Seattle Times reporting helps families find peace, closure

The inaugural Jim and Birte Falconer Shine the Light Award recognizes the work of journalists at The Seattle Times, Sydney Brownstone and Taylor Blatchford. This new award recognizes how the doors that can be opened using Washington’s access laws can have a lasting, genuine benefit for the people who are affected by this information.

The team reported heartfelt and haunting stories about the lost patients of the former Northern State Hospital outside of Sedro-Woolley. The 2023 award recognizes work that makes an outstanding, sustained contribution to public understanding and support of the Public Records Act.

Blatchford’s reporting began with a visit to the former Northern State Hospital, and a view of the tiny patient cemetery with few markers with only initials and numbers. Hundreds of additional graves were unmarked. She connected with people who were pursuing answers about their loved ones among the unmarked graves, and soon learned that the state had sealed off many of its institutional records, even to families. At her urging, the Attorney General’s Office and state archives opened documents older than 50 years after a patient’s death. The records revealed details of sterilizations performed at the hospital, descriptions of brutal patient treatments and patient death records, casting new light on the history of Northern State Hospital and providing answers to families who have sought information.

After The Seattle Times published stories and posted a database of some of the records, 70 family members of patients wrote to the reporters in gratitude. Some of those families have used the records to locate relatives’ graves, and many have teamed with a disability rights group to demand longer retention policies for institutional records. Legislators pledged funding to identify the unmarked graves.

The award is named in recognition of longtime Seattle residents Jim and Birte Falconer, whose generous support of WashCOG has had a transformative effect on the Coalition.

• The lost patients of Washington’s abandoned psychiatric hospital

• Northern State Hospital death records have never been publicly available - until now

• Reporter’s notebook: Unearthing Northern State Hospital’s past

• Northern State Hospital records solve mystery of family members’ graves

• Relatives find answers in Northern State Hospital death records as lawmakers pledge support

• Documentary: Northern State Hospital and the quest for answers

• The mystery of Northern State Hospital in photos