Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Unique, enterprising video stories win Tour de France viewers

for a series of nearly 20 videos from the Tour de France, using iPhone and GoPro to create short-form, customer-ready products. The videos drove traffic to their comprehensive text coverage of the race itself as well as “Taste of the Tour,” their daily series of entertaining, informative and entirely exclusive cross-format stories exploring the people, places, cuisine and hidden tales in the regions crossed by the Tour. They shot video and interviews in the early morning, before starting long days covering each stage, then edited their video stories in the car as they drove hundreds of miles to the stage finish, where they then leapt back into race coverage. On Twitter alone, the video series racked up close to 300,000 views, more than covering the pair’s modest wine tab.https://bit.ly/2yvemQshttps://bit.ly/2Ktu58Dhttps://bit.ly/2SUr7O2https://bit.ly/2K9dvMihttps://bit.ly/2YvHXbj

Best of the Week — First Winner

Years of source work in Texas leads to power narrative enterprise story

Jake Bleiberg spent years reporting on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, including an investigation in September into the dropped cases. That story caught the attention of Irma Reyes, a South Texas mother, who reached out to Bleiberg to say that something similar was probably about to happen in the cases of two men charged with sex trafficking her daughter. Bleiberg checked sources and records and then headed to court, where he and Eric Gay witnessed Reyes’s worst fears come to pass.    

The resulting story became the most engaged story of the week on APNews. It also received extensive play across Texas and national media outlets, and won praise from elected officials critical of Paxton, as well as from prosecutors, and even a lawyer for one of the men accused in the case.    

For their compelling all-formats narrative story that put a human face on the dysfunction in Texas that led prosecutors to drop human trafficking and child sexual abuse cases, writer Jake Bleiberg, photographer Eric Gay and video journalist Lekan Oyekanmi are the first winners of this week’s Best of the Week award. 

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

All-formats exclusives examine Japan tsunami, 10 years on

produced a string of visually driven exclusives to feed global curiosity about how Japan has fared a decade after one of history’s worst tragedies — the massive earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown that upended the lives of millions in 2011.Nuga and Hoshiko spent time on the battered northeastern coast while Yamaguchi, Tanaka and Komae made their way into the area around the Fukushima nuclear plant. The trips produced compelling before-and-after images of the wreckage, and all-formats vignettes of the lives of the survivors with explainers, galleries, videos and exclusive stories. Among the highlights were the moving story of a man who learned to dive so he could search, week after week, for for the remains of his wife, and gripping visual essays of the still-scarred landscape of northeast Japan, the eerie no-go zones near the nuclear plant and a hotel that has done weekly bus tours for hundreds of thousands of visitors interested in seeing the ravaged landscape. AP’s video showing was particularly strong, including footage of people symbolically searching the beach for bodies of the missing and quick live views of commemorative ceremonies across the country.https://bit.ly/3vBYckXhttps://bit.ly/38ONuxMhttps://bit.ly/2Q62S20https://bit.ly/3f1zFjthttps://bit.ly/3vyESEVhttps://bit.ly/3ttHTVm

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP scores on live video coverage as Argentines erupt in joy after epic World Cup final

used impeccable planning to achieve the live shot and photos that gave the world a historic look as Argentines erupted in joy after their team’s World Cup final win.

A weeklong preparation of navigating a never-ending barrage of obstacles to ensure a live-shot position with connectivity that would overcome a raft of challenges paid off as we offered a live with an elevated view over the gathered multitudes in central Buenos Aires.Read more.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reveals constitutional challenge to ’Big Lie’ candidates

