for a story showing the vast majority of state legislatures said they intended to make changes to sexual harassment policies this year in the wake of the #MeToo movement, but half of the chambers have made no changes yet at all. http://bit.ly/2NtCZ5W http://bit.ly/2NqmYOb
for an exclusive, all-formats interview where celebrity Casey Affleck addressed his Oscars absence and the #MeToo movement, and apologized for the environment on the movie set for a 2010 film. https://bit.ly/2P6JlcZ
for a series of APNewsBreaks over four days in a decade-old university sex harassment case – a precursor to the #MeToo movement. One of the stories led to the reversal of court costs assessed against the accusers in the case. https://6abc.cm/2n7Nallhttps://bit.ly/2O3Nlta
for an AP analysis that finds that many state lawmakers accused of sexual misconduct in the #MeToo era are having success running for re-election or new legislative seats, suggesting that voters are conflicted about whether personal failings should disqualify someone from public office.http://bit.ly/2LusUVKhttp://bit.ly/2zMesHf
As the #MeToo movement spread to state capitols, AP statehouse reporters filed uniform FOIA requests with every legislature seeking information about past sexual misconduct cases and payouts to victims. The coordinated effort, overseen by State Government Team reporter David Lieb, produced some interesting numbers: roughly 70 complaints and nearly $3 million in sexual harassment settlements over the past decade.
But the real story was the information that wasn’t released.
In fact, a majority of states would not disclose records related to sexual misconduct among lawmakers. The most common response was that they had received no such complaints over the past decade, did not keep a record of any such complaints or were not legally bound to disclose the records. But Lieb's research revealed that even states with documented cases of lawmaker sexual harassment were not releasing records about those allegations – and potentially others.
Lieb worked with data editor Meghan Hoyer to organize and analyze the responses from our statehouse reporters in every state. The resulting spreadsheet was distributed to AP bureaus and customers weeks ahead of publication to allow for localizations. AP reporters in 19 states did just that, producing sidebars that in many cases landed on A1.
The mainbar and the state-by-state list of accused lawmakers received wide interest on the APNews app. The story also landed on at least 20 front pages.
For their 50-state accountability project on a topic that continues to rattle state capitols, Lieb and Hoyer win this week’s Best of the States award.
