Best of the States

AP Exclusive: NFL’s Saints allegedly do damage control for Catholic Church on abuse crisis

New York-based federal law enforcement reporter Jim Mustian never gives up on a story.

Sticking with a case he began covering at another news organization in another state more than two years ago, Mustian landed a jaw-dropping exclusive for the AP: That a trove of hundreds of confidential emails has surfaced allegedly showing executives of the NFL’s New Orleans Saints doing public relations damage control for the area’s Roman Catholic archdiocese amid its clergy sexual abuse crisis.

The story had an immediate, visceral impact with readers and earned praise from fellow journalists.

Mustian will continue to chip away at this story and, hopefully, reveal more about the Saints and their involvement with the church. But for now, Mustian’s sticktoitiveness and tough accountability reporting earns him this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

1979 concert tragedy links The Who and an Ohio suburb

for breaking the news that The Who would return to the Cincinnati area for the first time since a concert 40 years ago in which 11 fans were trampled to death. During an interview, Carucci developed a rapport with Who guitarist Pete Townshend, who opened up in general terms about the group’s plans. Carucci brought in the rest of the team, who produced a richly reported anniversary story in all formats. https://bit.ly/2qMqs7Hhttps://bit.ly/36qVLnChttps://bit.ly/2PJoMVbhttps://bit.ly/36zaGMT

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Kaepernick calls an audible; AP scrambles

for a multiplatform breaking news package when former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick held a workout for fans. Kaepernick had been scheduled for an NFL-arranged workout at the Atlanta Falcons training facility, but the quarterback switched signals at the last minute, working out at a high school 60 miles away. https://bit.ly/2r9x9AC

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP first with word of ‘Hunger Games’ prequel novel

for negotiating an hourlong exclusive window on plans for a prequel novel to “The Hunger Games” trilogy, news that proved popular with fans of the books and film franchise. The one-hour beat meant that many major news outlets had to either run the AP story in its entirety or prominently credit the AP. https://bit.ly/2XgMX2N

Best of the Week — First Winner

Exclusive AP analysis: The NFL keeps getting younger and cheaper

The unusually short careers of NFL players have long been a thorny issue among the players, the league and even fans of one of the most injury-prone leagues in sports. A pair of high-profile contract disputes during the 2018 season placed the topic front-and-center yet again.

But what more was there to say?

Denver-based national sports writer Eddie Pells and Global Sports Editor Michael Giarrusso came up with the idea of mining data to illustrate how average experience on NFL rosters has changed since 2011, when the league and players agreed to a contract designed in part to help veterans get a bigger share of revenue.

Pells was joined by New York-based data journalist Larry Fenn who started digging. After scouring season-opening rosters from the last 14 years, Pells and Fenn had the data: Average experience in the league was going down consistently as every team chose younger players over veterans who would earn more – even if the veterans were better players.

Pells then asked more than a dozen AP writers in the field for reaction from key players on the teams they covered, while Fenn worked with Top Stories designer Phil Holm, who produced insightful illustrations of the data. Pells also collaborated on videos that were used on social media and embedded in the story.

Other stories in the package included a profile of a typical 4-year player who is cut just as he became eligible for a larger contract, a piece on shortened careers at the center position, and a column foreshadowing collective-bargaining hurdles. Pells also did a story looking at how Super Bowl champions shed expensive players after winning the title.

The package was released in the week leading up to the Super Bowl, commanding attention across the football landscape and getting about double the usage of typical top sports stories. Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Sally Buzbee called it a blueprint for how to plan coverage around big events by timing enterprise and breaking news when attention is high.

For using data and creative storytelling to quantify one of the NFL’s central issues and break news during the biggest sports week of the year, Pells, Fenn and Holm share AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Views of AP exclusive video series 'The Olympians' approach 400,000 in first week

for a months-long project by AP Sports to create profiles of many of the athletes who will be starring at the Pyeongchang Olympics, and ended up with an exclusive series giving fans an inside look with more than two dozen videos about what makes an Olympian. https://wintergames.ap.org/the-olympians

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP photo team produces unparalleled coverage of Catalonia referendum

The days leading up to Catalonia’s independence referendum pointed toward trouble on the day of the vote. The autonomous region in northeast Spain was pushing ahead with the election despite the country’s constitutional court ordering it to be stopped. In the weeks leading up to the vote, thousands took to the streets, demonstrating for and against independence. The election, set for Oct. 1, was sure to be a defining moment for the region and the country.

It also posed a challenge to those planning AP’s visual report: How best to capture the expected chaos? How to navigate its major city, Barcelona, which would be flooded with demonstrators and police? How to get photographers and video journalists in the right positions, knowing they might be stuck there for hours?

These decisions fell to Emilio Morenatti, AP’s chief photographer for Spain and Portugal. A longtime Barcelona resident, he anticipated those obstacles as he deployed AP’s staff and freelance photographers.

The result was some 200 photographs that captured the violence and passion of a remarkable moment in Spanish history. For planning creatively, making smart in-the-moment decisions and risking personal safety, Morenatti and his team of photographers win this week’s Beat of the Week.

Best of the States

Photographer reports exclusive details of Oakland player using gay slur against fan

A photographer needs more than a good eye to do the job.

On Friday night, August 4, Los Angeles-based photographer Mark J. Terrill landed the AP a scoop with sharp hearing.

In the eighth inning of the Angels’ game against the Oakland Athletics, Los Angeles’ CJ Cron made a diving stop of Matt Joyce’s hard-hit line drive, which elicited loud cheers from the crowd in Anaheim. As Joyce ran back to the dugout Terrill heard the Oakland player in a heated exchange with a fan, cursing at the fan using a gay slur.

Terrill's reporting was used by AP's stringer covering the game for Sports, and expanded by Baseball Writer Ron Blum who recognized the importance of the incident. The AP story went unmatched overnight. Even after the A's addressed the incident, most media outlets continued to cite the AP story throughout.

For their enterprising efforts, Terrill and Blum split this week’s $300 Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP names all-time No. 1 in college basketball

for using exclusive AP poll data to determine the top college basketball program in history. The team also wrote a detailed advisory and created an advance release plan to raise engagement among college basketball fans and colleges. http://collegebasketball.ap.org/ap-poll-all-time