June 18, 2021

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Deep preparation and experience put AP ahead on Mladic verdict

teamed up to provide exceptional coverage in all formats of the final verdict for Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, in which U.N. judges rejected his appeals on charges of orchestrating genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, affirming his life sentence.Chief correspondent Corder worked closely with AP colleagues in the Balkans in the days leading up to the verdict to prepare for all the possible outcomes, preparing alerts and urgents for each, as well as for the possibility that victims’ groups could leak the verdict early. Knowing that the victims’ representatives are not always accurate, Corder held off on the alert until AP had the full verdict from the judges, and other major world media followed his lead.Photographer Dejong, who had covered Mladic’s appearances at the court over several years, patiently waited for the one moment during the long verdict when the ex-commander made a hand gesture — holding up his fingers as if clicking a shutter to mimic the photographers fixed on him. The image circled the world.AP had four different live shots up for a good part of the day on AP Direct and Live Choice, compared with a single courtroom feed that a major competitor accessed at the last minute. AP put out a video edit of the verdict 44 minutes ahead of the competition, and was much faster with reaction from the victims and their families in Sarajevo and Srebrenica, and from Serb veterans, comrades of Mladic and people in Belgrade.https://aplink.news/h1rhttps://aplink.video/ub0https://aplink.video/rz4https://aplink.video/gmx

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July 30, 2021

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

50 years after the US declared war on drugs, AP examines racial disparities

used data and on-the-ground reporting to explore the fallout of America’s war on drugs, launched 50 years ago this summer by President Richard Nixon.Race and ethnicity reporter Morrison, joined by data journalist Kastanis and multiformat journalist Breed, set out to tell a story of the toll that harsh prison sentences and lifetime restrictions post-release have taken on Black and Latino Americans, their families and their communities.To do so, the AP reviewed federal and state data, finding that the Black incarceration rate in America surged from about 600 per 100,000 people in 1970 to 1,808 in 2000, and the rate for the Latino population grew from 208 per 100,000 people to 615, while the white incarceration rate grew at a more modest rate, from 103 per100,000 people to 242.But beyond the data, the AP trio put names and a face to those caught up in this grinding war with no clear winners but many losers. The story’s lead subject, Alton Lucas, could have had a life of touring nationally and internationally with his DJ friend, but instead discovered drugs and the drug trade at the height of the war on drugs. As a crack cocaine addict involved in trafficking, the North Carolina man faced decades in prison at a time when the drug abuse and violence plaguing Black communities were not seen as the public health issue that opioids are today. The combination of Morrison’s deep reporting, Breed’s photos and video, and Kastanis’ data analysis, accompanied by graphics, resulted in a newsy, nuanced package, rich with historical context.https://aplink.news/k6jhttps://aplink.video/017

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July 30, 2021

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP gets first look inside China’s largest detention center, breaks news on Uyghur incarceration

The sprawling Urumqi No. 3 Detention Center in Xinjiang, China, is the largest such facility in China (possibly the world), holding perhaps 10,000 or more and embodying the plight of the Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities. Western news organizations have only been able to report from the outside. But the Beijing-based team of enterprise journalist Dake Kang, photographer Mark Schiefelbein and news director Ken Moritsugu managed to get a tour, making the AP the first Western news organization to report inside the facility.

They delivered a vivid package on life inside the detention center, from numbered and tagged Uyghurs sitting ramrod straight to the instructions on force-feeding in the medical room. The journalists also revealed a disturbing new trend: China is moving from the temporary detention of Uyghurs to more permanent mass incarceration of people who have committed no real crime.

The story topped AP’s reader engagement for the week and drew comment from the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who called China’s repression of the Uyghurs “horrific.”

For bringing the world rare insight into the detention centers where China holds Uyghurs, the team of Kang, Schiefelbein and Moritsugu earns AP’s Best of the Week award.

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July 30, 2021

Best of the States

Only on AP: 20 years later, chaplain’s litany of prayers for US troops killed in Afghanistan finally comes to an end

With the end of the war in Afghanistan looming, national writer Matt Sedensky sought a compelling way to humanize America’s longest war — and he found it. Nearly all the American troops killed in the war had their remains returned to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the military runs a mortuary. There, Sedensky found chaplain David Sparks, who had been called to active duty after 9/11, assigned to the mortuary, and had been there ever since.

