Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Experience, source work put AP ahead on NFL virus outbreak

used her sources and experience as the AP’s long-established Tennessee Titans beat writer the keep the AP out front on the week’s biggest NFL story – not on the field but in the lab, as COVID-19 broke out among the Titans. Walker checked in with her well-developed sources on many early mornings to break news on the latest tests and team status updates. She had her name on the NFL mainbar for seven days straight: Working with pro football writer Barry Wilner, she revealed details of test results, team protocol violations, NFL coronavirus protocol changes and threats of punishment to organizations. Here deep knowledge of the Titans enriching her analysis of the situation that postponed the team’s last two games.https://bit.ly/3j1nMImhttps://bit.ly/3iZhGZchttps://bit.ly/3lMnWFu

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Backstage access makes AP a big winner on Grammy night

took advantage of agency exclusive all-formats backstage access at the Grammy Awards, resulting in a wealth of interviews for video, and photo access unmatched by wire service rivals. Isaza, Landrum and Pizzello underwent numerous COVID-19 screenings in the six days leading up to the show in order to gain access. That access came about because of the AP’s decade-plus relationship with the Recording Academy — and a firm stand by AP: Some artists demanded approvals of performance photos, which the AP declined, and some talent said they would only do interviews if certain questions were off limits. Again, no.The AP landed at least 20 video interviews with stars such as Dua Lipa, Da Baby, Miranda Lambert and H.E.R, touching on fashion, racial injustice, their pandemic experiences, the return to performing and more. The biggest wins were photos of Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, both rarely photographed by AP, on their big night. AP was one of four photo outlets onsite and the only photo news wire. Competitive news services were forced to use years-old pictures of the pair, as well as several other stars, with their stories.Isaza produced a behind-the-scenes video feature, and Fekadu’s mainbar — powered by photos from Pizzello and Strauss, and quickly updated thanks to his preparedness — racked up nearly 110,000 pageviews by Monday afternoon. Google listed AP’s story first in searches for Grammys or Beyoncé during the evening. https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP’s ace soccer journalist scores in all formats as protest turns violent at Manchester United

Building on his recent coverage of the collapse of the Super League, AP global soccer writer Rob Harris knew he needed to attend Sunday’s match between two teams that were part of the failed breakaway league — Manchester United and Liverpool — amid rising fan anger at the clubs.

Reporters were prevented from entering the stadium hours before the scheduled kickoff, with most waiting outside the entrance to Old Trafford. But Harris looped around the opposite side of the stadium to get closer to the expected protests.

What followed was a multiformat win. As the the crowd grew unruly, eventually breaking into the stadium and onto the field, lighting flares and lobbing bottles, Harris phoned in text and uploaded video from the melee, including the start of clashes between fans and police. He and a pair of stringers supplemented with photos. On an important day for Premier League coverage, Harris’ video was featured in major networks’ coverage, and AP’s text alert on the postponement of the game beat even Britain’s top agency. 

For all-formats command of his beat under difficult circumstances, and significant wins against the competition, Harris earns AP’s Best of the Week honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Deep AP reporting on NFL’s race-adjusted brain injury settlements

reported that thousands of retired Black professional football players, their families and supporters are demanding an end to the use of “race-norming,” a practice the NFL has insisted on using in the league’s $1 billion brain injury settlement. Black NFL players delivered some 50,000 petitions to a federal court to end the practice.The algorithm used by the NFL assumes Black men start with lower cognitive skills. They must therefore score much lower than whites to show enough mental decline to win an award. The practice went unnoticed until 2018.Dale and Smith recognized that the story extends far beyond sports and money, to discrimination and racial injustice. Their deeply reported story quotes neurology experts who said the practice, sometimes used in medicine as a rough proxy for socioeconomic factors that can affect a person’s health, should not be used in the settlement because it has the effect of systematically discriminating against Black players. The story played widely; CBSN devoted eight minutes to the piece, calling it “a damning report.” https://aplink.news/rcp