for her story showing how a group of now 5-year-old children, evacuated as newborns from a hospital flooded by Superstorm Sandy, retain mementos of the storm in their birthday celebrations, keepsake boxes, and even their names. https://apnews.com/7c68599a9f51430ba5d25d1326cbfed...
teamed up to act on a tip about an Angelina Jolie court filing in her divorce from actor Brad Pitt, revealing new details and providing a rare look into one of Hollywood's highest profile divorces, which has been kept mostly secret due to the actors’ use of a private judge.Using a combination of source work and court research, the AP pair reported that Jolie has sought to disqualify the judge who is deciding child custody in the case, saying in her filing that he refused to allow the couple’s children to testify, declining to hear evidence relevant to the children’s safety and well-being before issuing a tentative ruling. The documents don’t elaborate on what that evidence may be.The story was was widely credited to AP by outlets like Page 6, People magazine, Vanity Fair and more. https://bit.ly/3vSYvHM
Photographer Jae Hong wanted to tell the story of the nurses on the front lines of the battle against coronavirus. Not just the long, stressful hours caring for patients, but the fear they carry home of spreading the virus to their own families.
Hong found a Los Angeles-area hospital that would grant access to the COVID unit, then he and reporter Stefanie Dazio spent hours getting to know the nurses and asking to meet them at their homes for interviews and photos.
The result was an intimate, beautifully rendered look at the nurses, their dedication and their sacrifices. The story included a nurse who is a new mom, comforting a patient’s family as the man took his last breaths.
For a poignant and revealing look at nurses’ commitment to both their patients and their families during the pandemic, Hong and Dazio share this week’s Best of the States award.
took readers inside an already-full COVID intensive care unit in Marseille as the French city became Europe’s latest virus hotspot. Cole’s single-handed multiformat reporting delivered the first visual documentation that France’s resurgent infections aren't just numbers, but people struggling to survive.Cole showed both the drama of COVID intensive care and the daily reality for its staff amid this new wave – and the personal touch of a nurse who took the time to brush a patient’s hair and moisturize her skin.The impact was immediate – the story saw immense use across Europe in all formats, as well as international markets.https://bit.ly/2FHO7NThttps://bit.ly/32y0WDo
for a public records request that revealed a state agency director quietly signed a deal that let a health care provider keep $2.4 million in mistaken overpayments, avoiding a politically embarrassing situation amid the governor's tight race for re-election. https://bit.ly/2Pt8JIM
scooped North Dakota media by revealing just how extensively — and expensively — a state senator had traveled on the taxpayer’s dime.MacPherson obtained documents showing that Republican Sen. Ray Holmberg, who recently announced he would end his 46-year-career following a report that he had traded scores of text messages with a man jailed on child pornography charges, had run up more than 14 times the average travel expenses for the state’s lawmakers over the past decade, on trips that included China, Puerto Rico and New Orleans.Read more
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.
teamed up on reporting from both sides of the border as AP took readers through the harrowing journey of a group of childhood friends on a fun trip to Mexico that ended up in kidnapping and death.Read more.
It was the answer to the question everyone was asking, about the biggest story in the world. Just how many children had been separated from their parents at the U.S. border as a result of the Trump administration’s new zero-tolerance immigration policy?
Colleen Long, newly arrived on her Washington beat, got the hugely important scoop, beating all of her seasoned competitors with that very number: nearly 2,000.
Long had just moved to the nation’s capital after more than a decade covering law enforcement in New York, assigned to the Department of Homeland Security. She went right to work grilling sources – anybody she could find.
After speaking to some two dozen people, Long hit pay dirt. A source called and said, “I'm going to give you a big scoop.”
The information put AP more than an hour ahead with the news that, at that point, nearly 2,000 children had been forcibly removed from their families at the border over a six-week period. Long’s competitors – including reporters who have been covering the beat for years – had to wait for the numbers to be released on a conference call later in the day.
For determined, aggressive reporting that yielded a huge payoff, Long wins the Beat of the Week award.
for leading all-formats coverage of the synagogue shooting in Poway, California. AP’s photos led in the hometown paper, and Taxin was able to interview a child survivor in her home.https://bit.ly/2V3kQE3https://bit.ly/2VyQ8Cihttps://bit.ly/2H1gfK5
put AP ahead with the first report that the federal government would use the Dallas convention center to temporarily house up to 3,000 migrant teens amid a scramble for space as more unaccompanied children arrive at the U.S. border.Houston-based immigration reporter Merchant had been looking into whether the federal government would open additional detention facilities for unaccompanied children straining the immigration system at the border when he fielded the tip: It’s going to be in Dallas and it’s going to be big. While on the phone, Merchant passed the information to Dallas colleague Bleiberg, who got a source to provide a memo sent to Dallas City Council members. The story was so far ahead of the curve that White House press secretary Jen Psaki indicated she was unfamiliar with the plan when an AP reporter asked her about it in a briefing. The story was used by U.S. networks as well as local TV and radio stations across Texas.https://bit.ly/3roccvn
for a heart-tugging, all-formats package about how businesses across Providence blink their lights off and on each night to say "goodnight" to the gravely ill patients at Hasbro Children's Hospital. http://bit.ly/2dynhX4
for looking into Jeffrey Epstein’s charitable giving since his 2008 plea deal that required him to register as a sex offender, finding that he sought to underwrite all manner of causes for children, including an all-girls school near his Manhattan town house. https://bit.ly/2SkoaWG
The AP designated coverage of the Roman Catholic Church and its handling of sexual misconduct as a major focus in 2019, exploring myriad facets of the church’s greatest credibility crisis since the Reformation. That focus carried through the past two weeks, with three strong stories delving into various aspects of the church’s handling of abuse accusations:
– Reporter Claudia Lauer and data journalist Meghan Hoyer showed definitively that the church has failed to be fully forthcoming about the number of clergy members credibly accused of child sexual abuse.