Sedensky pieced together Sparks’ experience: writing hundreds of prayers for the dead, standing beside their disfigured remains and ministering to their broken families. Joined by New York video journalist Jessie Wardarski and Washington photographer Carolyn Kaster, the team had access to parts of the base hidden far from public view. The resulting package, with Sedensky’s expressive prose and affecting visuals by Wardarski and Kaster, generated a strong response from veterans and non-military alike.

For intimate, revealing work that eloquently writes one of the closing chapters of America’s 20-year war, the team of Sedensky, Kaster and Wardarski earns this week’s Best of the States award.

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July 23, 2021

Best of the States

Smart prep, sharp execution put AP out front on obit of prominent civil rights leader Gloria Richardson

Among the toughest obits to write on the fly are those for people who were hugely influential but rarely heard from in their later years. AP’s Brian Witte, however, was fully prepared when he got an exclusive tip on a Friday evening that prominent civil rights figure Gloria Richardson had died at 99.

Witte, AP’s Annapolis, Maryland, correspondent, used carefully crafted, detailed prep and source work to break news of the death of the first Black woman to lead a sustained desegregation movement outside the South. Thanks in part to a striking 1963 AP photo of Richardson pushing away the bayonet of a National Guardsman, she came to symbolize fearlessness among civil rights activists.

Witte’s prep included an interview with Richardson’s biographer, building enough trust for the author to email him with first word of her death. He persuaded the biographer to share family contacts, scoring quotes that forced many outlets to cite AP. Witte’s story, linked with archival photos, hit the wire early Friday evening, beating all competition and receiving strong play.

For insightful, resourceful reporting that puts Richardson's significant legacy back in the public eye, Witte earns this week’s Best of the States award.

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July 16, 2021

Best of the Week — First Winner

Only on AP: Heartrending images capture children across the globe who lost parents to COVID

Rarely does AP’s Best of the Week award go to an editor. But this week — a particularly strong one for AP with multiple exclusives — the honor is truly deserved by Top Stories Hub photo editor Alyssa Goodman. Goodman was the driving force behind “Kids Left Behind,” an extraordinarily moving photo package that takes an intimate look at children who have lost parents to the pandemic.

Goodman coordinated with photographers around the globe to find the young subjects, get permission to photograph and interview them, then make their portraits in a cohesive style.

The result was one of the most compelling packages AP has done in recent years, the photos complemented by poignant text moving many readers to tears, with stories ranging from a 10-year old in India who lost both parents in a matter of weeks, to video of a California 13-year-old performing the song she composed for her father’s funeral, on the guitar he gave her days before he died.

For generating an inspired and challenging project, handling it with sensitivity and tenaciously seeing it through in collaboration with global colleagues, Alyssa Goodman wins AP’s Best of the Week award.

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July 09, 2021

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Intimate all-formats package: Malawian women forgo prenatal care

reported in all formats over several months to tell the important story of women in Malawi going without prenatal care during the pandemic, undoing progress in improving maternal health in one of the world’s poorest nations.The freelance trio’s commitment earned them access to birthing rooms, nursing colleges, and, most challengingly, to camera-averse traditional (and officially illegal) midwives to create a visually powerful, character-driven package. The story was anchored by powerful detail — bus fare to the hospital is more expensive than medical care — and brought to life by intimate photos, including a mother and her newborn minutes after giving birth. In a country where hospitals are so bare that women are expected to bring their own razor blades for cutting their babies’ umbilical cords, the AP showed how deepening poverty brought on by the pandemic is further imperiling women’s lives.The tender, deeply reported package was initiated by photographer Chikondi, with text reporting by Gondwe and video by Jali, the team supported in all formats by AP staffers internationally.https://aplink.news/5ryhttps://aplink.video/8sh

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July 09, 2021

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP team explores NASA climate research in Louisiana delta

explained in all formats an intensive, highly technical NASA study of Louisiana’s deltas designed to help protect and bolster the world’s deltas dwindling with climate change.McConnaughey and Herbert captured the start of the five-year study that is expected to help countries around the globe decide which of their deltas can be saved and which are beyond help. New Orleans reporter McConnaughey, who has been writing for decades about Louisiana’s land loss, learned about the project through a news release and stayed in touch with NASA and Louisiana State University researchers for more than a year. She and photojournalist Herbert eventually joined one of the researchers on his own boat to interview scientists doing research in the field.Herbert also used his own small plane and a kayak — trips frequently delayed by storms and major breaking news — to get exquisite environmental shots and video of the delta to illustrate the wetlands and wildlife scientists hope to protect. Video journalist Plaisance combined her own video with Herbert’s for a piece bringing the research to life. A separate photo gallery of Herbert’s striking nature photos in Hog Bayou, with poetic text by McConnaughey, completed the multiformat package, making a complex scientific effort understandable.https://aplink.news/nh6https://aplink.photos/e2phttps://aplink.video/2t9

