Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP investigation: Toxic chemicals lie beneath Fort Ord

spent a year investigating the possible health effects of groundwater and soil contamination under Fort Ord, a decommissioned U.S. Army base on the central California coast. A tip led AP to a Facebook group of hundreds of soldiers who had lived at the base and developed rare forms of cancer they believe were caused by contamination.The complex, all-formats story included in-depth interviews with those likely suffering health consequences of exposure at the base, which is on the Environmental Protection Agency’s list of the most polluted places in the nation. The team revealed a discredited 25-year-old study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found no “likely” risk at the site, and documents showing the Army knew toxic chemicals had been improperly dumped at Fort Ord for decades, but took pains not to let that information become public. Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP probes a pharmaceutical fortune, dispersed in a global labyrinth

Amid reports of an opioid settlement, an investigation shows the myriad ways that the Sackler family which owns Purdue Pharma in a web of companies and trusts, many of them overseas.Adam Geller, national writer, New York. Geller reviewed court papers, securities filings and documents leaked from an exclusive Bermuda law firm. He found that the family has shielded its wealth in ways that could complicate efforts to recover the money in opioid settlements.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/familys-web-makes-it-hard-to-track-cash-from-opioid-maker/2019/08/29/80d4f43e-ca99-11e9-9615-8f1a32962e04_story.html

Best of the States

AP Exclusive: Texas biker accused of killing man who was shot by police

In the three years since the deadliest biker shooting in U.S. history, Fort Worth correspondent Emily Schmall has meticulously gathered documents, reports and court records to put together a spreadsheet that integrates autopsy reports, firearms analyses and ballistics evidence, including the names and serial numbers of the weapons, to whom they were traced, where they were recovered from and whether they were linked to a death or injury.

Her work paid off last week when prosecutors handed down the first murder charges in the case. Schmall was able to exclusively report that prosecutors had charged one of the bikers for murdering a man who was shot twice by a SWAT officer.

For persistent, investigative reporting that exclusively illuminated potential problems with a shifting strategy in a closely-watched case, Schmall wins this week’s Best of the States.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

San Juan reporter gets all-formats Fort Lauderdale shooting scoop

for scoring an exclusive interview with the brother of the gunman in the deadly Fort Lauderdale airport shootings, in which he said U.S. authorities knew about the gunman’s mental state: http://www.lfpress.com/2017/01/06/airport-shooting...

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Indian farmers storm Red Fort; AP visuals stand out

braved tear gas and sword-wielding Sikh protesters to capture dramatic live video and stunning images of angry and defiant farmers storming the iconic Red Fort as India celebrated its Republic Day. Farmers have been protesting for months over new agriculture laws, and AP reacted quickly when a group of farmers on tractors deviated from an orderly parade, breaking through barricades to storm the city’s emblematic 17th century landmark.Amid aggressive threats by protesters, the photographers and video journalists recorded the dramatic breach of the fort, a profoundly symbolic challenge to the Hindu-nationalist government. AP was live with video at key points and captured the extraordinary turn of events as protesters scaled the walls and hoisted a Sikh religious flag from the fort ramparts. In a sudden escalation, Ganguly was roughed up by an unruly mob, his camera cards snatched as outnumbered police watched. With the situation spiraling out of control the team was pulled out to ensure their safety.Despite the enormous challenges, AP had better competitive coverage thanks to preparation, smart coordination and decision making on the fly. We offered outstanding visuals, including faster video edits to our customers, and updates showing police trying to clear protesters from the fort.https://bit.ly/2YJx5Fphttps://bit.ly/36LpgU2https://bit.ly/3cH0Z5lhttps://bit.ly/2YIdm8U

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP analysis: FEMA rejects appeals worth $1.2B over a decade

for a review that found that hundreds of communities and organizations over the past decade got far less money for disaster relief than they were told to expect.http://bit.ly/2ymdgsbhttp://bit.ly/2zyW7sM

Best of the Week — First Winner

Race and Ethnicity team explores question: ‘What is a black life worth?’

In the course of covering protests and a memorial service for George Floyd in Minneapolis, AP race and ethnicity writer Aaron Morrison started thinking about other cases that began over minor offenses and ended with a black person dying. Morrison visited the scene where Floyd took his last breaths, talked to members of Floyd’s family and interviewed protesters with this question in mind: 

What is a black life worth? 

AP video journalist Noreen Nasir, also in the Twin Cities, was picking up on the same theme in her own reporting. Joined by New York-based photographer Bebeto Matthews, the team took a deep and unflinching look the at the circumstances behind Floyd’s death, and what many see as a pivotal moment in the struggle against institutional racism. Their story led the AP News site, was featured at the launch of the Facebook’s News Feed and was widely used by AP members. 

