Rachel Dissell

 

Investigative Reporter for
The Plain Dealer

 

by Danae Cottingham, crew 4

 

 

Did you ever wonder how news reporters get their ideas and how they find out about the situations that go on? Rachel Dissell, a Plain Dealer reporter, gets her ideas based on serious issues that go on in the community. Dissell says, “I think it is important as a reporter to be the voice of the voiceless.” If the victim in the situation is afraid to speak up for themselves, she writes about what happened to them and puts it in her own words to try to show and explain how the person is feeling.

 

Dissell often writes about crime issues in the community. She has written award-winning stories about sexual assault on teen dating abuse. Sometimes she can write several articles in one day and post them online in an hour, but sometimes it takes her weeks to write a story. “It depends on how complicated the story is and how long it takes for sources to call me,” she explained. Dissell worked on a very important reporting project with another reporter, Leila Atassi, that was about women who reported sex crimes that were committed against them. DNA evidence in the crimes was collected at hospitals and given to the law enforcement. “We found out by doing what reporters do, asking questions, that the evidence wasn't being tested,” Dissell explained.

 

Dissell had uncovered a larger problem. For 20 years much of the collected evidence hadn’t been tested. She kept calling the police, urging them to do something about it. It took law enforcement almost two years to count the evidence that was untested. Eventually, the evidence was tested, and the police now have leads in 1,000 of the 4,000 cases in which evidence wasn’t being tested. The attorney general, who is in charge of law enforcement for the state, said law enforcement should to the same across Ohio, not just in Cleveland. Dissell also discovered that most cases in which DNA went untested were those reported by African-American women who lived on the East side of Cleveland. “It’s not only a crime issue; it’s also a civil rights issue,” Dissell explained.

 

In 2007, Dissell wrote another major story about a woman name Johanna Orozco, who was having relationship problems when she was a teenager. Orozco told Dissell that her boyfriend started out really really nice then began to hit her. Johanna didn't tell anyone, and when she broke up with him, he came back and shot her in the face. The whole bottom of her face face was shot off with a shotgun. Dissell wrote a series of stories about Orozco’s recovery, and she wrote the story in a certain way so young kids would be able to read it and learn from it. Now in middle-school and high-school students are talking about teen dating abuse in their health class so they can be aware of knowing the warning signs if they see it with their friends or themselves. When Orozco got better, she testified in front of the Ohio General Assembly. The state legislature passed a law that juveniles with an abusive boyfriend or girlfriend can get court order to protect them. Dissell says, “Thats is the good outcome we want to see come from a story like that even if it is really hard.”

 

Making a difference through her writing is what keeps Dissell writing, but this wasn’t always the case. Dissell was inspired to become a reporter when a teacher suggested she work for the high-school newspaper. She wasn’t sure it was for her, but they said, “It’s cool because you get to ask people questions,” and Dissell said she wanted people to have to answer when she asked them questions. That’s when she learned about all of the components of a story and the important role of reporters and journalists.

 

The advice Dissell said she would have given her younger self before she became a reporter is to read a lot more. She says, “The more I read, I can get better at writing my stories. It is very important to have a strong vocabulary.” Dissell is grateful that she had gone to college, especially as the oldest out of seven kids. Her teacher had filled out her application for college and paid the fee because she wouldn't have been able to do it herself. Once she was in college, she was able to help her younger siblings by showing them that they could go to college and do the things she did, too.

 

Dissell is currently on maternity leave. Her daughter was born in May. Still, she is working on a story about a man who was sentenced to live in a neighborhood he had harmed by buying foreclosed houses cheap and flipping them illegally.