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June 25, 2021

Best of the Week — First Winner

Years in the making, AP’s ‘AWOL Weapons’ investigation prompts immediate Pentagon reaction

Ten years ago, Kristin M. Hall noticed several cases in which U.S. troops stole military guns and sold them to the public. Hall, a military beat reporter at the time, then fired off the first of many Freedom of Information Act requests. The Army, however, refused to release any records and the story could easily have ended there, with Hall moving on to become a Nashville-based entertainment video journalist focused on country music. Yet, she kept at it.

Last week, Hall’s decade-long journey — and the work of a host of others on the global investigations, data and immersive storytelling teams — paid off in “AWOL Weapons,” a multilayered, visually rich project revealing that at least 1,900 military weapons — from handguns to rocket launchers — had been either lost or stolen during the 2010s, with some used in street violence in America.

Two days after publication, the Pentagon’s top general and the Army each said they would seek systematic fixes for the missing weapon problem, and through a spokesman, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called AP’s investigation “another example of the free press shining a light on the important subjects we need to get right.”

With deep reporting and a riveting digital presentation, the multistory package saw outstanding customer use and reader engagement.

For remarkable persistence that revealed a problem the military wanted to keep quiet, generating immediate prospects for reform, Hall receives special distinction alongside colleagues Justin Pritchard, James LaPorta, Justin Myers and Jeannie Ohm as winners of AP’s Best of the Week award.

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June 25, 2021

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP team finds evidence of illegal migrant pushbacks by Greece

landed an all-formats interview with a Palestinian woman that hinted at a controversial tactic the Greek government has denied using: migrant pushbacks, the illegal summary deportations of migrants without giving them a chance to apply for asylum.With help from Svarnias, a reporter on the island of Samos, Athens video journalist Lefteris Pitarakis and photographer Petros Giannakouris, Becatoros unraveled the story of the Palestinian woman who said she and her three children arrived from Turkey several days earlier on a boat with other migrants, but she and the children became separated from the group and managed to apply for asylum. The other 28 members of the group ended up being found in a life raft sent back to sea.The reporting by Becatoros and Svarnias resulted in a thorough account of one of the most tangible examples yet of a systematic effort to deport migrants from Greece directly upon arrival. Greece vehemently denies the claims, but rights groups and migrants insist that Greece has been carrying out the practice.https://aplink.news/ic5https://aplink.video/ti0

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April 02, 2021

Best of the States

All-formats reporting from a Michigan potato farm reveals how climate change threatens crop storage

After reporting for years on life-or-death results of global warming such as floods and wildfires, Traverse City, Michigan, correspondent John Flesher uncovered another serious but little-recognized consequence: Climate change poses an increasingly troublesome and costly threat to food crop storage in the United States and much of the world. 

To illustrate the problem, Flesher teamed with Detroit-based video journalist Mike Householder and photographer Carlos Osorio on the farm of a Michigan family now using refrigerators to cool their harvested potatoes. Michigan has been the top U.S. producer of potatoes used for chips, thanks to a mild climate that has — until now at least — let farmers store their crops for months using only outdoor air to cool them. Scientists say those conditions are likely become scarcer as the planet gets hotter.

The team’s exclusive, all-formats package drew strong play nationally. 

For relatable coverage that calls attention to an underreported consequence of climate change — one with widespread implications — the team of Flesher, Householder and Osorio wins this week’s Best of the States award.

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June 11, 2021

Best of the States

Effects of California drought documented in compelling all-formats content and presentation

With California sinking deeper into drought as wildfire season approaches, AP set out to show the drought’s impact on vulnerable areas — beyond the orange glow of burning homes. Top freelance photographers Noah Berger and Josh Edelson teamed up with reporter Adam Beam, focusing on the six reservoirs with the lowest water levels. 

Both photographers are trained and equipped with drones; they delivered stunning visuals, including boat docks beached on dry land, charred hillside homes overlooking a lake reduced to puddle-like status and boat launches that don’t even reach the water’s edge. Meanwhile, Beam conducted interviews and visited the massive Lake Oroville reservoir, where the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century raged in 2018. 

The package was enhanced by digital storyteller Samantha Shotzbarger, who created a arresting presentation giving readers an immersive view of the evaporating reservoirs.   

