Browse Reports

First New York World Telegram and Sun article written as part of Michael Mok's series, "I Was A Mental Patient At Kings County."

"I Was a Mental Patient" - Michael Mok - New York World-Telegram & Sun

One of a number of high-impact undercover investigations undertaken by the New York World Telegram & Sun in the 1960s, including Woody Klein's worst tenement series, Dale Wright's migrant workers series, and George N. Allen's Undercover Teacher. Mok's series won the prestigious Albert Lasker Medical Journalism Award and the Heywood Broun Memorial Award.

Staff writer Betty Wells was a voluntarily committed patient for eight days at Larned State Hospital. No one at the hospital knew she was there to find out what life in a mental institution is like. This is the fifth of the six articles

"Trip Into Darkness" - Betty Wells - Wichita Eagle and Wichita Beacon

Wells had herself admitted to Larned State Hospital in Larned, Kansas, for an investigation of the Kansas mental health system. She stayed eight days and produced this February 1974 series for the Wichita Eagle and the Wichita Beacon.(Special thanks to Prof. Dan Close at Wichita State University for helping to unearth and then retrieve these pieces from the Eagle microfilm.)