When former President Donald Trump was indicted on felony charges Aug. 1 for working to overturn the 2020 election results in the run-up to the Jan. 6 violent riot at the U.S. Capitol, the AP team was ready.Read more
To tell the story of one man’s vision for South Carolina's first civil rights museum, AP wove together text, photos and video to tell the story of efforts to move South Carolina’s first civil rights museum from a photographer’s home into a larger space.Read more
AP broke new ground in detailing how Black victims of Catholic clergy sex abuse have largely been overlooked.Read more
Race and Ethnicity team contributors pitched a story about what union membership has meant to generations of Black families within days of United Auto Workers’ announcement that members would walk off the job at a Ford plant in Michigan.Read more
It started as a vague alert of a shooting in Maine. But within minutes of learning about it, Portland-based correspondent David Sharp had guidance that at least 16 people were dead. He knew that would make it the state’s deadliest shooting by far.
Even before the first AP alert went out, Sharp and Robert Bukaty were headed to Lewiston, where a gunman had opened fire in a bowling area and bar and then vanished into the night. They were the first national news crew to arrive, coming up live for video and filing the first images of the aftermath.
Sharp’s video interview with a shoeless man who hid in the machinery of the bowling alley as people died around him was among the first eyewitness accounts, getting wide usage by clients including The New York Times.
Ultimately, 18 people would die, and residents would stay locked inside their homes for days.
Throughout the following days, a crew of journalists shared responsibilities and information in Lewiston and beyond, including AP’s breaking news investigations team of Bernard Condon and Jim Mustian who exclusively reported that Maine police were alerted as recently as September to “veiled threats” by the U.S. Army reservist.
AP’s story, which was matched — with credit — over the next day by both The New York Times and CNN, marked the most detailed reporting yet on the contact law enforcement had with the gunman, who killed himself.
The cross-format, cross-department collaboration on this story was flawless and a demonstration of AP at its best. For aggressive breaking news reporting and investigations, we are delighted to award New England’s staff, Mike Balsamo, Alanna Durkin Durkin Richer, Lindsay Whitehurst, Condon and Mustian for the Best of the Week Award — First Winner.
Longtime cultivation of a source paid off with the AP getting exclusive access to an important new study that provided insight into how the federal justice system handles terrorism cases.Read more
AP employed the traditional Afghan “box camera” to document how life has changed in Afghanistan in peacetime, for better and worse, two years after U.S. troops left and the Taliban returned to power.Read more
The AP, drawing reporters from the Religion, Race and Ethnicity and Democracy beat teams, executed perfectly to put together a remarkable package for the 60th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.Read more
AP’s sleuth work helped AP capture images of a North Korean international sports delegation, believed to be the first since the start of the COVID pandemic.Read more
On the eve of the first world track championships since Bowie’s passing, AP sportswriters Eddie Pells and Pat Graham teamed up to report exclusively on the mental health struggles of Tori Bowie that led up to the star athlete’s death April 23 from complications during childbirth at the age of 32.
The two had covered Bowie, who won three medals at the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Games, for many years and had heard whispers of her difficulties. A few weeks after her death, the autopsy listed the cause as “complications in childbirth.”
While other outlets pursued the angle that Black women suffer disproportionately from pregnancy complications, Pells opted to explore another dimension of her story, her struggles with mental health.
He sought out people at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and within track and field, to find out how a world-famous champion, who was eight months into what would be considered an at-risk pregnancy, came to die alone at home without medical care or anyone to look after her.
For sensitively telling the story of a great athlete who became isolated from her peers and died tragically alone in part because of neglect of her mental health difficulties, Pells and Graham are Best of the Week — First Winner.
exclusively reported about the background of the special prosecutor appointed to lead the case of five white officers charged in the deadly 2019 arrest of Black motorist Ronald Greene.
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AP photographers captured the hidden face of the Tour de France with an exclusive and unique photo gallery — on top of their gripping, treacherous work to cover 21 straight days of the world’s premier cycling race.Read more
jumped in to cover the unfolding story, which represented the greatest challenge to Vladimir Putin’s leadership in decades.Read more.
AP journalists in the U.S. and Latin America had been here before: Pandemic-related asylum restrictions in the U.S., known as Title 42, were set to expire at least twice in the previous year until courts intervened. This time though, they knew it was for real and spent weeks and months reporting smart stories about the consequences, from disinformation spread to would-be asylum seekers thousands of miles away to major shifts in U.S. immigration policy that will have effects for years to come. But it was in the days surrounding the expiration date itself that the expertise and collaboration of colleagues from California to Colombia and El Paso to Washington shone.
Through combined efforts and seamless collaboration, these journalists produced not only deeply reported, people-focused and contextual spot coverage that showcased the AP footprint, but also resulted in a truly layered report including live video, photo galleries, dozens of video edits, vignettes, spot takeouts and several days of smart follows that dominated search and page views.
For an extraordinary effort that showed the AP’s breadth and depth of knowledge on this issue, the team earns Best of the Week — First Winner.
When protesters erupted in chants of “Let her speak” from the gallery inside the Montana statehouse, and silenced transgender lawmaker Zooey Zephyr lifted her microphone triumphantly in the air, longtime AP reporter Amy Hanson was there to capture the action with her cell phone for video, photos and words. It was the start of a week of agenda-setting, visual and comprehensive coverage by Hanson and her colleagues as Zephyr’s compelling dispute with Republican state leaders captivated audiences, culminating in the GOP voting to bar the freshman legislator from the House floor on Thursday. The powerful coverage throughout the week showcased the value of AP’s legislative footprint and was a textbook example of how we can dominate a story when we surge resources and harness our collective expertise.Hanson worked tirelessly from Helena, Montana, all week and tapped into her deep sourcing and knowledge of state politics to provide impeccable and fast reporting. Her previous source building with Zephyr after she was elected last year proved invaluable, giving the AP access to the lawmaker all week. Billings-based reporter Matt Brown and Salt Lake City-based reporter Sam Metz took turns stitching together well-written spot stories each day, updating the “What to Know” and prepping urgent new series for the next key moment in the saga. The duo also produced a smart takeout about the rise of conservative caucuses like the one in Montana that fueled the dispute.Denver-based video journalist Brittany Peterson and political reporter Nick Riccardi also went to Montana to supplement Amy’s on-the-ground reporting. Nick quickly pulled together a deeply reported and beautifully written story about support for Zephyr in her hometown, the college town of Missoula. Colleagues from around the AP coordinated with the Rockies staff to deliver several smart takes about the standoff, including a look at the underlying rhetoric in the dispute and how Republicans in Montana and Tennessee tried calling peaceful protests "insurrections" to downplay the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
For thorough, nuanced coverage that kept the AP out front, Hanson, Peterson, Riccardi, Brown and Metz win this week’s first citation for Best of the Week.
burrowed into the case. Dale chronicled the acrimony on city council. She also dug into a church that Dwumfour was affiliated with.Read more.
scored huge play with print, online and video customers with a deeply reported, all-formats examination of the crash of the U.S. West Coast’s legal marijuana industry in the absence of federal legalization. Read more.
used prep, nimbleness and expertise to get out in front of the competition on two medical pill abortion rulings on the same day, one expected and one a surprise.Read more.
chronicled gun protests that led to two Black state lawmakers being expelled from the Tennessee state legislature.Read more.
were a cross-format team on three continents who captured how overfishing has wiped out species from areas where they once thrived, taking off the table beloved culturally important dishes and undermining the diets and livelihoods of millions.Read more.
