Rachel Litchman receives disability-journalism honor for Tone Madison comic on housing policy

The National Center on Disability and Journalism gives a nod to “Madison’s (un)affordable and (in)accessible housing problem.”

Madison-based comics artist and writer Rachel Litchman’s comics-journalism project “Madison’s (un)affordable and (in)accessible housing problem,” published in January 2024 on Tone Madison, took home honors from the National Center on Disability and Journalism’s (NCDJ) Excellence in Disability Reporting awards. NCDJ, based at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, announced this year’s awardees on Monday.

Litchman’s story draws on both personal experience and analytical reporting to break down the flaws in local housing programs. It highlights the inadequacies of the official definition of “affordable” rent and explains why Madison housing policies fail to serve people with disabilities. It received an honorable mention in the Small Media Category of NCDJ’s Katherine Schneider Journalism Award. 

This year’s awards also recognize another Wisconsin-based journalist, Natalie Eilbert, who won second place in the Schneider Award’s Small Media Category for a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation into denials of disability insurance claims. Other winners range from ProPublica and The Marshall Project to the New York Amsterdam News.

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