for using sources and their own personal experience to show how the devastating Detroit riots in 1967 changed lives and the city. http://trib.in/2tHrZYi
for being first to report that a judge signed an order in a closed meeting with defense lawyers and prosecutors overturning the conviction of a Detroit man who had been imprisoned for 25 years because of false ballistics evidence. https://yhoo.it/2qofUWW
for revealing that Detroit would be by far the toughest city to count, based on AP’s exclusive data analysis of the difficulties facing the U.S. Census Bureau in 2020. The team’s multiformat package explained why the city in transition poses such a formidable challenge. https://bit.ly/2EsNGmDhttps://bit.ly/2Z73k0D
AP uncovered how police failed to prevent DeAngelo Martin, a Detroit serial killer, from murdering four women and raping two others.Read more
When BuzzFeed broke the news that the longest-serving current U.S. House member had settled a sexual harassment complaint, one notable thing missing was comment from U.S. Rep. John Conyers himself. The 88-year-old Conyers rarely gives interviews anymore, deferring to his staff to issue statements or simply not responding.
Congress was on Thanksgiving break, but News Editor Roger Schneider suggested that video journalist Mike Householder and reporter Corey Williams drop by Conyers’ Detroit home. They knew it was a long shot – Corey and Mike had been to Conyers’ house before, and knew it was gated.
To their surprise, Conyers answered their ring.
Conyers answered a few questions, giving Williams and Householder a major beat: He denied settling sexual harassment claims and other allegations of inappropriate touching of staffers.
For aggressive reporting that paid off with an exclusive on one of the week’s top stories, Williams and Householder share this week’s Best of the States prize.
for inquiring about consumer complaints to Ford Motor Co. of carbon monoxide fumes in its Explorer SUVs. Ford shortly after offered to fix the problem. http://bit.ly/2x6aTFZ
Race and Ethnicity team contributors pitched a story about what union membership has meant to generations of Black families within days of United Auto Workers’ announcement that members would walk off the job at a Ford plant in Michigan.Read more
delivered a bold, smart story exploring how this pivotal presidential election became a referendum on the future of race relations in America.Stafford, a race and ethnicity journalist, gathered a range of local and national voices to examine how the U.S. is being forced to confront systemic racism in an election year in which the coronavirus pandemic, economic uncertainty and police brutality have converged. One of those voices was that of Omari Barksdale, a Black man who was impacted by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. And more personally, he lost his sister to COVID. Detroit photographer Sancya met with Barksdale and captured him in strong portraits that complemented the text story.Stafford also landed interviews with some notable national figures, including civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton who said the “soul of the nation” was “at risk.” https://bit.ly/3p4Kwf5
for uncovering the government's mounting complaints against ARC Automotive Inc. He discovered the scoop while digging through routine filings by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; they detailed the company's stonewalling and refusal to cooperate with a U.S. investigation into a fatal air bag death that could affect 8 million other cars. http://apne.ws/2en0EIO
for reporting Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk is cranking out Model 3 electric cars faster than ever, but that a soon-to-expire $7,500 federal tax credit could cost the company potential buyers, some of whom have been patiently waiting for their cars for two years. https://bit.ly/2LMaa3T
for reporting first that General Motors quietly asked the government for permission to avoid a recall of potentially deadly Tanaka air bags. Avoiding a recall could save GM $1 billion. http://bit.ly/2Bygs5c
coordinated with colleagues around the AP to track how many police officers were getting sick with the coronavirus. Documented with exclusive nationwide data and illustrated with photos from multiple datelines, the result was a richly reported and deeply researched story on how police departments are struggling to manage the growing tally of sick officers, which rose from a few dozen to nearly 700 in a week - including Detroit’s chief of police. https://bit.ly/39vzdmY
worked sources on Stafford’s newly expanded beat to land an exclusive on the launch of a climate justice campaign.The effort by the group Donors of Color Network would shift millions in funding toward environmental and justice groups led by Black Americans, other people of color and Indigenous people and came on the heels of President Joe Biden pledging to make environmental justice central to the fight against climate change. Stafford, AP investigative race writer, brought the story to life by taking readers on a tour of neighborhoods in Detroit’s 48217 ZIP code, where residents live against the backdrop of heavy industrial sites that have long been a major concern in the nation’s largest Black-majority city. Baltimore-based photographer Julio Cortez’s photos of Donors of Color co-founder Ashindi Maxton, the story’s lead character, rounded out the package. https://bit.ly/3d4zfaP
Aretha Franklin always had a soft spot for The Associated Press; over the years, she would seek out global Entertainment Editor Nekesa Mumbi Moody to chat – “We spoke when she was working on new music, or about an upcoming performance (like when she sang for the pope in 2015) or even her fitness plan and weight loss,” Moody recalled. Music editor Mesfin Fekadu, too, had interviewed Franklin, and witnessed her last public performance last November.
So when the Queen of Soul was in her last days, her people knew who to call. The result: Fekadu was so far ahead with Franklin’s death that that the news was widely attributed to the AP, even by at least one major competitor. His news break is the Beat of the Week.
While there is little dispute that Black voters pushed Joe Biden into the presidential winner's column, AP wanted to know: How big of a factor were they?
Race and ethnicity writers Kat Stafford and Aaron Morrison began reporting on what Black voters said they wanted Biden to deliver once in office. Using the voices they collected as the foundation of the story, Stafford and Morrison teamed with data journalist Angeliki Kastanis and polling journalist Hannah Fingerhut, who infused the piece with data and voter survey findings that bolstered the anecdotes with hard numbers.
Their collaboration put the AP days ahead of other news organizations’ pieces on Black voters’ support of Biden. For resourceful and insightful reporting and analysis on a major factor in the 2020 election, the team of Stafford, Morrison, Kastanis and Fingerhut wins this week’s Best of the States award.
The farewell to the Queen of Soul promised to be an extravaganza – days of tributes, musical performances and a marathon funeral.
The AP team diligently prepared for the events and when the time came, the combined efforts of Detroit-based photographer Paul Sancya and Miami-based visual journalist Josh Replogle turned a pair of pool opportunities into two exclusives during the week of mourning for Aretha Franklin in Detroit.
Among the highlights: Sancya’s shot of Franklin lying in her casket with red heels clearly visible, video and photos of the singer in her final resting place and an exclusive interview with a controversial pastor.
Their work earns the Beat of the Week.
delivered an all-formats package based on the first joint interview with #MeToo founder Tarana Burke and the organization’s new CEO Dani Ayers. They told Stafford that the movement’s original intent was to focus on marginalized voices and experiences, and that people have failed to acknowledge that the #MeToo movement was started and led by Black women and people of color.The multiformat project included Ruark’s portraits of Burke in Baltimore, and Bazemore’s images of Ayers in Atlanta. New York video producer Vanessa Alvarez created a video piece from the interview and file footage of some key #MeToo moments.https://bit.ly/35drj1ihttps://bit.ly/2FQQyhu
looked beyond the COVID-19 data to deliver a heartbreaking, intimate portrait of Detroit, one of the cities hardest hit by the pandemic. Stafford tapped into her deep knowledge of her hometown while also fulfilling AP’s mission to document inequality, showing that the grief is just part of what Detroit is facing – it is also dealing with economic uncertainty. https://bit.ly/3b6z9uR
for finding data from six automakers buried in a government website that allowed AP to earn a two-hour beat on a critical set of recalls involving 1.7 million Takata air bags. Krisher found the news after he acted on a tip. https://bit.ly/2TQGFlw
for reporting first that Michigan’s top education official decided to back away from issuing A-to-F letter grades for each public school in the state. http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/lo…