Best of the States

AP Exclusive: Chief Texas oil regulator vacationed at the height of hurricane

Hurricane Harvey killed more than 80 people and triggered historic flooding in Houston and across large swaths of Texas. But it also sparked oil spills and gasoline shortages. Those presented major tests for the state’s Railroad Commission, which, despite its peculiar name, actually regulates the energy industry – with historically lax enforcement.

So when the commission’s executive director, Kim Corley, abruptly resigned, the timing and circumstances made Austin newsman Paul Weber curious. He began making calls and soon secured a tip: Corley had been on vacation and unreachable at the height of the Category 4 hurricane that walloped the industry she was paid $180,000 annually to safeguard.

For his exclusive on a hyper-competitive story, Weber wins this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP ahead of the competition in Bahamas Hurricane coverage across formats

Through smart planning, speed and considerable courage, the AP managed to be the only agency on the ground Sept. 1 as Hurricane Dorian, a powerful Category 5 storm, arrived and parked itself over the Bahamas for more than 24 hours dumping tons of water and packing sustained winds in excess of 185 MPH. Not even local broadcasters, including the government channel, were able to feed live images.

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2019-09-01/northern-bahamas-hunkers-down-as-hurricane-dorian-closes-in

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP finds evidence of spills at toxic site during Hurricane Harvey floods

for uncovering evidence that three chemical spills were reported to the U.S. government at one of Houston’s dirtiest toxic waste sites after Hurricane Harvey, spills the Environmental Protection Agency had not acknowledged. http://bit.ly/2hBuQS3

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Florence's environmental toll: coal ash and hog waste

for leading strong AP coverage of the devastation of Hurricane Florence. Biesecker drew on experience to warn readers that the storm would likely cause widespread water pollution from ruptured hog lagoons and swamped coal ash dumps, and scored a series of storm-related scoops. Helber captured iconic images including a widely used aerial shot that earned a rare two-page spread in Time magazine.https://bit.ly/2xMWdwMhttps://bit.ly/2NEn7lrhttps://bit.ly/2zw7WlNhttps://bit.ly/2Og1G9U

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Race tells different tales for storms 12 years apart

for exploring how issues of race helped shape the different perceptions of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Harvey in 2017. https://apnews.com/34986ee22ba54d6683b936b537f8695...

Best of the States

AP Exclusive: Fewer carrying flood insurance despite the risk

Floodwaters from Harvey were still rising in the Houston area and AP’s responsibilities to thoroughly cover breaking news developments across the region hadn’t diminished, but already there was an appetite for investigative reporting on the disaster. An AP team from across the company quickly mobilized.

Among the early efforts was a package of stories, data, photos and an interactive revealing that fewer Americans, in the Houston area and nationally, were buying flood insurance than just five years ago, despite serious risks from flooding.

The stories relied on federal data analyzed by Meghan Hoyer and reporting from Business writers Bernard Condon and Ken Sweet in New York as well as staff writers Terry Spencer in south Florida, Michael Kunzelman in Baton Rouge and Jeff Donn in Boston, with an interactive national map of flood insurance policies by Maureen Linke in Washington.

For their efforts that produced exclusive content with relevance to national and local media, Hoyer, Spencer, Kunzelman, Sweet, Condon, Donn and Linke will share this week’s Best of States award.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP staffers surmount dual disasters in Mexico and Puerto Rico

First, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake rocked Mexico, killing hundreds. Then, a day later, a category 4 hurricane pummeled Puerto Rico, leaving millions of people without power and with little water.

Two major calamities, one sterling response: Staffers of The Associated Press went to heroic lengths to tell the world the stories of two places battered by disaster. Their efforts were led to extraordinary achievements – in text, photos and video – and the Beat of the Week.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Toxic waste sites flooded; AP on the scene ahead of EPA

Hurricane Harvey inundated homes, flooded freeways and swamped entire neighborhoods. Florida-based reporter Jason Dearen, who was deployed to Houston to help cover the disaster, knew there might be something else submerged beneath the turbid floodwaters. Superfund sites, some of the nation’s most contaminated places, are scattered along the low-lying Gulf coastline, including in the Houston area.

