for breaking the news that China is banning the powerful and deadly synthetic opioid carfentanil, the latest in a series of AP beats detailing China’s role in the U.S. opioid epidemic. http://apne.ws/2kAwWgG
for being first to state that North Korea has done its first simulated nuclear strike on an American military base and to report out analysts’ views on Pyongyang’s aims and strategy for conducting the drill. http://apne.ws/2rk4qVT
When The Associated Press last year started to look into the issue of sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeepers, one finding was a leaked investigative report detailing how a group of 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers preyed upon young Haitian children in a sex ring that lasted for three years. Beyond that was another startling find: The U.N. accepted a Sri Lankan general who was accused of being a war criminal to lead the investigation of another rape in the Caribbean country.
AP’s Katy Daigle traveled to Sri Lanka to score a rare, extended interview with Maj. Gen. Jagath Dias and question him about his role – and to press government and military officials on how they'd followed up on the allegations. In London, meanwhile, investigative reporter Paisley Dodds was tipped by sources to a State Department memo on the WikiLeaks site in which a former U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka raised concerns that that country’s military and government were complicit in war crimes during the 26-year civil war.
Their disclosures earn the Beat of the Week.
for digging into campaign finance records to reveal how the liquor industry contributes to powerful politicians in the state, who in turn protect an arcane system of laws about who can sell beer and even how cold or warm it is. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/mid...
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.
Baton Rouge-based reporter Michael Kunzelman was reporting on the police killing of a black man outside a convenience store last summer when a source called to encourage him to look into a case in front of a federal judge that had been mysteriously reassigned. It wasn’t the easiest time to be chasing down tips: the Alton Sterling shooting was swiftly followed by the killings of three law enforcement officials and then catastrophic flooding in Louisiana’s capital.
But Kunzelman didn’t forget about it.
When he was free, he began an investigation into the performance of U.S. District Judge Patricia Minaldi, work that would take months and aggressive use of public records. It culminated with the discovery last week she’d been ordered to seek treatment for alcoholism so severe that a colleague believed she couldn’t take care of herself. For his work Kunzelman wins this week’s Best of the States award.
for a detailed examination of one of Thailand's most notorious criminal cases, revealing that the Red Bull heir accused in a fatal hit-and-run has been living the high life around the world since shortly after the crash four years ago. The story served as fresh evidence for critics of Thailand's court system who say the rich and powerful get their own form of justice. http://apne.ws/2p9EMAM
AP Richmond reporter Sarah Rankin learned from a state lawmaker that Chinese coal ash was being imported into Virginia, despite millions of tons of ash already stored near power plants, threatening surface and ground water with contamination by heavy metals. Like other states, Virginia is struggling with how to dispose of its existing waste.
Her story pinpointed where the overseas ash was coming from: China, India and Poland over the past two years. While the foreign shipments of the industrial byproduct were moving through Virginia to Wisconsin and Ohio, interviews with concrete producers and coal ash recyclers and sellers showed more ash was being imported into Virginia from other states.
One environmentalist raised the irony of the situation: "We have millions of tons of this sitting along our riverbanks. Why in the world would we be importing it from other states and countries?"
For exposing a problematic industry practice with statewide environmental and health implications, Rankin's story wins this week's Best of the States.
Amazing things can come out of political demonstrations – and sometimes, they have nothing to do with politics. Miami-based video journalist Josh Replogle was covering a protest by about 3,000 people outside Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach when a colleague pointed out a striking woman wearing a Cleveland Indians hat. That, he was told, was Casey Anthony – once acquitted in the murder of her 2-year-old daughter in a case that became an international obsession.
Replogle did a quick Google search to confirm that this was, indeed, the woman once dubbed “the most hated mom in America.” He then obtained the first in-depth interviews with her since she was accused, an accomplishment that earns him the Beat of the Week.
After eight years on the White House beat, AP’s Julie Pace is a leader among correspondents in fighting for access to the president and his advisers, and over those years she routinely has resisted any efforts to exclude the press unreasonably from news events or obscure the president’s schedule.
On Friday, she recognized instantly that what was happening at the White House was anything but routine: a first-in-memory, invitation-only daily briefing by the presidential press secretary from which other news organizations were excluded. Her spot-on instinct to walk out put The Associated Press at the forefront of the fight for access and openness.
Pace’s quick decision reverberated across Washington and the country – and earns the Beat of the Week.
for their report about the ease with which one can buy the powerful opioid carfentanil online and have it sent all over the world from Chinese companies. http://apne.ws/2dzBMs0
A face transplant: It’s one of the rarest of surgeries, a medically complex, emotionally fraught procedure – and a challenge to cover as a truly revealing news story and not just a sensational headline.