landed a scoop with impact: Voting reform groups were preparing constitutional challenges against the candidacy of GOP members of Congress who supported the Jan. 6 uprising or attempts to overturn President Joe Biden’s win.Just days after the Jan. 6 anniversary, Robertson, AP Raleigh, North Carolina, statehouse reporter, received a tip from an advocacy group that its first target would be Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., challenging his candidacy in 2022 by citing a portion of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, originally used to bar Confederates who took up arms during the Civil War. Other members of Congress who have supported efforts to overturn the 2020 election would be subject to similar challenges.Robertson conducted interviews and used his connections with a former state Supreme Court attorney to ensure he got immediate word of the complaint being filed with the State Board of Elections. His story, written in advance, moved within minutes of the confirmation, quickly amassing an impressive 176,000 social media views. It was credited in media outlets from Raleigh’s News & Observer to People magazine, and was cited in a Washington Post opinion piece.The story drew more attention after a producer for ”The Rachel Maddow Show“ emailed it to a colleague while accidentally copying Cawthorn’s office, prompting the conservative congressman to lash out at MSNBC. https://aplink.news/8xa

Best of the States

Inside the reopening debate: Local school boards face ‘impossible’ decisions

With school districts nationwide wrestling with tough decisions on reopening amid the pandemic, South Carolina reporter Jeffrey Collins wanted to show that process at work.

When several districts rebuffed his efforts at behind-the-scene access, Collins took another approach. He started reporting by watching a school board’s meetings online, taking voluminous notes. Demonstrating a thorough understanding of what the district was facing, he was finally granted in-person access to the district’s meetings and discussions for a revealing all-formats package. 

For finding a way to delve into a local school board’s deliberations, and providing insight into conversations happening nationally, Collins wins this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Sourcing, teamwork yields major scoop on CDC’s mask rollback

scooped the competition by a full hour, reporting the news that so many celebrated: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was revising its guidance to allow fully vaccinated people to ditch their masks in most indoor and outdoor settings.The seed for the story came from an unlikely source: Washington-based Balsamo covers the Justice Department for AP but he’s always keeping an ear out for big news, no matter the subject. Balsamo was checking in with a very good source about another matter when the person mentioned as an aside, “Hey, the CDC is going to say something today.”That was enough to pique Balsamo’s interest, and he quietly messaged reporter Zeke Miller, who has dominated the coronavirus beat at the White House. They teamed up, working sources and exchanging information until they had all the details. Then they quickly turned around an alert and filed the breaking news, building out the story with help from science writer Lauran Neergaard.Their scoop broke during White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s daily briefing, but she refused to confirm it, saying only that the CDC would speak at a briefing later. The story swept play as other news outlets scrambled to match it; the piece was AP’s top story, attracting nearly 639,000 page views. https://aplink.news/ce3

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Fast, nimble response puts AP far ahead on major Beirut fire

delivered fast, outstanding coverage as a major fire broke out at Beirut’s port, site of last month’s massive explosion.Ammar was nearby when the fire broke out and within minutes was streaming live video using the Bambuser app. Malla and Tawil also rushed to the scene, Malla shooting stills and sending direct to AP’s Middle East photo desk from his camera while Tawil set up a second live shot. AP was streaming live video for more than an hour before a competitive agency had its live shot up.AP’s video edits were also superior and much faster than the opposition, running quick edits of the fire, helicopters dropping water and two powerful edits shot with a drone, captured by Malla, who deftly switched between his camera and operating his drone to capture aerial photos and videos.And thanks to Ammar’s early response, AP’s news alert moved at least 20 minutes ahead of other major news outlets, further cementing the competitive advantage.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Resourceful post-hurricane reporting yields exclusives on Louisiana oil spills

As Hurricane Ida slammed into Louisiana — launching strong AP coverage that would stretch from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast — Washington-based investigative reporter Michael Biesecker contacted federal and state officials who kept telling him they had no confirmed reports of oil or chemical spills along the coast.

But Biesecker’s inspection of aerial photos by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told a different story. He found a worrying miles-long oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico off the region’s main oil and gas port, and another sheen coming from a massive oil refinery along the Mississippi River.

His persistence led to a series of exclusives on the two oil spills, including the news that divers had identified a broken undersea pipeline as the apparent source of the offshore slick.

