TPR wins Gracie, Anson Jones awards for ‘Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: Evading the Texas Abortion Ban’

Texas Public Radio’s David Martin Davies and Kayla Padilla have been honored by the Texas Medical Associationwith an Anson Jones Awardfor their audio-documentary “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: Evading the Texas Abortion Ban.”

“Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” shares the stories of Texans forced to travel to other states for reproductive medical care and the people who help them.

From riding the Sunset Limited Amtrak train from San Antonio to El Paso to a network of anonymous pilots who fly women to abortion legal states, many people are finding low cost and creative ways to access out of state abortion care.

But anti-abortion activists seek to shut down local roads and airports with county ordinances that declare it illegal to “aid and abet aid abortion traffickers.”

The TMA emphasized the audio documentary’s “significant contribution to healthcare discussions in Texas and nationwide.”

The Alliance for Women in Media recognized “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” with a Gracie Award.

The Gracie Awards recognize exemplary programming created by women, for women and about women in all facets of media and entertainment.

Davies and Padilla will receive the award at a ceremony in New York City in June.

The Texas Newsroom, a collaboration between TPR, NPR, KERA in North Texas, KUT in Austin, and Houston Public Media, also received a Gracie Award for its original podcast “Sugar Land.”

In 2018, construction crews building a new school in Sugar Land, Texas, discovered a long-forgotten cemetery containing 95 graves. Through investigative reporting, “Sugar Land” sets out to unearth and share the story of those 95 people — and also, the people trying to control them for over a century.

“Sugar Land” was co-hosted by Brittney Martin and Naomi Reed and was edited by Rachel Osier Lindley of KERA.