Dearen had been trying to obtain a copy of a federal study about the risks of flooding at those sites from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but had been stonewalled for two weeks. Harvey’s destruction provided new urgency to his request. For help, he reached out to Washington investigative reporter Michael Biesecker, a fellow member of the AP’s environmental beat team.

Through creative reporting that relied on data, collaboration and Dearen’s newfound skills as a boat man, they became the first journalists to report on the extent of flooding at contaminated waste sites in and around Houston. The on-site observations by Dearen and freelance 360-video producer Claudia Prat raised concerns that some of the decades-old toxic stew left over from the oil, gas and chemical industries may have mixed with floodwaters. They also were on the ground – and on the water – before the EPA’s own inspectors. For their efforts, Dearen, Biesecker and Prat win Beat of the Week.

Best of the States

ONLY ON AP: FEMA sells trailers for pennies on the dollar despite high demand from disaster victims

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey hitting Texas in August, Emily Schmall in Fort Worth, Texas, and Michael Sisak in Philadelphia teamed up to report exclusively that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had sold off scores of trailers with little to no damage in the days leading up to the storm. Their reporting had an immediate impact: FEMA said it had halted the auctions and would evaluate whether any of the units could be used for Harvey victims.

Fast forward to November, when Sisak noticed the auctions had resumed. Working with Central Desk editor Jeff McMurray, Sisak and Schmall took a pointed look at government waste, showing how FEMA was selling gently used trailers for pennies on the dollar rather than making them available for disaster victims.

For resourceful reporting that broke new ground, Schmall and Sisak share this week’s Best of the States prize.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP IDs bare wires, leaning poles as possible cause of Maui fires

AP was the first media to write the story of the likely cause of the Maui fires — bare copper electrical line that sparked on contact and power poles that couldn’t stand up to the wind.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP explores a historic Black town vulnerable to climate change

tell the story of a historic Black town in North Carolina threatened by climate change, and its residents determined to endure and prosper.Princeville, North Carolina, the oldest town in the U.S. founded by Black Americans, has flooded many times, including two horrific disasters in recent memory: Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and Matthew in 2016. And it will flood again — likely worse under the effects of global warming.AP’s all-formats trio visited the town multiple times, talking to the people who live there and reporting on the town’s historical significance as well as its efforts to rebuild and protect. They found townspeople determined to preserve their land and legacy, seeing connections to both a shared history and a continued fight for survival.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

New Bedford once lit the world with whale oil. Now it wants to do the same with wind

knew offshore wind turbine pieces would depart Europe for New Bedford — and that the ship steaming in would be the visual representation of the arrival of the offshore wind industry in the U.S.Read more.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

All-formats package on forensics investigator in aftermath of cyclone

Digging beyond standard coverage of the devastation that Cyclone Idai inflicted on Mozambique in mid-March, this all-formats team traveled into central Mozambique to produce an exclusive and affecting profile of a forensics investigator searching for bodies, counting the dead and giving remains a proper burial. https://bit.ly/2v9nqc7

Best of the States

AP journalists deliver outstanding all-formats coverage to mark 500,000 COVID deaths in US

The U.S. surpassed a solemn milestone on Feb. 22 with 500,000 COVID-19 deaths — a moment in the pandemic that required thoughtful planning and storytelling, and precise execution across the AP for the coverage to stand out.

Editors began planning weeks in advance. They wanted impactful photo and video packages, lightning-fast spot coverage of the milestone being reached, and a text story to anchor the report that was different from AP’s previous recognition of 100,000, 250,000 and 400,000 deaths. 

The result was a package that resonated in all formats.

