Tone Madison and Madison Minutes win a LION Local Journalism Award for Dobbs series

“Post-Roe Family Planning in Madison” received the Collaboration of the Year Award in the Micro/Small Revenue Tier.

Tone Madison and Madison Minutes won the Collaboration of the Year Award in the Micro/Small Revenue Tier at Local Independent Online News Publishers’ (LION) 2023 LION Local Journalism Awards, presented Tuesday, October 3 in Durham, North Carolina. The award recognizes “Post-Roe family planning in Madison,” a collaborative, six-part reported series that examined how the Dobbs ruling impacted Madisonians’ decisions about some of the most personal, important decisions they’ll ever make. Tone Madison‘s News and Politics Editor, Christina Lieffring, attended the awards program to accept the award on behalf of both outlets and the group of journalists who made this series happen.

Collaboration of the Year!https://t.co/4YK9gbsKBZ pic.twitter.com/mb1ZR2CXoh

— Christina Lieffring (@StinaDale) October 3, 2023

In the wake of the Dobbs ruling, Madison Minutes and Tone Madison asked readers in the Madison area to participate in a survey on how it affected their family planning. We received over 200 responses from people with a variety of concerns about what lack of access to abortion could mean for their health, their partners’ health, and their family, and questions about how to move forward. From there, Christina Lieffring developed the series in collaboration with Madison Minutes‘ Hayley Sperling and Sam Hoisington; freelance reporters Dayna Long and Holly Marley-Henschen; and illustrator Kay Reynolds. Tone Madison‘s now-former Managing Editor, Oona Mackesey-Green, played an integral role in developing the series as well. Supplemental funding from our partners at Indiegraf Media proved crucial in helping Tone Madison proceed as a very small outlet grappling with a monumental story.

In an announcement for the award, the judges noted: “This collaboration embodies the spirit of people-driven, data-informed, and local-issue solutions journalism, and highlights the reproductive healthcare concerns and needs of a diverse set of people, all of whom are impacted in different ways by the SCOTUS decision.”

As befits an award for collaboration, this one is truly shared. We’re grateful for the recognition. We thank everyone who worked to make this series happen, and everyone who shared their stories with us at a monumentally difficult time in our history. We also thank those who support our work with their donations, which really and truly make that work possible.