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
for digging into crop reports to find that farmers had planted the fewest acres of wheat in nearly a century, choosing instead to plant an odd array of specialty crops, from chickpeas to hops. http://bit.ly/2xqHMxN
for cross-format teamwork and exclusive coverage of alleged labor abuses at a shoe factory in China making Ivanka Trump-branded items. Kinetz and Ting managed to talk to workers who complained of overtime that stretched past midnight, steep production quotas and crude verbal and even physical abuse. Shih and Ting closely followed the story of three activists detained while investigating the plant, including getting exclusive photos and video when they were later released.
https://apnews.com/6cfff3ca3c7d422594556044369bfb8...
https://www.apnews.com/d120059433fd4767b2e3a1c2477...
As domestic production of oil has increased in recent years, Billings, Montana, Correspondent Matthew Brown closely followed derailments of trains carrying volatile crude. A train from North Dakota jumped the track, exploded and killed 47 people in Canada in 2013. In Brown’s own state, a derailment near the town of Culbertson spilled 27,000 gallons of oil in 2015. Last year, Brown reported that more than 800 potential safety violations were discovered on Union Pacific freight lines after a fiery June 2016 oil train derailment in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge.
But Brown wanted to know how widespread the problem really was. By pushing repeatedly for public records and working with a longtime source, Brown was able to exclusively report the results of a two-year federal inspection program for the nation’s oil trains – and he revealed that some safety defects uncovered where similar to ones blamed in derailments that triggered huge fires or oil spills in Oregon, Virginia, Montana and elsewhere. For his AP NewsBreak, Brown wins this week’s Best of the States award.
AP Richmond reporter Sarah Rankin learned from a state lawmaker that Chinese coal ash was being imported into Virginia, despite millions of tons of ash already stored near power plants, threatening surface and ground water with contamination by heavy metals. Like other states, Virginia is struggling with how to dispose of its existing waste.
Her story pinpointed where the overseas ash was coming from: China, India and Poland over the past two years. While the foreign shipments of the industrial byproduct were moving through Virginia to Wisconsin and Ohio, interviews with concrete producers and coal ash recyclers and sellers showed more ash was being imported into Virginia from other states.
One environmentalist raised the irony of the situation: "We have millions of tons of this sitting along our riverbanks. Why in the world would we be importing it from other states and countries?"
For exposing a problematic industry practice with statewide environmental and health implications, Rankin's story wins this week's Best of the States.
for using scientific sources and data to reveal that the world energy system has already locked in enough carbon emissions in existing power plants and transportation to blow the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. The story, written from the site of one of Europe's dirtiest coal power plants, was accompanied by Michael Sohn photos and a video edited and scripted by Stockholm videojournalist David Keyton using footage from Germany, Sweden and California. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/current...
for breaking news and follow-up coverage of General Motors’ announcement of a massive restructuring that would include the loss of up to 14,000 jobs and the closure of five North American plants. https://bit.ly/2QfWpRf
In drought-stricken California, the state and dozens of water agencies embarked upon a unique social experiment: try to break the love affair with the lawn by paying residents to rip out their turf and replace it with less thirsty landscaping. San Francisco-based environment reporter Ellen Knickmeyer, who has been covering the state’s historic five-year drought, decided to dig into the water-saving strategy and determine whether it was worth the cost.
AP reported on cocoa plantations spreading illegally into protected areas of Nigeria’s Omo Forest Reserve and traced how the cocoa from the reserve is used by companies that supply major chocolate makers globally.Read more
AP analyzed shipping records and followed a paper trail that led to a little-known American company whose activities are contributing to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.Read more
followed up on their initial reporting that exposed widespread labor abuse in the palm oil industry, conducting a comprehensive investigation into the brutal treatment of women in the production of the omnipresent ingredient, including rapes by plantation supervisors, serious health issues from toxic chemicals and injuries from back-breaking loads. The pair then traced the oil produced by these women to the supply chains of top Western beauty brands — including conglomerates that make billions of dollars as they market the empowerment of women.Mason and McDowell persuaded dozens of female workers to tell their searing stories, spending months getting the women to trust them and then arranging clandestine meetings in an effort to protect the workers from retaliation by plantation owners. They bypassed the stonewalling of major Western brands that refused to say whether their products contain palm oil by using company data and U.S. Customs records to link the workers’ abuse to the brands’ palm oil supply chains.The package featured striking digital display, video and evocative photos by Indonesia-based stringer Binsar Bakkara, as well as a powerful series of closeups of workers’ hands cradling familiar products containing the fruits of their labor.The story is nearing 250,000 page views on AP News. The Clorox Company, which owns Burt’s Bees Inc., said it would raise the allegations of abuses with its suppliers, calling AP’s findings “incredibly disturbing.” https://bit.ly/3liKAV3https://bit.ly/2VeVUXRhttps://bit.ly/3mlXgfd
Strong source work and planning put AP in a position to dominate coverage of the United Auto Workers strike.Read more
Enormously popular when it cleared Congress 50 years ago, the Endangered Species Act has become one of the most controversial U.S. environmental protection laws.Read more
For years, AP Mexico photo stringer Ginnette Riquelme was aware of clandestine networks helping women obtain abortions in Honduras, where they are banned under all circumstances.