For sharp reporting and analysis that cast George Floyd’s killing in light of systemic issues of race inequality, Morrison, Nasir and Matthews win AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Justice produces new texts from Mueller agents – but can’t find five months’ worth

for breaking the news that the Justice Department and FBI were missing five months’ worth of text messages from an agent who had been removed from Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. http://bit.ly/2E8GCNl

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Was $350 million experiment to replace lawns amid drought worth the cost?

for calculating that California water agencies spent more than $350 million to pay property owners to remove lawns during historic drought and assessing the program’s success. http://lat.ms/2fFjTKu

Best of the Week — First Winner

Money madness: AP analyzes, how much is that NCAA berth worth?

It’s no secret that the NCAA college basketball tournament is big business. But just how big, and how has the pie been divided?

The New York-based team of college sports reporter Ralph Russo and data journalist Larry Fenn took on that reporting and accounting challenge, making AP the first news organization to document who received more than $3 billion in March Madness payouts over two decades.

Complicating their task was the fact that the NCAA referred to payments with a complex “unit” formula, while 32 different athletic conferences had their own rules for distributing the funds back to schools. Russo peppered the NCAA with questions, ultimately getting detailed numbers back to 1997. Fenn parsed tournament results to quantify wins and bids that qualified for payment under the system.

The work led to several stories by Russo and his colleagues in Sports detailing the money side of the annual tournament, including diminishing shares for smaller conferences, an explainer on the system itself and the value of the final invitations to the field. Fenn also collaborated on a data distribution for members doing their own stories focused on individual schools, as well as a robust interactive.

The AP-exclusive stories drew extensive play in the heat of March Madness, showcasing the power of AP when we think ambitiously and outside the box, even around annual events already in the glare of the media spotlight. For their outstanding work, Russo and Fenn win AP’s Best of the Week.

Best of the States

Was California's $350 million experiment to replace lawns amid drought worth the cost?

In drought-stricken California, the state and dozens of water agencies embarked upon a unique social experiment: try to break the love affair with the lawn by paying residents to rip out their turf and replace it with less thirsty landscaping. San Francisco-based environment reporter Ellen Knickmeyer, who has been covering the state’s historic five-year drought, decided to dig into the water-saving strategy and determine whether it was worth the cost.

Best of the States

Only on AP: Death of ‘hood CNN’ video pioneer exposes gangland reporting risks

There’s always a better story behind a statistic.

Chicago’s homicide rate is one of the worst in the United States. By digging into one drive-by shooting, Chicago-based legal affairs reporter Michael Tarm and Houston-based video journalist John Mone found out how one victim’s life had inspired a generation of gang territory storytellers.

Telling it took a lot of sourcework.

Tarm had already been working on a story about social media and gangs, and he’d watched a few of Zack Stoner’s reports on Chicago street gangs and rappers on his ZackTV1 YouTube channel. When reports surfaced that Stoner was gunned down, Tarm began to look deeper, stumbling across a wider story – about a new brand of gutsy gangland reporters in Chicago and elsewhere who have avid followers on YouTube.

Getting access to the storytellers was tough, but eventually the name of Texas-based reporter Shawn Cotton emerged. Cotton was eager to discuss Stoner, his impact on the genre and the effect his killing had on him and others. Mone rode along with Cotton to the Meadow Brook subdivision in Fort Worth, dubbed “Murder Brook” by some of the kids on the street where Cotton filmed.

The multi-platform work played prominently with impressive reader engagement.

For relentless sourcework to show how a generation of storytellers is impacting its communities, Tarm and Mone win this week’s Best of the States.

Best of the States

Tenacious source work leads to national newsbreak on census fraud

The on-the-record accounts from two census workers were stunning: Under pressure from supervisors amid the Trump administration’s push to bring the census to an end, they were encouraged to falsify records in the 2020 headcount.

Whom did they reveal this to? Not surprisingly, they spoke to Mike Schneider, AP’s authority on the census, who leveraged months of source development and reporting to break the story. Posted just an hour before the presidential race was called for former Vice President Joe Biden, the story still broke through with strong play and reader engagement.

For keeping the AP ahead in a critical coverage area with a terrific scoop, Schneider wins this week’s Best of the States award.

Best of the Week — First Winner

From migrants to COVID, Morenatti delivers a week of outstanding images

Rarely does a Best of the Week award to go to a single AP journalist for work on a variety of stories. But the consistent excellence in the images of Barcelona-based Emilio Morenatti – on stories large and small – moved the judges to make an exception. 

He started the week with a powerful story on migrants crossing a treacherous stretch of the Atlantic to the Canary Islands. And he finished with a remarkable set of photos on a COVID-19 patient, wheeled in his hospital bed to a promenade on the Barcelona waterfront. In between those stories he covered soccer star Lionel Messi’s spat with Barcelona, daily life and more.   