For smart reporting that put AP ahead of the competition — and even ahead of the government and energy companies themselves — on an important environmental story in the wake of Ida, Biesecker is AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP connects palm oil industry, top brands to abuse of women

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

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Reporter’s flight gains attitude as pilot uses ‘coded crudity’

was taking some much-deserved time off for a trip with her mom. But a good reporter and good timing came together for a very good story.The ultimate news hook fell out of the sky, almost literally, as she flew from Houston to Albuquerque. The Southwest Airlines captain signed off his greeting to passengers with the “Let’s Go Brandon” phrase that is a right-wing euphemism for an expletive against President Joe Biden.Coincidentally, Long — with contributions from fellow AP Washington reporters Aamer Madhani, Mary Clare Jalonick, Brian Slodysko and Will Weissert, and Jenna Fryer in Charlotte, North Carolina — had been working on an explainer about the origin of the phrase, which she coined a “coded crudity.” The pilot’s announcement was the perfect peg. She immediately sent an update to her story back to the Washington bureau and emailed the airline for comment. Then, as she departed the plane, she asked permission to knock on the cockpit door and speak with the pilot. She was firmly instructed by flight attendants to exit the plane.Long’s story, laying out how the phrase began at a NASCAR race and had become part of insult culture, was the most-read on apnews.com with more than a million page views, and the Southwest angle featured prominently on Twitter, amplifying the story. The piece also generated follow-up stories by major news outlets, many citing Long's eye-witness account. Southwest initiated an investigation of the incident and denounced the pilot’s conduct.https://aplink.news/r1zhttps://aplink.video/yy9

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

A week at war: AP resets with spot, enterprise Ukraine exclusives

delivered must-read, must-watch stories, adding new layers of depth to AP’s already pacesetting journalism as the Russian invasion of Ukraine grinds into its fifth month.AP journalists in the region, seeking to dispel the notion voiced by Western leaders that global audiences are beginning to experience “war fatigue,” recognized the need for a shift in focus from increasingly incremental developments. They pivoted swiftly to impactful big-picture views of the conflict, all while ensuring competitive coverage of major spot news.Ranging from analysis of the war’s shifting front lines to essential multiformat reporting on longer-term repercussions — the legacy of land mines, the plight of Ukrainian youth, the effect on global food security, among others — and including exclusive video and photos from front-line positions, the AP provided clients and readers with an exceptional body of work over the course of seven days.Read more

Best of the States

Only on AP: Death of ‘hood CNN’ video pioneer exposes gangland reporting risks

There’s always a better story behind a statistic.

Chicago’s homicide rate is one of the worst in the United States. By digging into one drive-by shooting, Chicago-based legal affairs reporter Michael Tarm and Houston-based video journalist John Mone found out how one victim’s life had inspired a generation of gang territory storytellers.

Telling it took a lot of sourcework.

Tarm had already been working on a story about social media and gangs, and he’d watched a few of Zack Stoner’s reports on Chicago street gangs and rappers on his ZackTV1 YouTube channel. When reports surfaced that Stoner was gunned down, Tarm began to look deeper, stumbling across a wider story – about a new brand of gutsy gangland reporters in Chicago and elsewhere who have avid followers on YouTube.

Getting access to the storytellers was tough, but eventually the name of Texas-based reporter Shawn Cotton emerged. Cotton was eager to discuss Stoner, his impact on the genre and the effect his killing had on him and others. Mone rode along with Cotton to the Meadow Brook subdivision in Fort Worth, dubbed “Murder Brook” by some of the kids on the street where Cotton filmed.

The multi-platform work played prominently with impressive reader engagement.

