Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP investigation reveals why a SEAL unit was pulled out of Iraq

relied on strong document work and deep sourcing to report exclusively on the reason a Navy SEAL unit sent to fight ISIS was abruptly pulled out of Iraq last year without explanation. The Navy gave few details, but the monthslong investigation by LaPorta and Watson revealed that female intelligence staffers deployed with a platoon of SEAL Team 7 said they were constantly ogled and sexually harassed during their time in the country. The pair tracked down a female sailor who was deployed with the SEALs who had reported the allegations and who agreed to be quoted on the record in an exclusive interview. The reporting, which began with a Freedom of Information Act request, also uncovered a previously unknown allegation of sexual misconduct against the SEAL platoon chief. https://bit.ly/3gHgpod

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Exposing the truth behind those fearsome robots on YouTube

for digging into the story of a secretive, military-funded robotics company in the Boston suburbs known for its somewhat frightening YouTube videos of animal-like robots. https://bit.ly/2sYv9ZU

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP data analysis finds poor mail delivery in battleground states

revealed that Postal Service districts across the nation are missing the agency’s own standards for on-time delivery as tens of millions of Americans prepare to vote by mail – and the lag times are especially pronounced in key regions of some battleground states.Postal Service delivery times, some of them obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, indicate that the district covering Detroit and the eastern third of Michigan, the part of the state that is being most heavily contested politically, has the worst on-time delivery in the nation. Regions of Ohio and Pennsylvania show similar underperformance. In fact, the data showed that no Postal Service region is meeting the agency’s target of delivering more than 95% of first-class mail within five days. https://bit.ly/2GecGlX

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reveals Louisiana budget surplus as agencies slash spending

for digging into financial reports showing that Louisiana lawmakers slashed spending across state services and described budget struggles even though they had built up an undisclosed $85 million surplus in legislative agencies. https://bit.ly/2BCzAxV

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reveals Russian efforts on coronavirus disinformation

used months of source work to put AP ahead of other news outlets with the news that Russian intelligence officers were using English-language websites to spread disinformation on the coronavirus. The story was significant in revealing the specific websites that U.S. officials said were disseminating false narratives to Western audiences, and because it disclosed the identities of military intelligence officials believed to be behind the effort. https://bit.ly/2EZb6DH

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Sources: Anger, anxiety circulating in White House COVID zone

leveraged longstanding professional relationships to reveal fear and anger rampant among household workers and Secret Service agents working in the coronavirus hot zone of the White House.The story was challenging to report because personnel knew their jobs could be in jeopardy, but the AP team reached out to a broad range of sources and contacts to piece together a compelling story about the anxiety and antagonism pulsing through the White House. While competitors took smaller bites of the apple, the AP story wove together rich details about the workers’ worries and the lack of guidance from White House officials, as well as historical context stretching back to the flu pandemic of 1918.The morning after the story ran, former first lady Michelle Obama posted a tweet seemingly tailored to AP’s piece, voicing support for those working in the White House. And days later the story still had sky-high reader engagement. https://bit.ly/314XRt6

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

With masks and gloves, Ukraine’s priests resume duties

teamed up for a deeply reported story on priests in Ukraine resuming religious services and visiting the sick and bereaved as the coronavirus pandemic’s grip slowly recedes.https://bit.ly/3gRBoGmhttps://bit.ly/3gURDT8

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reporting leads to fine for Missouri governor over donor list

for showing that Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens failed to report that his campaign obtained a donor list from a charity he had founded to help military veterans. Greitens was fined as a result of the story. http://apne.ws/2pL697T

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reveals the fate of former Venezuelan spymaster ‘El Pollo’

for scoring exclusive insight into the fate of Maj. Gen. Hugo Carvajal, the man who had been the eyes and ears of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in the country's military, using reporting from three continents. https://bit.ly/2ksPXIa

Best of the Week — First Winner

Stories of lives lost, told with photos: 2 remarkable projects share Best of the Week

As the COVID-19 pandemic raged across the world last week, and the confirmed U.S. death toll approached 100,000, AP photographers on two continents found unusual and meaningful ways to bring home the tragedy of lives lost. They were:

– Photographer David Goldman, who met with the families of COVID-19 victims at a Massachusetts soldiers’ home, literally projecting veterans’ images onto the exterior of the families’ homes for a series of arresting, ghostly and emotion-laden scenes.

– And Rodrigo Abd, who spent weeks with Venezuelan migrants collecting bodies in a poor area of Lima, Peru, showing the abject desperation of that city’s victims. Also honored is Lima reporter Franklin Briceño who accompanied Abd, documenting for text and video the funeral home workers on their grueling rounds.

Both projects had immense impact online and in print, drawing praise from readers and editors. For intrepid and creative multiformat storytelling emphasized by unforgettable images, Goldman, Abd and Briceño share AP’s Best of the Week honors. 

Best of the Week — First Winner

Mind-blowing exclusive: Security troops on US nuclear base took LSD

After five years exposing the struggles of the U.S. Air Force’s nuclear missile corps – security lapses, leadership and training failures, morale problems – Bob Burns uncovered an exclusive that was mind-blowing in every sense of the word: Airmen guarding a base in Wyoming had bought, distributed and used LSD.