Each of his assignments reflected the highest standards of visual journalism and a level of emotional investment that few can match, earning Morenatti AP’s Best of the Week accolade.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Viral photo captures mood, fears, threats in pandemic-dominated 2020

For many in the U.S. and around the world, 2020 has been one of the most challenging years in recent memory – and a single wildfire photo by freelance photographer Noah Berger, on assignment for the AP, captured the danger, fear and uncertainty wrought by the pandemic. 

The ironic image of a sign, surrounded by flames while urging safety, was widely interpreted as a pointed commentary on 2020. The photo went viral and was among AP’s most downloaded images of the month.

And that was just one of many photos and videos by Berger that helped put the AP ahead of the competition in recent coverage of fires in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

For his courageous and committed work, and a remarkable photo that frames much of 2020 in the context of a raging wildfire, Noah Berger wins AP’s Best of the Week award. 

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Sourcing, hustle put AP far ahead with story of Israel-UAE ties

dominated from the start with fast, comprehensive and nuanced reporting on the diplomatic ties initiated between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Lee had a heads-up that the deal was in the offing hours ahead of the announcement and obtained a copy of the forthcoming statement. That gave Federman and Gambrell time to prewrite a story and an alert ahead of the anticipated tweet from President Donald Trump. When Trump’s tweet duly landed, AP’s NewsAlert moved a minute later, just before White House reporters entered the Oval Office. And another minute later, a 1,000-word, triple-byline story hit the wire. Meanwhile AP broadcast colleagues, also alerted, were well ahead of the competition with coverage of developments and reaction from Middle East points. https://bit.ly/3ha2J6i

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP uses sourcing, deep reporting to break news of Madoff death

teamed up to break the news of the prison death of Bernie Madoff, the pair delivering a deeply reported obituary on the notorious Ponzi-schemer whose massive securities swindle wiped out people’s fortunes and ruined charities.Washington-based Justice Department reporter Balsamo called his editor Colleen Long early last Wednesday, calmly asking, “Hey, I’m driving. Can you help me with something? Bernie Madoff is dead.” Balsamo’s deep network of sources had tipped him off, and within minutes an alert moved, followed by a short story. Balsamo and New York reporter Hays worked to fill out the story, Hays layering it with details gleaned from experience covering Madoff and his trial. AP was ahead of the competition by 25 minutes to an hour, and many major outlets — including ABC, CBS and Fox — relied on the AP pair’s quick, exclusive reporting.https://bit.ly/3sGlP9mhttps://apnews.com/hub/bernard-madoff

Best of the States

AP all-formats team delivers stunning coverage of Portland protests

When the arrival of militarized federal agents in Portland, Oregon, escalated tensions in the state’s largest city – energizing the racial justice movement and inflaming protests outside the federal courthouse – AP’s all-formats coverage shined all week. 

The AP team, often at risk themselves, delivered a steady stream of breaking news developments, searing images of nightly clashes involving lasers, fires, homemade bombs and tear gas, as well as exclusive coverage from inside the courthouse.

For a week’s worth of powerful, revealing stories and startling images that provided insight into the events in Portland, the team of Flaccus, Berger, Sanchez, Ranen, Balsamo, Selsky, Cline and Fauria wins AP’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Persistence pays off with story of bureaucrat blocking transition

wanted to know more about Emily Murphy, the little-known federal official who stalled the formal presidential transition by waiting more than two weeks to “ascertain” that Joe Biden was the apparent winner of the presidential race.Madhani reached out to every recent administrator of Muphy’s agency — the General Services Administration — as well as some lawmakers Murphy had worked for, but he wasn’t having any luck. His 10th call, a fortuitous cold call to Dave Barram, who ran the GSA during the Bush-Gore standoff in 2000, proved to be the jackpot. Madhani found Barram’s number in an online database.Barram revealed that he’d spoken with Murphy before the election to talk through how to handle ascertainment. He laid out his advice to her: “If you do the right thing, then all you have to do is live with the consequences of it.’”The call with Barram didn’t occur until late in the day, but Madhani instantly knew he had a story. He worked late to turn it around for AP’s most reader-engaged story of the day. https://bit.ly/32YG5ZQ

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP exclusive leads to release of migrant kids held in US hotels for deportation

Earmarked for deportation, the immigrant children, some mere toddlers, were parked in nondescript hotels – out of sight and, the Trump administration thought, out of mind.  But not out of reach of an Associated Press exclusive.

With an investigation based on source work, court records and witness accounts, immigration reporter Nomaan Merchant exposed how the Trump administration held children in hotels despite federal anti-trafficking laws and court rulings that mandate child-appropriate facilities.

Merchant’s exclusive sparked outrage and accusations of child abuse. Five days later, the Trump administration said it would not expel 17 people, including children, detained at one Texas hotel, and the hotels pledged to stop allowing the practice.

For his investigative story that punctured layers of secrecy and changed the fortunes of all-but-invisible immigrant children, Merchant wins AP’s Best of the Week award.