Michigan Public has been recognized with four national journalism awards from the Public Media Journalist’s Association (PMJA).
Michigan Public won First Place in the Audience Engagement category for On Hand, a podcast series answering questions about what makes Michigan so special. Why do we call ourselves Michiganders? Or why we say “pop” instead of “soda”? Or, seriously, how many people need to be rescued from Sleeping Bear Dunes every year? On Hand is written and produced by the Stateside staff.
The station also took First Place in the Health/Medical feature for Record number of MI kids reported hospitalized from cannabis in 2024. The piece was written and produced by Kate Wells. Michigan’s marijuana industry is required to use child-resistant packaging and prohibit the sale of edibles that look like candy. Yet Michigan’s poison control center got 387 reports of kids under age 6 ingesting or being exposed to cannabis in 2024, a record high for the state.
Michigan Public took another First Place award in the Human Interest Feature for Fitted for a prosthetic leg in Flint, a boy from Gaza can chase his dreams again, by Beenish Ahmed. The feature tells the story of 12-year-old Waheed Al Ghalban who lost an eye, an arm, and a leg to an Israeli bombing in Gaza. He has been able to play soccer again after being evacuated from Gaza to receive a prosthetic leg in Flint through the nonprofit organization HEAL Palestine. A fourth First Place award was received by Michigan Public in the News/Public Affairs Program for Stateside, a daily one-hour program that covers any topic of conversation that better connects listeners to their state, introduces them to new voices and neighbors, and hopes to make them better informed about current events in Michigan. It airs weekdays at 3 and 8 p.m. and on demand on most podcast platforms. Stateside is hosted by April Baer. Executive Producer is Laura Weber Davis.
The Public Media Journalists Association is a non-profit professional association that exists to improve local news and information programming by serving public media journalists across the United States. The awards recognize the best work in public media journalism from across the country, with stations competing against others with similar-sized newsrooms. All 2026 entries aired between January 1 and December 31, 2025. Michigan Public competes in Group D of the Public Radio Station divisions, which is for stations with 16-29 full-time news staff.
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Michigan Public is the state’s most listened-to public radio service. Michigan Public broadcasts at 91.7 FM in Ann Arbor/Detroit, 104.1 FM in Grand Rapids, 91.1 FM in Flint, 89.7 FM in Lansing and 91.3 FM Port Huron, and is available online at michiganpublic.org. Licensed to the University of Michigan, Michigan Public is based in Ann Arbor.