Burns, a Washington-based national security writer, knew from his previous reporting on the missile corps that illegal drug use was a recurring problem and that the Air Force was reluctant to discuss it.

When the court martial proceedings began in 2016 he started filing FOIA requests for the transcripts and supporting legal documents. It took the Air Force well over a year to finish responding to Burns’ requests, but by January 2018 he had the bulk of the records he needed to piece together the story, including trial transcripts and related documents, with descriptions of drug experiences of airmen, ranging from panic to euphoria.

For his extraordinary revelation that some of the nation’s most deadly weapons were in the hands of hallucinating airmen, Burns takes this week's Beat of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Illinois budget fiasco created void in domestic violence funds

for reporting exclusively that Illinois officials had eliminated funding for domestic violence programs and then failed to inform service providers for more than five months, forcing many organizations to abruptly cut staff and other resources. http://trib.in/2lQ9rkL

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Federal agency plans ferry to dock next to Kushner resort

for exclusively revealing plans by an agency of Transportation Department to build a pier and start a ferry service that would dramatically increase the value of a New Jersey waterfront resort co-owned by Jared Kushner, whose family was coordinating the project with town officials as recently as months ago. http://hrld.us/2pn1qbB

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Bus driver, still on payroll a year after fatal student accident, finally fired

for taking advantage of the new AP Secure Drop service where readers can leave tips and reporting that a city bus driver was still on the payroll one year after he had killed an 18-year-old Iowa State University student in a hit-and-run accident; the driver was fired after AP’s inquiries.

http://bit.ly/2gCcqMg

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Health chief charged with manslaughter in Flint lead-water crisis

for breaking the news that the state Health and Human Services director was being charged with manslaughter in a death attributed to the Flint lead-water crisis. http://trib.in/2t0F2b2

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Docs detail government damage of Trail of Tears

for revealing that part of the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail had been damaged by the Forest Service, which two years earlier had touted the purchase of the property as a way to protect land considered sacred by native Americans. http://bit.ly/2d45rLg

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: Gov’t questions unfair student loan practices

for obtaining an Education Department document showing that student loan servicer Navient put borrowers in costly repayment plans without telling them about potentially less expensive options. The exclusive was picked up in several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and made the front page of the New York Daily News. Navient’s stock fell more than 10 percent after Ken’s story was published, forcing the CEO to issue a letter to shareholders. One analyst firm, ValuAct, downgraded the stock following the story. https://bit.ly/2KmOnQv

Best of the States

Strong source work nets APNewsBreak in self-driving car showdown between Uber and Calif. officials

Los Angeles reporter Justin Pritchard has made the fledgling “autonomous vehicle” industry a sub-beat and has developed sourcing that has produced a number of significant beats for AP. When he heard Uber would begin picking up San Francisco passengers in its self-driving cars, he saw a confrontation brewing with California regulators and the opportunity for another scoop.

Uber had decided not to abide by a requirement to get a permit before starting its service in its hometown. Uber’s aggressive approach in San Francisco crashed a delicately crafted regulatory truce _ the 20 other companies testing prototypes on public roads applied for the permit before hitting the streets, and agreed to report crashes and other safety metrics.

The cars Uber was bringing to San Francisco seemed just the kind that would need a permit, but the leader of Uber’s self-driving program ­_ Anthony Levandowski _told Pritchard in an interview the day before the launch that they didn’t. He argued that because a person was behind the wheel to monitor the car, it was not advanced enough to need a permit.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Vivid detail, compelling visuals showcase aftermath of Northern California earthquake

delivered compelling text, photos and video that depicted the chaos and sense of community spirit that followed a magnitude 6.4 earthquake in a remote stretch of rural Northern California, putting strong all formats coverage on the wire despite issues with cell service and internet. Beam and Vasquez were awoken by early morning phone calls from editors to head far north in the aftermath of a 6.4-magnitude earthquake that rocked Northern California.Read more.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reveals details of Eritrean atrocities in Tigray region

reported the first detailed account of crimes being committed by Eritrean military forces within Ethiopia’s isolated Tigray region. Journalists following the crisis in the defiant region have struggled to find credible eyewitness accounts of the Eritreans’ presence. But the relentless work by Anna, AP’s East African correspondent based in Kenya, finally paid off: A source put her in touch with a woman, normally a resident of Colorado, who, while on a trip to Ethiopia, witnessed Eritrean troops and their crimes firsthand in the remote village where her mother lives. Anna was able to draw out shocking details of the killing of children, mass graves and the looting of homes.The story, widely used by AP clients, was hailed as the first to document Eritrean activity in Tigray. Anna followed up with a second scoop in which the U.S. State Department called for all Eritrean forces to leave Tigray immediately, citing “credible reports” of atrocities.https://bit.ly/3rqiyuehttps://bit.ly/3cOrDsKhttps://bit.ly/3jeRRpK