For a revealing and forbidding look at the effects of California’s drought, the team of Berger, Edelson, Beam and Shotzbarger earns this week’s Best of the States award.

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May 28, 2021

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Indians rich and poor face pandemic hardship on their own

revealed how failures of India’s government during the pandemic have left Indians across the country — from the poor to the rich — struggling virtually on their own. Despite a surge of coronavirus illness and death within the AP staff in India, the team put together an intimate story that showed how the pandemic impacted Indians from all walks of life.The story was born when, during a call, health and science reporter Ghosal noted that Indians across the social spectrum faced severe shortages of services and resources. Someone he knew was even asking where he could get wood for a funeral pyre. The team went out to look for people to tell the story, eventually narrowing the list to three families.Photographer Rahi went to the home of a woman who scavenged human hair in Bengaluru despite coronavirus concerns, and Ghosal provided photos from Delhi. Hussain reported details from family members whose stories were chronicled in the article, and enterprise correspondent Sullivan wove the piece together, capturing the poignancy and despair of the situation on the ground in India. From diplomats to sewer cleaners, no has been immune to the hardships wrought by the virus, as the medical system neared collapse and the government found itself unprepared. https://aplink.news/plz

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May 28, 2021

Best of the States

Only on AP: A report of college rape, a Facebook admission years later and a woman’s fight for justice

“So I raped you.” 

That message on Facebook, years after Shannon Keeler left college, sent her back to the night as a freshman that changed her life. It also was the basis for her continued fight for justice, as well as this exclusive, powerful examination of campus sexual assault. AP’s Maryclaire Dale, a legal affairs reporter in Philadelphia, and video journalist Allen Breed interviewed Keeler and others, including a student who befriended Keeler on the night of the 2013 attack. That woman, Katayoun Amir-Aslani, told her story, too: She was raped later, by a different man.

The deeply reported all-formats package sheds light on often unreported college rapes, and the systemic obstacles students like Keeler face in their search for justice when they do report. The story drew major attention on AP News, where it was the most-read story for days. Other media rushed to match it, and Keeler has since told her story on network TV.

For sensitive and insightful reporting on a system that one of the victims describes as “broken,” Dale and Breed receive this week’s Best of the States award.

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April 30, 2021

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Fast response, sensitive coverage put AP ahead on shooting by deputy

responded quickly in all formats after a Black man in rural eastern North Carolina was shot and killed by deputies, the team deftly leading multiple news cycles by staying ahead on spot developments while telling the story of the man’s life. The quick coverage was key as authorities released few details.Hours after Andrew Brown Jr. was killed by deputies serving a warrant, AP was on the ground in Elizabeth City with text, photo and video staff, gathering a key eyewitness account and protester reaction while also interviewing family members.The following day, AP delivered a sensitive account that captured the complexity of Brown’s life, with family describing him as a proud father with a beaming smile. That story, along with the first day story, captured front pages around North Carolina and beyond. AP continued to lead with detail and context in subsequent cycles, drawing credit from other news outlets.The FBI has since launched a civil rights probe into Brown’s killing.https://bit.ly/3xtUL0Ehttps://bit.ly/3gHWv08https://bit.ly/3vobAIhhttps://bit.ly/3eECapO

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April 30, 2021

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

In all formats: Nurse battles back from COVID, lung transplant

produced a powerful and intimate narrative of one nurse’s precarious fight to survive COVID-19 — including the double lung transplant that saved her life.National writer Geller had wanted to find a health care worker recovering after being incapacitated by COVID. He started out calling hospitals around the country with lung transplant and COVID long-hauler programs, finally gettting a referral from Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which had performed the first and, by far, the most COVID lung transplants. They put him in touch with nurse Kari Wegg, who at one point before her transplant had been in a coma with little chance of recovery. Wegg got winded during their first phone conversation, a couple of weeks after she returned home, but she and her husband were open to telling their story. The AP trio would spend large parts of four days in the family’s Indiana home. The result was a riveting read with compelling visuals by Arbogast and Crawford, whose video was edited by multiformat journalist Allen Breed. The package won terrific online play, including the Chicago Tribune and Indiana news sites, with remarkably high reader engagement.https://bit.ly/3vtLoMDhttps://bit.ly/3gQXye6

