Jocelyn Wiener

Jocelyn Wiener is a projects reporter with a focus on mental health and health care who explores the intersection between government policies and people’s lives. Her work has won numerous regional and national awards.

Her reporting about the breakdown of the state’s mental health system for CalMatters was honored with a National Headliner Award. She has written investigations in recent years about the experiences of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system, documenting the case of a man who died by suicide after he was moved 39 times within the state prison system, and another of a man with developmental disabilities and mental illness who was jailed almost nine years without ever having a trial.

She has also written extensively about the mental health crisis facing California children, and of failures of state oversight of nursing homes before and during the pandemic. 

She works hard to earn and keep the trust of her sources, and puts a premium on journalistic ethics. She has worked as a reporter in her native California for more than two decades. After graduating from Stanford University, she received a Fulbright Scholarship to do research in El Salvador. She spent the next year and a half working with children and teenagers on the Salvadoran streets, which inspired her decision to pursue a career in journalism. 

She earned a master’s degree at Columbia University’s School of Journalism and spent several years as a staff writer covering poverty for The Sacramento Bee. 

Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, Kaiser Health News and other regional and national publications. 

Other languages spoken: Spanish (conversational)