An AP enterprise team talked to people across the United States to see what nearly unfettered gun rights mean to the rest of their freedoms.Read more
Kansas City’s AP staff was just wrapping up what was supposed to be a day of fun as the city was celebrating the Chiefs’ Super Bowl win with a parade and rally. They were regrouping in the office — and some had family nearby at the parade — when shots rang out.
Photographer Charlie Riedel and video journalist Nick Ingram rushed out the door, while correspondent Heather Hollingsworth tried to confirm what happened. After she alerted that shots had been fired — the first of many alerts on this story — she also raced outside, and days of exhaustive coverage began.
Riedel and stringers sent in photos showing the reality of the shooting’s aftermath — people on stretchers, bloodied and shocked. Ingram went live, interviewing people who were stunned by the violence and gathering background video, or b-roll. Hollingsworth sought out witnesses, while other AP staffers helped from afar, including Oklahoma City correspondent Sean Murphy, who jumped in to help stitch the story together as it was developing.
AP’s coverage was a collaboration across teams and formats for the next several days.
For leaping into a fast-breaking story, supported by colleagues around the United States, Ingram, Hollingsworth and Riedel earn Best of the Week — First Winner.
Hail Mary? Hail Julio. As swarms of players and media surrounded Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce after the Kansas City Chiefs’ AFC championship win, photographer Julio Cortez captured the perfect shot: the couple kissing on the field, Swift’s hand pressed against Kelce’s cheek. It was an intimate moment amid chaos, one that only Cortez — AP’s chief photographer for Texas and Oklahoma, temporarily returned to Baltimore — got. Other outlets made photos of the couple embracing, but Cortez had the singular — and viral — angle.
Before Sunday’s game, the only photos of Swift’s football attendee era were made in tunnels or from afar as she watched in luxury suites. But Cortez knew that if the Chiefs punched their ticket to another Super Bowl, players’ friends and families would end up on the field. With AP’s Matt Slocum, Alex Brandon and Nick Wass in their assigned on-field positions, Cortez called an audible, walking around the stage to find Swift. A believer in being “pushy but professional,” Cortez “sweet-talked” bodyguards to get into unique position. Swift and Kelce’s reunion was, well, swift. As Kelce “gave her the fastest kiss,” Cortez jumped in front of the NFL Films camera, raising his own over a guard’s head. About a minute after the photo was made, photo editor Mike Stewart knew it was the shot of the game, affixing the golden APTOPIX stamp. It was immediately picked up by hundreds, rocketing around the world with usage by customers ranging from The New York Times, People to India’s Hindustan Times and Argentina’s La Voz.
For an image that’s assuredly a first-ballot Hall of Famer, Cortez is Best of the Week — First Winner.
After an Iowa school shooting left two people dead, AP made a records request to find out how much of $75 million dedicated to school security actually went toward that purpose and produced an AP exclusive that showed much of the money has not been spent.Read more
A dash between two of Texas’ biggest cities quickly put AP at the scene of a downtown blast in all formats, coming away with widely used visuals and strong reporting.Read more
AP built a multiformat report to show how Black descendants of formerly enslaved people across the U.S. are losing their historic communities at alarming rates, and what challenges they face to save what’s left of a quickly fading history.Read more
AP spent months sifting through over 1,000 lawsuits to understand how many victims of alleged physical and sexual abuse at New Hampshire’s youth detention center were eligible to have their cases criminally prosecuted, while the state had only taken action on a few.Read more
AP investigated discipline disparities experienced by kids with disabilities and an increase in “emergency petitions” — when a school orders a child to go to the ER for a psychiatric evaluation.Read more
A cross-team collaboration about a dozen years in the making pays off despite threats from a tropical storm and deadly wildfire, resulting in a tale of the widespread devotion to two Catholic saints who cared for patients banished to Hawaii’s leprosy colony.Read more
Through dogged reporting and the extensive use of public records, AP uncovered how an artificial intelligence-powered tool has fallen short of its claim to be a technological revolution for the world of child welfare.Read more
of the democracy team put AP out front on a story about conspiracy theories prompting Republican election officials to defect from a system that combats voter fraud in the U.S.Read more.
Longtime cultivation of a source paid off with the AP getting exclusive access to an important new study that provided insight into how the federal justice system handles terrorism cases.Read more
AP dove into the world of historically Black university bands and football classics to produce two compelling, all-formats features that highlight the significance of the bands and games for Black communities in the United States.Read more
AP was the first national media outlet on the ground in all formats after police raided a small, weekly newspaper in Kansas.Read more
Building on the groundbreaking Missing Students project, the AP’s Education team and a Stanford educational economist analyzed data from before and after the pandemic in 40 states and Washington, D.C., to show the scope of the nation’s crisis in school attendance.Read more
blew away the competition on the prison stabbing of disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar.Read more.
burrowed into the case. Dale chronicled the acrimony on city council. She also dug into a church that Dwumfour was affiliated with.Read more.
partnered for a comprehensive report about proposed rules for trans athletes ahead of a holiday weekend.Read more.
led AP’s efforts to get the fastest and most comprehensive coverage of a federal judge’s hearing questioning the legality of access to medical abortions.Read more.
highlighted a rare area of bipartisan cooperation related to voting laws — the move to restore rights to former felons.Read more.
