered by Iowa Capital Dispatch of deaths that have occurred in long-term care facilities, minimal fines for abuse and neglect and heartbroken families “has all made us more informed, more concerned and more committed to making a difference.”

Iowa Capital Dispatch Editor-in-chief Kathie Obradovich accepted the award and credited Deputy Editor Clark Kauffman for his reporting on long-term care facilities: “It takes a lot of time. He has to dig through a lot of records. He gets pushback sometimes from state officials and agencies, and he just persists.”

The Iowa Developmental Disabilities Council is a federally funded group that advocates for  Iowans with disabilities. It is made up of volunteers appointed by the governor and includes people with disabilities, family members, state government leaders and other groups that advocate for people with disabilities, according to the council’s website.

Iowa Capital Dispatch, which launched in January 2020, is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest not-for-profit news organization dedicated to coverage of state government.