The locations were hidden, the phones untraceable, the contacts used code words to communicate. But Riquelme had a vision of how — and why — to document something that is both illegal and heavily stigmatized. With a grant from the International Women’s Media Foundation, she joined forces with Honduran journalist Iolany Pérez in El Progreso and Mexico City reporter María Verza.
Persistence and the ability to build the trust of more than a dozen women who helped or had received the networks’ assistance resulted in a previously unseen composite of an underground system built up over years of prohibition.
For journalism that illustrates the invisible, and in-depth and unmatched coverage of an issue that resonates far outside Honduras, this team earns Best of the Week — First Winner.
Months of reporting by Victoria Milko, David Rising and a colleague in Myanmar led to the most authoritative look yet at the problem of landmines in the country.
Their story recounted how a boy was maimed and teenagers killed. The team was also able to get military defectors and others in the country to share with AP how civilians are used as human shields and how groups reuse mines they claim to have cleared. The story demonstrates that this will be an issue in the country for years to come.
For their work documenting the horror of landmines in one of the world’s most isolated countries, we are honored to award Milko, our AP colleague in Myanmar and Rising this week’s Best of the Week — First Winner.
made AP the first major news organization to take a serious look at readiness in the countries most likely to be affected, as fighting around Ukraine’s nuclear power plants and Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons reawaken nuclear fears in Europe. Some of Ukraine’s neighboring countries have started distributing potassium iodide pills, and officials are preparing old Soviet-era nuclear shelters for possible use.After two weeks spent persuading authorities to give AP’s journalists access to the underground shelters, the team reported comprehensively and responsibly — and with strong visuals — on European readiness for a possible nuclear attack. The team was careful to avoid sensationalizing the coverage or raising unnecessary fear.Read more
documented that six months into the war in Ukraine, U.S. companies continue to import billions of dollars worth of Russian goods despite tough talk by the Biden administration about cutting Russia off from global markets.Working with data journalist Larry Fenn, the investigative reporters combed through thousands of records tracking every shipment coming from Russia, revealing a complex patchwork of sanctions that has allowed millions of tons of Russian goods to flow into the U.S. legally. The resulting story countered common perceptions of the sanctions against Russia and was played widely, engaging readers.Read more
Using data analysis, records research and extensive interviews, an Associated Press team found dramatic disparities in U.S. government spending for various types of imperiled species 50 years after passage of the Endangered Species Act.Read more
AP reporting on energy policies in all 50 states led to an unexpected discovery: Roughly two-thirds of states in the U.S. plan to use nuclear power as an essential part of their plan to replace fossil fuels.
That resurgence in nuclear energy, despite its downsides, launched AP coverage of the latest nuclear technology and the impact on local communities, particularly those dependent on coal: a small Wyoming town replacing its coal plant with a nontraditional nuclear reactor by a Bill Gates-founded company, and a town in Colorado where coal is being phased out after generations, with no plans to replace it. “We can’t recover from that,” a former mayor told the AP.
The all-formats work showed the nation’s struggles as it shifts energy sources to stave off the worst effects of climate change. And showcasing the AP’s 50-state footprint, a localization guide enabled AP’s customers to bring the debate home for their own audiences. The package played widely at home and abroad, from local papers to national news outlets.
For superior coverage bringing to light developments in energy policy across the country and the effects on people at a local level, the team ofJennifer McDermott, Brady McCombs, Mead Gruver, Patty Nieberg, Rick Bowmer, Elaine Thompson, Manuel Valdes and Natalie Behring is AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.
used planning, prep material and contextualized coverage to put AP well ahead of the competition when a federal jury in Cleveland held pharmacy chains responsible for their role in the opioids crisis. The jury found CVS, Walgreens and Walmart pharmacies recklessly distributed massive amounts of pain pills in two Ohio counties.Seewer and Mulvihill drafted prep that included not only the possible jury decisions but their potential impact on the larger landscape of opioids litigation. They also planned how to get the story out quickly, Seewer making sure AP was literally well-positioned, planting himself outside the courtroom waiting for the verdict. The result: an urgent filing by the East Desk’s Jeff McMillan that beat major competitors by at least 20 minutes, delivering remarkably strong play.Swift teamwork added reaction from both sides, as Seewer talked with lawyers at court while Mulvihill got statements from the companies and reached out to other sources. Photos prepared in advance were quickly linked, and the reporters also helped ensure AP had video of lawyers reacting to the verdict.The pair followed up the next day with even more context in a smart story that unspooled the central argument of the case — that the pharmacies creating a “public nuisance” with their dispensing — and looked ahead to how the verdict could affect other litigation and communities that want to hold pharmacies accountable.https://aplink.news/i6jhttps://aplink.news/qa9https://aplink.video/g20