For meeting the grim milestone with compelling, comprehensive coverage, the team of Adam Geller, Jocelyn Gecker, Alyssa Goodman, Pete Brown, Eugene Garcia, Manuel Valdes and Krysta Fauria wins this week’s Best of the States award.

Best of the States

Herbert dominates multiformat tornado coverage

When New Orleans staff photographer Gerald Herbert heard reports of a tornado touchdown 50 miles away, outside of New Orleans, he jumped into his truck and headed out of town to get a head start on coverage of the damage. Within minutes he changed direction when another twister touched down inside New Orleans itself.

Over the next few hours, Herbert was a one man journalism machine, filing to photos, video, text, radio and even securing dramatic UGC. Herbert wins this week’s $300 Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Churches defend clergy loophole on child sex abuse reporting

joined forces to reveal how religious lobbying across the U.S. has protected a loophole that exempts clergy from reporting child abuse if the abuse is revealed in a spiritual setting. The subject had surfaced in Rezendes’ August investigation into the mishandling and coverup of child sex abuse cases by the Mormon church.The investigative reporters found similar dynamics playing out in all 33 states that have the loophole: The Catholic and Mormon churches, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses successfully defeated more than 130 bills seeking to create or amend child sex abuse reporting laws.AP’s reporting brought attention to the loophole and prompted at least one state lawmaker to say he would introduce a bill to close the exemption.Read more

Best of the States

AP finds colleges concerned as some students turn to counterfeit vaccine cards

It started with a tip.

When a college student mentioned that fellow unvaccinated students were getting fake COVID-19 vaccine cards in order to attend in-person classes, AP global investigations intern Roselyn Romero remembered that she'd seen an account on Instagram offering fake cards for $25 each.

Romero began searching social media platforms and talked to college students, faculty, administrators and health officials. What she found was a cottage industry offering to accommodate people who refuse to get vaccinated but need documentation saying that they’ve had the shots.

Her deeply reported story had nearly 250,000 pageviews on AP News and was used by hundreds of news outlets, including online and print front pages. She was also interviewed by NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer responded by calling for a multiagency crackdown on the counterfeit cards.

For having a major national impact with her first AP byline, Roselyn Romero wins this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Expanding Gulf Coast gas exports raise residents’ concerns

led an AP team producing a visually rich, deeply reported package examining a vast expansion of natural gas facilities in coastal Southwest Louisiana that is escalating greenhouse gas emissions, raising global temperatures, fueling extreme weather and imperiling communities.Reporting from coastal Southwest Louisiana, energy reporter Bussewitz and national multiformat journalist Irvine captured the lives of families hurt by extreme weather linked to a build-out of liquefied natural gas export terminals. But the two went further: They depicted an urgent concern: Where once it looked as if the nation might soon shift away from fossil fuel industries, a reversal has occurred. The U.S. has become the world’s largest exporter of LNG, with worrisome consequences for Gulf Coast residents and the planet’s climate.A few news organizations, mostly local or niche environmental publications, have reported previously on this issue, but none have had the depth and range of AP's package, with its data, visuals and reporting on human impact.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Butch Davis returns to coaching; FIU struggles in his debut

for getting behind-the-scenes access to former Miami Hurricanes coach Butch Davis’ return to coaching at Florida International University after a seven-year hiatus. http://bit.ly/2xbt5Bx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP9Fs6EHlsY

Best of the Week — First Winner

Must-read stories: UN sex abuse, El Faro sinking share Beat of the Week honors

The stories could not be more different. One revealed that United Nations peacekeepers had been accused of thousands of instances of sexual abuse over 12 years. The other recounted the last hours of a doomed freighter and its crew, as they sailed into a hurricane.

But both of these AP stories – by Paisley Dodds and Jason Dearen, respectively – drew extraordinary notice, captivating readers in a busy news week. And in a departure from usual practice, the two contrasting stories, a hard-hitting investigation and a powerful narrative, are being recognized as co-winners of the Beat of the Week.