Janaé Bradford interviews Bloomberg reporters Caleb Melby and Polly Mosendz, two members of the bronze award-winning team for their investigation ‘Questionable Practices.’ Their investigation brings the first important revelations about the largest medical mental health startup, Cerebral, and its effort to bring telemedicine techniques to mental healthcare.
Bloomberg reporters found a lack of delicate consideration assessment from the million-dollar business when prescribing medication to their patients. Listen to what the reporters had to say about what it took to make this investigation happen.
Transcript
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Janaé Bradford: Hello, everyone. My name is Janaé Bradford and I am a graduate assistant at the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University.
Here, we produce written and multimedia business stories ranging from real estate to sports, with hopes to provide other business journalists with resources for their work. This year, we are honored to host the 16th annual Barlett and Steele awards for the best in investigative business journalism. I was given the opportunity to interview the bronze winner in the national category,
Bloomberg journalist Caleb Melby, Polly Mosendz, Jackie Davalos and Julian Tan received this award for the publication of “ADHD drugs are convenient to get online, maybe too convenient.”
This story highlights what they call “The Questionable Practices of telehealth company Cerebral Incorporated.” Many have spoken out about the quick prescription of ADHD medication to desperate clients. I was able to speak with Caleb and Polly about their reporting process and the impact of covering a sensitive topic for many people. Caleb Melby has been on Bloomberg’s investigation team since 2017 and focuses his work around real estate billionaires. After working for numerous publications prior, Polly Mosendz came to Bloomberg seven years ago as a part of the digital team, and is currently one of the editors for investigative stories. The questionable practices story idea was generated in a way the majority of society spends their time: on social media.
Polly Mosendz: I was watching a lot of TikTok in the pandemic. I think all of us were locked in our house, probably watching a lot of TikTok, whether we admit it or not. And I had noticed really intense influx in advertisements for companies that treated the symptoms of ADHD and Cerebral was one of those companies. And something that had really stuck with me about the marketing was that a lot of it was geared and written in a way that especially spoke to women in their 30s who had previously been really under and undiagnosed ADHD population in the United States.
Bradford: Being the journalist she is, Mosendz began to save the ads and created an account specifically to get the algorithm to include more of them in her activity. This allowed Mosendz and Melby to have a better understanding of how Cerebral used social media to present an easily accessible service during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Caleb Melby: They were different than I expected ads to look for a mental health service, and we just started calling former medical professionals for the company, basically right away. And it was, it was thisthing where it was either our first or a second interview, where one of the nurses we spoke with said “I was wondering when I was going to get this call.” Which, of course, as a journalist, is a thing that lets you know you’re on the right track.
Bradford: Former medical practitioners with the company were more than willing to provide more sources to the reporters. With this being an industry that keeps receipts, Mosendz and Melby were able to track how long patients were seeing doctors before being prescribed. They opened the article with the story of Janessa Barnes, a 30-year-old woman who became a Cerebral client after finding an Instagram ad. Looking to help cope with anxiety, Barnes instead began hearing voices in her head after being prescribed five different medicines between four visits. One journalistic challenge was making professionals and clients,like Barnes comfortable speaking up.
Mosendz: With patients. I think the main thing that I tried to focus on was the fact that this is a shared experience across millions of people, and that they are not alone, and their struggle and the way that they describe it is going to speak to a lot of people. Because I think a lot of people who deal with health issues of any kind, especially mental health issues, often feel like they’re alone on an island and that they’re going to be really stigmatized and that no one’s going to understand. So I often try to explain to them that, like we’re not on an island, there’s all these other people with you. There must be because someone’s using this app and someone’s watching these ads, you can’t be alone. And that if you describe to us your experience, then you’re going to be speaking to all those other people that might sort of feel isolated as well.
Melby: And we did end up getting four employees in different roles with the organization on the record, which was a fraction of the people who spoke to us, but we were very happy for them to discuss their experiences on the record.
Bradford: As journalists, it’s necessary to understand the roadblocks that could come with the reporting, especially on sensitive topics like mental health. Mosendz and Melby were unable to have a private conversation with Cerebral executives, but they were able to reference public statements in the story. Between the ads and anecdotes from clients, information came directly to reporters, but they always faced a challenge when making the story come true.
Mosendz: I think the other thing that that was a challenge for us at times is that a lot of this was happening in real time, and a lot of investigative work looks back at something that happened, you know, over many years. And that’s not the case here. The company was very fresh. It was it was very new. A lot of these patients were experiencing these issues in real time, and a lot of the employees were reporting things to us that happened in real time as well. So we didn’t really have the benefit of hindsight does sometimes. You didn’t have the benefit of five years of medical history or five years of professional experience.