That’s why AP National Writer Sharon Cohen’s narrative of the first face transplant performed at the renowned Mayo Clinic was so remarkable, combining detailed reporting on state-of-the-art medical science with a unique tragedy-to-triumph human story. The narrative, Andy’s New Face, which engaged readers and commanded front pages for days after its release, earns the Beat of the Week.
San Diego correspondent Elliot Spagat was on his way to the office when a two-word message landed in his inbox from a longtime source: “Morgan resigned.”
Spagat knew what it meant -- Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan was out of his job after just seven months. Spagat had seen this coming because the powerful union representing border agents had endorsed Trump and did not like Morgan.
But more was needed to go to the wire with the breaking news. He went back to the tipster to get details and permission to use the source in a story. He also immediately enlisted homeland security reporter Alicia Caldwell in Washington.
Remember these images from the Inauguration: The new first couple dancing across a giant presidential seal at a ball? Faces in the crowd cheering or crying in the rain? The instant when Donald Trump took in the scene through an opening door before stepping onto the podium to become the 45th U.S. president?
Credit for those signature images, which appeared across the globe almost as they happened, goes to the skill and artistry of a hand-picked team of AP photographers and photo editors – and also to the cutting-edge, behind-the-scenes efforts of AP technicians working hand-in-hand with them to cover the intensely competitive event.
Their extraordinary work, a stream of 2,000 photos sent from daybreak until well after midnight, earns the Beat of the Week.
In the course of source-building in early 2016, northeastern Pennsylvania correspondent Michael Rubinkam had lunch with a local lawyer. The lawyer mentioned that a member of the U.S. attorney's office had lost a son to heroin but had never spoken publicly about it.
Intrigued, Rubinkam asked the lawyer to approach the then-assistant prosecutor, Bruce Brandler, about an interview. Rubinkam had been looking for fresh ways to write about the scourge of heroin, and saw the prosecutor’s story as a powerful new example of how no family is immune.
But Brandler, he learned, was adamantly against going public with his family’s – and his son’s – story. It was too painful.
On his way home, AP photographer Burhan Ozbilici stopped at the opening of a photo exhibit at Ankara’s Contemporary Arts Center. The Russian ambassador to Turkey was to speak, and Ozbilici figured the AP could use images of the envoy for its archives.
Shockingly, Ozbilici instead found himself a witness to an assassination. With cool head and steady hands, he documented the killing of Ambassador Andrei Karlov, capturing some of the most astonishing images of this or any other year. His photo of the raging gunman _ one hand holding the gun, the other pointed to the ceiling, his lifeless victim on the floor _ would appear on countless front pages and broadcasts and websites. Within hours, it was seen by some 18 million people on Facebook alone.
Even in a year of remarkable work by AP staffers, Ozbilici’s photos and actions were extraordinary _ and richly deserving of the final Beat of the Week award of 2016.
for using scientific sources and data to reveal that the world energy system has already locked in enough carbon emissions in existing power plants and transportation to blow the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. The story, written from the site of one of Europe's dirtiest coal power plants, was accompanied by Michael Sohn photos and a video edited and scripted by Stockholm videojournalist David Keyton using footage from Germany, Sweden and California. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/current...
for putting together an exclusive virtual reality tour of the Navy's next-generation nuclear aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, as it prepares for launch at Newport News Shipyard in Virginia.
http://bit.ly/2fQuZek
The Philippine defense secretary said it, and many major papers and news agencies ran with it.
China, the cabinet official said, had pulled its coast guard vessels out of Scarborough Shoal, a chain of reefs in the South China Sea that's at the center of a territorial dispute between Manila and Beijing. It appeared an astonishing diplomatic victory for new President Rodrigo Duterte just days after he visited China.
To Jim Gomez, AP's chief correspondent in Manila, it all seemed a bit too remarkable _ and he pushed officials to back up their claim. Within days, they clarified: Chinese vessels had not left the disputed reef, but had allowed in Filipino fishermen who had been denied access for years.
The story resulting from Gomez' persistent questioning debunked a key government claim and earns the Beat of the Week.
The tragic stories pop up frequently in local media: a curious toddler gets hold of a gun and accidentally shoots himself or someone else. But how often does that happen? Under what circumstances? And what children are most at risk?
In a new investigative partnership, a team of reporters from the AP and USA TODAY Network spent six months seeking answers to those questions and others about accidental shootings involving minors. What they discovered is horrifying: A child dies every other day of an accidental shooting in the United States. What's more, the federal government significantly undercounts the problem.