– Investigative reporter Michael Rezendes broke the news about a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by one of Mother Teresa’s key confidants.
– Global religion editor Gary Fields, photographer Maye-E Wong and reporter Juliet Linderman delved into how, almost without exception, the church does not track the number of minorities who have been victimized by predator priests.
For illuminating work that further deepens AP’s “Reckoning” reporting on the Catholic church, Lauer, Hoyer, Rezendes, Huh, Fields, Wong and Linderman share this week’s Best of the States award.
for finding a new angle on the 9/11 anniversary, reporting on people who were so shaken after the 2001 attacks that they decided to move from the New York and Washington areas. They included a man who moved his family to Florida, only to see his children live through the Parkland school shooting. https://bit.ly/2PT14En
for carefully piecing together, over the course of a year, a riveting saga about a small-town Arizona publisher who said his estranged wife tried to poison him. He then used his newspapers to publicly shame her even after law enforcement had cleared her and raised questions about his possible use of illegal drugs. https://bit.ly/2PLcz09
elevated coverage of a Tennessee nurse’s trial by reporting the larger implications of the woman’s conviction for accidentally administering the wrong medication to a patient who subsequently died.Other news outlets focused their coverage solely on the trial of RaDonda Vaught, on trial for giving a patient at Vanderbilt University Medical Center a medication that proved fatal, but Loller realized the case’s potential impact on health care workers and how they respond to mistakes. Her enterprising reporting, including exclusive details from an interview with the convicted nurse, resulted in an evocative, beautifully written story that resonated with readers.Read more
were the first to piece together video, records and interviews for an in-depth, multiformat story outlining how a Black teen in Kansas ended up in foster care and died at a juvenile intake center after being restrained on his stomach for 40 minutes.AP had written previously about the death of Cedric “C.J.” Lofton, but Kansas City reporter Hollingsworth sensed a backstory waiting to be told. Her exhaustive reporting and Sheridan’s revealing video tell the story of a troubled youth and the disturbing confluence of events and decisions leading to his death.Read more
applied unmatched beat knowledge and meticulous preparation to score a major beat on the Supreme Court’s 7-2 ruling that left the entire Affordable Care Act intact. Sherman was so quick that he had a virtual exclusive on the closely watched case, with AP's mobile push alert moving a stunning 19 minutes ahead of major competition.The foundation of his success was Sherman’s encyclopedic knowledge of both the court and the case. He covered the original 2012 challenge to Obamacare and had a full understanding of the options in the current case. That expertise helped him anticipate that the Court was heading toward preserving the law, based on the tone and questions of the case’s November hearing. In the end, Sherman would not only predict the outcome, but according to Jessica Gresko, his highly respected partner in Supreme Court coverage, he even predicted who would write the majority opinion.But Sherman had thoroughly prepared for every possible ruling. In his own words: “We developed a range of possible outcomes based on the issues under consideration by the Court: standing, constitutionality of the penalty-free mandate, severability. We talked to lawyers and experts on both sides. We drafted and revised alerts and leads for each option: No standing, mandate constitutional, mandate unconstitutional but rest of law stands and mandate unconstitutional and rest of law falls.” In the lead-up to the ruling he also worked with White House news editor Nancy Benac and developed background material with health care reporter Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar to quickly fill out the story regardless of outcome.It all paid off on Thursday with Sherman’s standout coverage putting AP far out front on the intensely competitive story.https://aplink.news/337https://aplink.video/3c7
The AP team in London had been preparing its coverage of Prince Philip’s death for years to ensure when the moment came, everyone would be ready. That exceptional planning laid the foundation for lightning handling and a major win when Philip passed on Friday.
The preparation included multiple revisions of the main obituaries, filing plans for all formats and a strategy for how the newsroom and editorial support teams would communicate to customers. It all paid off on Friday when AP picked up rumors of Philip’s death. U.K. news director Susie Blann confirmed with her sources and immediately let the wider team know. When official word came via email from the palace, the all-formats coverage team of more than 25 individuals in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States was poised for action.
From the Flash alert two minutes after the email confirmation, AP was incredibly fast with the news: text, photos, live and edited video, all tailored to customers who depend on and expect this coverage when it matters.
For exceptional, nearly flawless performance across the AP on one of the biggest stories thus far this year, Susie Blann, Martin Cleaver, Bridget Jones, Anne Marie Belgrave, Samira Becirovic, Jill Lawless, Naomi Koppel, Danica Kirka, Sarah DiLorenzo and the international royal coverage team earn AP’s Best of the Week honors.
