April 10, 2020

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Pandemic life through the global lens youths’ videos

produced a creative and innovative package that gave young people around the world an opportunity to tell their own stories during the pandemic. Using contacts inside and outside the AP, Irvine asked people, ages 16 to 24, to talk about their experiences and film a bit about their lives. Her story, with the video compilation as the centerpiece, revealed the concerns the subjects have in common, as well as their unique circumstances.https://bit.ly/2JRBkHwhttps://bit.ly/2xeKvif

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Sept. 18, 2020

Best of the Week — First Winner

With fast filing and powerful visuals, AP owns coverage of fires in Greek migrant camp

When an overnight blaze swept through Greece’s biggest refugee camp, AP was quicker and better than the competition, producing cross-format coverage that stood out, even as much of the world media flocked to the chaotic scene. Video coverage was particularly impressive, with spectacular play. 

And when a second round of fires erupted the following night, destroying what was left of the camp and triggering a humanitarian crisis of some 12,000 homeless migrants, AP responded again with unmatched live video, sharp text and powerful photos that virtually swept front pages.

For their quick, competitive response and extraordinary performance to put AP well ahead, the team of Petros Giannakouris, Derek Gatopoulos, Theodora Tongas, Thanassis Stavrakis, Panagiotis Balaskas, Iliana Mier, Vangelis Papantonis, Elena Becatoros and Nicholas Paphitis shares Best of the Week honors.

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Aug. 16, 2019

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Former classmates say Ohio shooter kept a 'hit list' and a 'rape list'

for reporting that the gunman in the Dayton, Ohio, shooting that killed nine people had significant red flags in his background.Following up on a thinly sourced local news report that Ohio shooter Connor Betts had a hit list in high school, Biesecker and Dunklin began calling dozens of former classmates, particularly those who may have had a chance of knowing Betts well. They struck paydirt with a former track teammate and a classmate who gave firsthand accounts of knowing not only about the hit list of people Betts wanted to kill, but also a rape list of girls he wanted to sexually assault. Both students had knowledge of separate high school suspensions of Betts, and with help from Smyth and others on the ground in Dayton, AP found more people who could confirm the accounts. https://bit.ly/2YIUEQg

Oct. 23, 2020

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Data, reporting reveal millions exposed to wildfire pollution

used government air pollution data, academic studies and interviews to report exclusively that the western wildfires exposed at least 38 million people in five states to unhealthy levels of smoke, causing emergency room visits to spike and potentially thousands of deaths among the elderly and infirm. The all-formats package included the experience of an Oregon woman whose smoke-triggered asthma attacks twice sent her to the emergency room.https://bit.ly/34hvDgShttps://bit.ly/3m6yeR0

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Sept. 10, 2021

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Distinctive reporting gives voice to fastest-growing US county

upended stereotypes with a deeply textured, intimate examination of a North Dakota community transformed by sudden growth.As part of the AP's ongoing coverage of the 2020 Census, Montana-based Brown went to McKenzie County, North Dakota — the center of the western oil boom and the fastest-growing county in the U.S. — to examine the impact of dramatic growth on a sleepy community on the western prairie. He charted the growth through the eyes of the people, from the old-timers who remembered riding horses through fields now lined with housing developments and oil wells, to newcomers finding their way into the fabric of the community.The story that emerged in Brown’s evocative words and photos came as something of a counternarrative to preconceived notions about how divided Americans are from one another. As revealed in graphics by Francois Duckett, a significant portion of McKenzie County’s newcomers are Hispanic, but many of those Brown interviewed described being embraced by the locals: the new restaurant owner helped along by customers who responded during the pandemic, or a transplanted family touched by the small-town charm of friendly faces saying hello in the grocery store.Brown’s nuanced reporting and writing gave his story a compelling narrative arc and showed the value of going to see firsthand what happens when a community is confronted with dramatic growth. https://aplink.news/bea

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Feb. 24, 2023

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP team documents growth of landmines’ hidden toll in Myanmar

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.

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Sept. 01, 2016

Best of the States

A distinctive retelling of a shocking tragedy

As nurse practitioners, Sister Margaret Held and Sister Paula Merrill played a pivotal role in the lives of many people in rural Holmes County, Mississippi, which with 44 percent of its residents living in poverty ranks as the seventh-poorest county in America, according to the Census Bureau.

So when the two Roman Catholic nuns were found stabbed to death in the home they shared, the news devastated friends and families, as well as the many people who came to rely on the pair for critical, life-saving medical care.

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March 11, 2022

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Only on AP: Mexico cartel extermination site yields haunting clues

built trust with investigators, gaining exclusive all-formats access to a gruesome cartel “extermination site” in northern Mexico where a forensics team searches for the remains of some of Mexico’s nearly 100,000 missing people. After six months of work at the site in Nuevo Laredo, investigators still can’t offer an estimate of how many people disappeared there. Countless bone fragments were spread across 75,000 square feet of desert scrubland, and in a single room of a ruined house, the compacted, burnt human remains and debris were nearly 2 feet deep. Read more

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