FRONTLINE Wins 2022 Writers Guild Award for ‘The Healthcare Divide’

The Healthcare Divide, FRONTLINE and NPR’s May 2021 documentary, won the 2022 Writers Guild Award in the Documentary Script – Current Events category on March 20.

Written by Rick Young, The Healthcare Divide investigated growing inequities in American healthcare exposed by COVID-19, examining how pressure to increase profits and uneven government support widened the divide between rich and poor hospitals, endangering care for low-income populations.

“I’m thrilled with this recognition of our work by the Guild and hoping, even in a small way, it helps bring much needed attention to the systemic racism and ongoing inequities embedded in our health care system,” says Young. “Special props to the incredible team of collaborators that made the film, especially Emma Schwartz, Fritz Kramer, Adam Lingo and Laura Sullivan, and for the support and help over the years from the FRONTLINE family, especially Frank Koughan, Andrew Metz and Raney Aronson-Rath, who keep this kind of work alive.”

Young, the director and writer of The Healthcare Divide, was last recognized with a Writers Guild Award in 2020 for Trump’s Trade War, a FRONTLINE and NPR joint investigation exploring the forces that drove the Trump administration’s gamble to confront China and the billions of dollars at stake.

“At a time where the American healthcare system is more strained than ever, I’m so pleased to see the Writers Guild recognize our reporting,” said FRONTLINE’s executive producer, Raney Aronson-Rath. “Congratulations to the documentary’s director and writer, Rick Young; correspondent Laura Sullivan; and our partners at NPR and American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop who helped us tell this critical story.”

FRONTLINE was also nominated for a 2022 Writers Guild Award in the Documentary Script – Current Events category for its June 2021 documentary The Jihadist, written by Martin Smith & Marcela Gaviria. 

You can watch the 2022 Writers Guild Award-winning and -nominated FRONTLINE documentaries below:

The Healthcare Divide

(Credits)

The Jihadist

(Credits)