For relentless sourcework to show how a generation of storytellers is impacting its communities, Tarm and Mone win this week’s Best of the States.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP team dominates with stories, photos from Biden’s secret visit to Ukraine

dominated with lightning fast and in-depth stories and exclusive photos from President Joe Biden’s secret trip to Ukraine. Read more.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: Wind energy, golden eagles collide in US West

collaborated on an exclusive all-formats package that revealed how the booming development of clean energy from wind turbines threatens the preservation of iconic golden eagles in the U.S. West. Brown, a veteran environmental reporter, used sourcing, records searches and interviews, finding scientists concerned that collisions with turbine blades could lead to decline of golden eagle populations which thrive on the same open, windy landscapes preferred by wind energy developers.To document the plight of the birds and efforts to preserve them, Brown and video journalist Tobin traveled to remote northern Wyoming, where scientists rappelled down rock faces in their study of the eagles, producing strong visuals to accompany the engaging and deeply reported text story.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Dramatic photos show how storms changed California's drought

offered a compelling look at how recent storms transformed California from being in a state of drought to flush with water.Read more.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP shocks world with first word of death of ‘Black Panther’ star Chadwick Boseman

AP entertainment video manager Ryan Pearson had interviewed Chadwick Boseman eight times since 2013. He knew the actor and his work well, and he’d worked closely with the actor’s publicist and her company. 

That’s why the publicist’s first media call after Boseman’s death was to Pearson and the AP – she wanted the story reported by a responsible news organization. Another outlet, she worried, was getting close. 

Pearson immediately alerted colleagues and set out to write an obituary that shocked the world. The AP staff in turn responded with comprehensive all-formats coverage, the story quickly becoming the biggest of the month on AP News and mobile.

For source and beat development that led to a tip on perhaps the biggest entertainment story of the year, and delivered a stream of important work for AP’s customers and audience, Pearson wins AP’s Best of the Week.

Best of the States

Be Prepared: Source work, planning deliver top coverage of Scouts’ bankruptcy

David Crary heard from his legal sources that something big was coming for the Boy Scouts of America, which has been besieged by sexual abuse lawsuits: a bankruptcy filing.

Weeks before the paperwork was filed, Crary, who has been covering the organization for 20 years, set into motion plans to ensure the AP was well-covered. When the Scouts’ filing finally came out late on a holiday, his sharply written prep had the story on the wire within minutes, explaining the gravity of the filing and the reasons behind it.

AP journalists around the country pitched in, including Brady McCombs who gathered reaction from Scouts and local councils, spinning it into an engaging follow-up, and correspondent Randall Chase who attended the Scouts’ first bankruptcy hearing in a Delaware court. Their efforts were rewarded with outstanding play.

For their careful planning and flawless execution of coverage of the Scouts’ bankruptcy filing, Crary, McCombs and Chase win this week’s Best of the States award.

Best of the Week — First Winner

With sourcing, preparedness, AP breaks news on death of pioneering actress Cicely Tyson

AP national writer Hillel Italie took a call Thursday evening from a longtime source with an unexpected tip: Groundbreaking actress Cicely Tyson, known for her roles playing strong, fiercely dignified Black women, was dead. 

Italie set off to get the news on the wire quickly, while also alerting colleagues. That included entertainment writer Mark Kennedy who had met Tyson years earlier. Kennedy had decided that when the time came, the AP obituary would have to capture the breadth and achievement of her life and career. And he had prepared just that.

The AP story moved at least 15 minutes before other outlets, earning more than 265,000 page views and front page headlines.

Celebrity obituaries are intensely competitive; Italie and Kennedy kept AP well in front, through source work, commitment and solid preparation. For that, they win AP’s Best of the Week award.

Best of the States

Teamwork and drone visuals lead coverage after tornadoes rip western Ohio

There’s a real difference between straight aerial photography and the bird’s-eye view that AP’s audience had of the destruction after a series of tornados touched down in western Ohio late on Memorial Day. Using a drone, Cincinnati photographer John Minchillo and video journalist Angie Wang provided those images from a rare perspective – both still photos and video – showing residents coping with the wreckage and sorting through their gutted homes.

The resulting video coverage was our overall top U.S. video story for the week, and Minchillo’s still photos were widely played, including front pages of the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Two of his photos appeared in NBC’s The Week in Pictures.

From small details to sweeping landscapes of destruction, their dedication, teamwork and speed of delivery make John Minchillo and Angie Wang this week’s Best of the States winners.