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April 16, 2021

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP documents evidence of Tigray ethnic cleansing by Ethiopia

teamed up to present the strongest case yet that Ethiopia has conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing against its Tigray minority, who have claimed for months that thousands are being killed, raped and starved by the Ethiopian government and its allies.East Africa correspondent Anna and Cairo-based photographer El-Mofty conducted meticulous interviews with 30 refugees in Sudan who had fled their homeland, as well as aid workers and officials. Person after person described multiple killings, and several women and medical workers described mass rapes. Many warned that deliberate starvation had already started. The journalists also documented hard evidence of the ethnic cleansing, in the form of an identity card that completely removed all references to the Tigray minority. “I kept it to show the world,” one refugee said.El-Mofty’s photos were stunning, and a freelancer joined the team to take video footage. The package included an animated graphic of the identity cards by Peter Hamlin, and presentation by Natalie Castañeda.The deeply reported story sparked immediate reaction, and the Ethiopian government was provoked to reply, criticizing “the rush to accuse the government” and calling Tigray forces “a criminal enterprise.” But one researcher told Anna, “You just wrote the most harrowing report about Tigray to date.” Even the bureau chief of a major competitor called the story “beautifully written,” saying he was “super jealous.”https://bit.ly/3aaiLLVhttps://bit.ly/2ORR2ILhttps://bit.ly/3dk9Idu

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April 09, 2021

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Gaza man tells AP he was tortured by Hamas, forced to divorce

reported exclusively on the imprisonment, torture and lost love of Palestinian activist Rami Aman, who spent months enduring brutal interrogations in a Hamas prison but was offered an unconventional proposition: Divorce your wife and you are free to go. Aman had recently signed a marriage contract with the daughter of a Hamas official, but the ruling Islamic militant group apparently wanted to dispel any hint that it supported Aman’s outreach to Israeli peace activists. He eventually caved to the pressure and now the love of his life has been whisked out of Gaza against her will. Akram, AP Gaza City correspondent, started reporting the all-formats exclusive a year ago when he met Aman after his release from the Hamas prison. They stayed in touch and Akram slowly learned the chilling details of the torture and forced divorce. Akram spent months persuading Aman to share his story on the record, and he spent an additional two months fact-checking the story, including a conversation with Aman’s ex-wife who confirmed the account. Aman also agreed to go on camera and share his story for AP’s video clients. https://bit.ly/3mti4SV

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April 09, 2021

Best of the States

Exclusive data analysis, reporting on child abuse reveal worrying pandemic trend, heartbreaking tale

A true multiformat team of AP journalists produced this Only on AP piece by tracking down data on child abuse from every state to reveal a worrying trend: Reports of abuse are down while signs of severity are up. The team complemented that dogged data work and hard news with the tragic story of one girl who fell through the cracks during the pandemic. 

Acting on information sourced by video journalist Manuel Valdes, Seattle reporter Sally Ho coordinated the 50-state data survey and an ambitious analysis with data journalist Camille Fassett. Ho also read through hundreds of child abuse reports to find the case of 9-year-old Ava Lerario, killed by her father in a small Pennsylvania town. Ho worked with Philadelphia photojournalists Matt Rourke and Matt Slocum, and New York video journalist David Martin, to tell the story of about how the system failed Ava. 

The team’s deeply reported package drew remarkably high reader engagement, and many news outlets localized the work using AP’s data distribution.

For exposing another disturbing inequality stemming from the pandemic, Ho and colleagues Valdes, Fassett, Rourke, Slocum and Martin share this week’s Best of the States award.

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April 02, 2021

Best of the Week — First Winner

A master class: AP teams deliver sweeping coverage of the migrant surge at the US-Mexico border

When the U.S.-Mexico border became a major front-page story again in recent weeks, the AP set out to tell the story of newly arriving Central American children and families in trademark AP fashion: with compelling all-formats journalism and richly reported viewpoints from migrants to bring perspective to readers on the topic of immigration.

Photographers Julio Cortez and Dario Lopez-Mills, reporters Adriana Gómez Licón and Elliot Spagat, and video journalists Eugene Garcia and John Mone answered the call and more, delivering a string of stories last week that amounted to a master class in how to cover the border.

Among the highlights were the story of a 7-year-old girl crossing the border without her parents in the middle of the night, the story of migrant families dumped by the Biden administration in a dangerous Mexican border town while other families in the same circumstance gained entry into the U.S., and in-flight coverage of a 5-year-old Honduran immigrant en route to Baltimore. The immersive multiformat work received tremendous play. 

For bringing to life the human stories of those seeking entry to the United States, especially the sharp increase in the number of families and children in recent weeks and the struggles of border officials to cope, Gómez Licón, Cortez, Mone, Spagat, Lopez and Garcia share AP’s Best of the Week honors.

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