The Salt Lake Tribune has been selected to represent Utah in ProPublica’s 50 State Initiative, joining the independent, nonprofit newsroom’s Local Reporting Network for a second time.
Beginning in November 2022, Tribune reporter Jessica Schreifels reported for the Local Reporting Network for one year, covering challenges faced by Utah patients who report sexual assaults. In her second year with the network, she will investigate access to mental health care in Utah.
“As a ProPublica Local Reporting Network fellow, Jessica reported on victims of sexual assault in a medical setting and helped change Utah law,” said Lauren Gustus, CEO and executive editor of The Salt Lake Tribune. “I’m grateful to her and to ProPublica for choosing to dive in for another year, and on a critical topic for Utahns.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Salt Lake Tribune reporter Jessica Schreifels is joining ProPublica's Local Reporting Network for the second time.
This is the second group selected as part of ProPublica’s 50 State Initiative, which represents its commitment to publishing accountability journalism in every state over five years.
The reporters in the new cohort are Schreifels of The Tribune; Becca Savransky of the Idaho Statesman; K. Rambo of Street Roots, a nonprofit in Portland, Ore., that publishes a newspaper sold by people experiencing homelessness and poverty; Margaret Coker of The Current, based in Coastal Georgia; and Adam Friedman of the Tennessee Lookout.
Along with Schreifels, Savransky and Coker are all previous participants in the Local Reporting Network, a partnership with newsrooms that has produced award-winning investigative journalism since its launch in 2018. This group’s members will begin their investigative projects on Oct. 1.
[Tell The Tribune: Have you struggled to get mental health help for a child?]
Since ProPublica launched the Local Reporting Network, it has worked with some 80 news organizations to boost investigative journalism in local newsrooms. The network is part of ProPublica’s local initiative, which includes offices in the Midwest, Northwest, South and Southwest, plus an investigative unit in partnership with The Texas Tribune.
Schreifels’ previous reporting project for the network, Breach of Trust, contributed to the passage of a bill in March 2023 that reformed Utah medical malpractice law to exclude sexual assault. Her investigation detailed how survivors who alleged they had been sexually abused by OB-GYN David Broadbent were treated more harshly in Utah’s civil courts than those who alleged that assault took place in other settings.
Broadbent has since been charged with forcible sexual abuse, as prosecutors allege he sexually touched a patient during a 2020 exam.
She also brought to light allegations of sexual abuse by Utah therapist Scott Owen. This reporting led to a police investigation, and Owen was arrested and charged with multiple felonies related to the assertions of three former patients who say he touched them inappropriately during therapy. His business cut ties with him before closing altogether; the charges are still pending.
State lawmakers also continue to consider banning polygraph tests in certain circumstances for sexual assault victims — a practice Schreifels highlighted in detailing the negative experience one of Owen’s former patients had when attempting to report him to licensers.
Schreifels, a member of The Tribune team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for reporting on campus sexual assault, also is a two-time Livingston Award finalist for investigating mistreatment in Utah’s booming “troubled teen” industry and for a data-driven series on Utahns shot by police while experiencing a mental health crisis. She was a co-host and reporter for “Sent Away,” an award-winning investigative podcast from the Tribune, KUER and APM Reports that exposed Utah’s failure to keep vulnerable young people safe in teen treatment programs.