Bradford: Jackie Davalos and Julian Tan contributed to the story by expanding on the executive issues in the company, and were always ready to assist with additional reporting. Their voices were magnified in two other Bloomberg stories. One of them covered the complexities of former CEO Kyle Robertson’s departure from the company. The other story highlighted Cerebral’s response to the DEA getting involved, resulting in the halt of writing ADHD medication.
Melby: Jackie Davalos really helped us cover Cerebral’s competitors in a big way, and in our subsequent story was the one who identified the patient with substance abuse issues that done a Cerebral competitor brought on and gave Adderall to before he died of an overdose.
Bradford: The Bloomberg reporters gave a lot of credit to their editors for being an extra set of eyes. And to this day, the story is still developing. Two months after the story ran, Robertson was replaced with David Moe, someone with more medical experience. A story with this many moving pieces requires a team of people looking out for different angles at all times. Their editing team, including Robert Blau, was able to help complete the story with ongoing details.
Mosendz: So Bob, along with a couple of our other editors, Flynn McRoberts and John Bosco, were helpful for us, kind of all throughout the process. Obviously, line edits of the story were substantial, and we also had another editor, Dan Ferrara on one of our features, who we have to shout out, was fantastic. But I think a lot of what they were able to contribute, including what Bob was able to contribute, was about helping to shape the story, and to be sure that we were always thinking about the story, not as like a really narrow “we’re doing a story about this one app” kind of thing, but like this broader commentary on telehealth and American healthcare.
Melby: Yeah, I think that’s right. And doing a story like this, especially on the timeline that we did it on, as a reporter, you always have blind spots. And when you work in a team like the two of us, do, you hopefully have fewer than if you’re working on your own, but even still, asking hard questions, forcing us to go to ground deeper than we had gone already to get answers to things that we didn’t think to get the answers to the first time around, and making sure we didn’t save that spade work for the last minute is, I think, really how you get a definitive and clear story where you can really read it and feel like you understand what’s going on.
Bradford: As experienced journalists, Mosendz and Melby were aware of the repercussions that could come with investigative reporting. It takes thick skin to be able to expose something and be able to defend the reasoning behind covering the topic. But that wasn’t a problem for the Bloomberg reporters.
Mosendz: I was never concerned sort of about the fairness or the structure of our reporting, because I felt like we had really been very diligent about it. So it’s never nice that someone’s upset with you, but I think as long as your work can stand, it’s also okay that they’re upset with you.
Bradford: You can ask any journalist why they chose this career field, and it’s not about the money or the fame, but it’s about helping share information and stories so society can use your facts to create change. Through their work, Mosendz and Melby were able to share experiences unique to some, but relatable for many.
Melby: And for me, when the story published the audience more broadly, it became apparent that a lot of people had had a situation like Polly had where they had seen these ads that got Polly started on this in the very beginning, were like, “What is going onhere?” And this was a story that could, for the first time, answer those questions. For me, it was very gratifying to see that. Like we had been able to help solve a riddle that had been on a lot of people’s minds.
Mosendz: Yeah, I think when I think about sort of my stories and impact, I often think about what President Obama said at the end of his term, which is like his entire career is actually just about moving things one degree forward. Even if it takes a monumental amount of work. And I am certainly not the President or doing anything that important, but I always sort of view my work is like, if I move things one degree forward, I shouldn’t view that as I didn’t do enough. I should view it as like, it’s really important that we get something one degree forward. Not penalize myself for not making something go 80 degrees forward.
Bradford: After years of reporting on different topics, Mosendz and Melby have learned so much about the realities of the journalism industry. They know more than most how challenging it could be to condense months of information into stories one might read. If either of them could provide the next generation of journalists with any advice, here’s what they would say.
Mosendz: I had someone who I really admire on our team once told me that 90% of people are not going to talk to you, and you cannot be offended by that, and that’s okay. And just kind of keep on moving. That’s just the nature of the work. It’s not an indictment of your work. It doesn’t mean your idea is bad. It’s just the nature of the beast.
Bradford: In a time where information is at our fingertips all the time, that means that the future of business journalism will only improve. It provides a rewarding feeling for journalists like Mosendz and Melby to wake up every day knowing that their contributions are being recognized.
Melby: Yeah, we hope to do more work like this, work that feels urgent and meaningful for a lot of people. I think a lot of people think business journalism can’t always do that, and it can’t always do that, but it can often do that.
Bradford: That was Bloomberg reporters, Polly Mosendz and Caleb Melby. Two of the Bronze winners in the National Category of the Barlett and Steele Awards. To everyone listening, thank you so much for tuning in. For more information about the awards, go to our website, businessjournalism.org. From downtown Phoenix. I’m Janaé Bradford with the Reynolds Center.
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