Due to their compassionate media coverage of homelessness, photojournalist JM Simpson and publisher Danny Stusser bagged the Institute for Nonprofit News’ (INN) award for The JOLT News Organization for photographs and text essays on Olympia’s homeless situation during the Nonprofit News Awards ceremony in Atlanta on September 18.

INN gave Simpson and Stusser the Insight Award for Visual Journalism.

The ceremony, held at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia, was open to all INN member news organizations and recognized “what differentiates nonprofit news— values like collaboration, innovation, and impact,” according to INN’s website.

According to INN, this year’s awards had 626 entries, the most in the organization’s history.

The winners were chosen by 75 judges, including nationally recognized journalists from across the INN Network and many other news organizations.

"This is our first journalism award," Stusser said, “and I'm especially gratified that it's a national award."

The JOLT  name is an acronym meaning The Journal of Olympia, Lacey, & Tumwater, reflecting the publication's focus on news and events in and around the cities of Olympia, Lacey, and Tumwater, including compassionate media coverage of homelessness.

A volunteer board of directors leads the organization. Its additional staff includes two local editors and eight columnists and six reporters and one editor who live in the Philippines. The JOLT also publishes work from various local contributors, such as Simpson. "We're looking for more local columnists and news analysts, too," Stusser said.

Insights Into Simpson's Compassionate Coverage of Homelessness

In an email by Simpson, he said his process for compassionate media coverage of homelessness involved “not having a process” and letting the experience of just walking around and talking with the homeless take him where it will.

“I don’t go out to photograph looking for a specific homeless person or situation,” Simpson explained. “Rather, I let the homeless person or situation come to me.”

Asked why he focused on compassionate media coverage of homelessness, Simpson commented that housing should be a basic right, adding, “My choice rests on the simple premise that no one should go without a home of one sort or another.”

Read the full article about homelessness photojournalism by Edwin Oscar Gutierrez Jr. at The JOLT.