for their in-depth look at the culture of abuse at USA Gymnastics. The two spoke with dozens of gymnasts, from lesser-knowns who never made the U.S. Olympic team to the legendary Cathy Rigby. What emerged was a tale of a gymnastics culture rife with verbal, emotional and, sometimes, physical abuse. http://bit.ly/2FcDIHY
for their exclusive investigation into a clerical abuse scandal kept secret for decades at a school that educated members of Argentina’s elite. https://apnews.com/27c405af70a2448ba3c8fa4f23a0852...
for their exclusive reporting showing that in Pope Francis’ home country Argentina, the number of clerics publicly identified as alleged sexual abusers has increased dramatically in the last two years. https://apnews.com/c62e2d5e692d4d33887a928a7d69839...
In addressing its clergy sex abuse crisis, the Catholic church has touted a key reform: independent review boards with lay people.
But an exhaustive investigation by the AP team of Reese Dunklin, Matt Sedensky and Mitch Weiss methodically discredited that claim.
The reporters unearthed dozens of cases nationwide in which review boards rejected complaints from survivors, only to have them later validated by secular authorities. They also found that bishops stacked the boards with their own aides and attorneys. In a few cases, board members were themselves clergy accused of sexual misconduct.
The rock-solid reporting was brought alive by the storytelling, with revealing details down to the pink sweater one board member was knitting while listening to a survivor’s story of abuse.
For their comprehensive investigation into the Catholic church’s deeply flawed system for addressing claims of abuse, Dunklin, Sedensky and Weiss earn this week’s Best of the States award.
joined forces to reveal how religious lobbying across the U.S. has protected a loophole that exempts clergy from reporting child abuse if the abuse is revealed in a spiritual setting. The subject had surfaced in Rezendes’ August investigation into the mishandling and coverup of child sex abuse cases by the Mormon church.The investigative reporters found similar dynamics playing out in all 33 states that have the loophole: The Catholic and Mormon churches, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses successfully defeated more than 130 bills seeking to create or amend child sex abuse reporting laws.AP’s reporting brought attention to the loophole and prompted at least one state lawmaker to say he would introduce a bill to close the exemption.Read more
reported exclusively that the FBI has opened a sweeping probe into sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans, marking a rare federal foray into such a case, looking specifically at whether priests took children across state lines to molest them.Mustian’s scoop, based on law enforcement authorities and others familiar with the probe, marked a major shift in strategy for federal authorities, who have rarely opened investigations into the Catholic clergy abuse scandals, particularly cases built around the Mann Act, a century-old, anti-sex trafficking law that prohibits taking anyone across state lines for illicit sex.Mustian’s detailed reporting found that many of the cases the FBI is probing in New Orleans allege abuse by clergy during out-of-state trips, including to Mississippi camps or amusement parks in Texas and Florida.Read more
Kantele Franko, reporter, Columbus, Ohio; Larry Lage, sports writer, Detroit; and Thomas Peipert, reporter, Denver, for nimble coordination across three regions to secure an all-formats interview with the first athlete – Olympic wrestler Andy Hrovat – to make public accusations of sexual abuse against now-deceased Dr. Robert Anderson of the University of Michigan.https://bit.ly/2HZ8m7Ghttps://bit.ly/2PwPH7j
for teaming up in a new investigation into the disgraced Legion of Christ religious order, revealing that the pope’s own envoy knew about a sex abuse settlement offer that is the subject of an obstruction of justice and extortion trial in Italy. AP scored the first-ever interview with the victim’s mother and obtained her wiretapped conversation with the Vatican cardinal running the Legion who was utterly unfazed that the order wanted to pay her son to lie to prosecutors and deny he had been abused.https://bit.ly/2TftYlihttps://bit.ly/2VpMJVI
for a cross-format, trans-Atlantic exposé of a 30-year cover-up of a horrific case of clergy sexual abuse in Mexico. The pair revealed how the Vatican’s reform of the Legion of Christ had failed, as the papal envoy who ran the Legion starting in 2010 refused to punish or even investigate the abusing priest or the superiors who covered up his crimes, many of whom are still in power and ministry today. https://bit.ly/38NCjmdhttps://bit.ly/2UiftPZ
for reversing the prism to report, in the most candid terms, the internal struggles of Catholic clergy who have lost faith in their leadership and suffer from PTSD. With deeply empathetic coverage, they revealed that some priests are mindful about walking through a park with their collar on, as “some are spat upon.” https://bit.ly/2teJ6pJhttps://bit.ly/2PDzUTr
As allegations of sexual abuse by clergy have proliferated across the Catholic Church, millions of dollars in settlement money has been paid to victims. Some have received as much as $500,000 apiece.
