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Michigan Radio a 2023 Pulitzer Prize Finalist

The Pulitzer Prize is generally regarded as being the most prestigious award in the fields of American journalism, books, drama and music. The Pulitzer Prize Board today announced that the Michigan Radio news story, Nine Days in a Michigan Abortion Clinic, as Election Looms was a Finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in the Audio Reporting category.

Last October we aired a story two weeks before the election in which voters were asked to decide whether to guarantee access to abortion in the Michigan state constitution. For this story, Michigan Radio reporter Kate Wells spent several days in a Michigan abortion clinic, speaking with women about what led them there. That story was recently nominated for a Pulitzer and Peabody award.

The Pulitzer Prize names two finalists and a winner in the Audio Reporting category. The winner selected in this category was Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s, a podcast from Gimlet Media that deals with the abuse of hundreds of Indigenous children at an Indian residential school in Canada. Joining Michigan Radio as the other finalist in this category was Broken Doors from the Washington Post, an examination of the human toll of no-knock warrants across the country.

In Nine Days in a Michigan Abortion Clinic, as Election Looms, Michigan Radio reporter Kate Wells covered the complex, confusing, and at times contradictory legal landscape abortion providers and patients had suddenly been thrust into. Her months of prior coverage of this issue created a trust that allowed her to gain unprecedented access to a group of clinics in metro Detroit: Northland Family Planning. This reporting powerfully showed the full range of human experience in this clinic, the emotional complexity, and the impact of the current threats to reproductive rights on real women.

In addition to reporter Kate Wells, other Michigan Radio staff named as contributors to this story were Sarah Hulett, Lindsey Smith, Laura Weber-Davis and Paulette Parker.

Nine Days in a Michigan Abortion Clinic, as Election Looms has also been nominated for a 2023 Peabody Award in the Radio & Podcast category.

Last fall, Michigan Radio and stations across the NPR Network shared stories from their communities about abortion access and reproductive rights. Our aim was to give you better insight into the lived reality and implications of these issues for people across the nation. You help Michigan Radio continue to tell the region’s story — and contribute to the national conversation — when you make a donation to our station.