Eagle series on Sedgwick County EMS issues is a finalist for prestigious national prize
Wichita Eagle journalists Chance Swaim and Michael Stavola have been named as finalists for the prestigious Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, for a series of stories exploring problems in the Sedgwick County Emergency Medical Services Department.
The Goldsmith Prize is presented annually by Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy to honor and encourage journalism that promotes ethical and effective operation of government and political institutions.
Swaim and Stavola’s reporting documented multiple problems in the EMS system, including:
▪ slow and misreported response times to medical emergencies.
▪ a secret plan to reduce costs by replacing paramedics with less-capable but cheaper emergency medical technicians.
▪ an exodus of paramedics who felt they were being mistreated on the job.
▪ a decision by the department’s director not to transport a patient who had shot himself in the head to the hospital, although the man did not die until more than 10 hours after the shooting.
“I’m incredibly proud of the public service that Chance and Michael performed with these stories,” said Eagle Executive Editor Michael Roehrman. “I’m thankful the Goldsmith Awards recognize the importance of strong local journalism and the vital role it plays in our communities.”
Swaim and Stavola are among six finalists for the prize, selected from more than 170 entries. The winner will be announced at a ceremony in Cambridge, Mass., on April 5.
The other finalists include: a Washington Post investigation of gaps in Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster response; a juvenile justice investigation by Nashville Public Radio station WPLN and ProPublica; an air pollution mapping project by ProPublica, in collaboration with The Texas Tribune and Mountain State Spotlight; and an expose on lead poisoning by The Tampa Bay Times with support from PBS Frontline.
“Even as many newsrooms face unprecedented challenges, this year’s Goldsmith Prize finalists represent the very best in Public Interest Journalism,” said Nancy Gibbs, director of the Shorenstein Center, in announcing the finalists.
The winning entry will receive $25,000; finalist entries are awarded $10,000.
Swaim interned at the Eagle while a journalism student at Wichita State University in 2016 and became a full-time staff member in June of 2018 after graduating.
In 2020, he was lead reporter on a three-member team that won the George Polk Award from Long Island University. The series of stories exposed how then-Mayor Jeff Longwell steered a half-billion dollar water project to friends and supporters, and how other Longwell supporters tried to save his re-election bid by forming a New Mexico shell company to run a false smear campaign against his opponent, current Mayor Brandon Whipple.
Stavola is a journalism graduate of the University of North Florida and has a master’s in business from WSU. After stints with the Pittsburg Morning Sun and Hutchinson News, he joined the Eagle staff in September 2019.
In 2018, he was named feature writer of the year by Gatehouse Media, the nationwide newspaper chain that owned the Hutchinson News.
This story was originally published March 9, 2022 at 12:49 PM.