Not La Jarvis D. Love.
At an IHOP in the Mississippi Delta, a white official from the Franciscan religious order offered to pay him just $15,000 to keep years of alleged abuse secret.
“He said if I wanted more, I would have to get a lawyer and have my lawyer call his lawyer,” Love told The Associated Press. “Well, we don’t have lawyers. We felt like we had to take what we could.”
The story, the latest in AP’s investigation into abuse in the Catholic Church, revealed deals struck with two black men for abuse they said happened in grade school that represent far lower amounts than what other clergy abuse survivors have received. It also revealed the men had been asked to sign nondisclosure agreements, which had long been banned by U.S. Catholic leaders.
Despite the challenges, the team – investigative reporter Mike Rezendes, photographer Maye-E-Wong, video journalist Sarah Blake Morgan, digital storytelling producer Samantha Shotzbarger and researcher Randy Herschaft – produced extraordinary work. Herschaft discovered several critical threads that showed an alleged abuser was working with children even after the church had known about one of the men’s allegations.
For their sensitive work on a complex, emotional and previously untold story, the team of Rezendes, Morgan, Wong, Shotzbarger and Herschaft win this week’s Best of the States.
for months of covering the Ohio State sexual misconduct scandal and extensive background preparation that put AP in front when the university’s report on the misconduct was released. It showed at least 177 athletes had been abused by a now-dead team doctor, from the 1970s through the 1990s. https://bit.ly/2wmLZ6l
for being first with the news from a law enforcement source that New York’s attorney general had subpoenaed all eight of the state’s Roman Catholic dioceses in a new investigation into the handling of clergy sex abuse allegations. https://bit.ly/2NFkiQmhttps://bit.ly/2x9iTr3
It was a #MeToo moment from the Vatican with a seemingly unlikely accuser – a nun.
Vatican correspondent Nicole Winfield’s interview with a nun, who broke a 20-year-silence about being physically assaulted by an Italian priest, and reporting by Uganda correspondent Rodney Muhumuza about the scope of abuse in Africa, resulted in the AP being the first news organization to chronicle the global impact on nuns of the #MeToo movement.
Their story, which included expert analysis and exclusive Vatican comment urging nuns to report and bishops to sanction abusive priests, earns the Beat of the Week.
for her harrowing investigation revealing widespread sexual abuses and torture in United Arab Emirates-run prisons in Yemen. https://bit.ly/2tDE0jY
for successfully undertaking the daunting task of pursuing an investigation into sexual abuse. Gannon persevered for months to get interviews with children, families and top officials, and was able to show how sexual abuse is pervasive in Pakistan's extensive system of Islamic schools. http://bit.ly/2jhebR7
for their searing look at the sexual abuse of young women and girls by UN peacekeepers in Congo and their quest for justice years later. Paisley Dodds, investigative reporter, London, Krista Larson, West Africa bureau chief, Dakar, Andy Drake, senior producer, Rabat, and Al-Hadji Kudra Maliro, reporter, Mavivi, Congo, for their searing look at the sexual abuse of young women and girls by UN peacekeepers in Congo and their quest for justice years later. http://bit.ly/2fwVk2I
for accompanying Filipino police on a raid that exposed the relatively new and rapidly spreading crime of Webcam child sex abuse. https://apnews.com/74b81f79e9024124a1cfe43a0ce9eec...
It’s one of the most important lessons of investigative journalism: One good story can lead to another. Don’t give up after the first round. Keep digging.
That’s what Mitch Weiss of the national investigative team did after his explosive first story on the Word of Faith Fellowship. His follow-up story earns the Beat of the Week.
It took Weiss many months to persuade 43 former members of the Fellowship to open up – on the record and identified – with stories of adults and children being slapped, punched, choked and slammed to the floor in the name of the Lord. But getting so many of the reluctant ex-congregants to talk was only the start of his journalistic journey.
This story begins in 2014, when five members of Word of Faith Fellowship, an evangelical congregation in western North Carolina, were indicted for beating a young man because they thought he was gay. Mitch Weiss, an investigative reporter based in Charlotte, reached out to the man, Matthew Fenner, who told a harrowing tale.
For Weiss, that conversation was the beginning of a nearly two-year quest to tell the story of Word of Faith and its controlling leader, Jane Whaley, a 77-year-old petite former math teacher with a thick Southern accent. Working alongside Atlanta-based video journalist Alex Sanz, Weiss eventually pieced together a startling and comprehensive look at a religious community that promised its members peace and prosperity. What they got was violence and abuse, administered in the name of God, former followers told him.
Part one of that series, published this week, wins Best of the States, and there is more to come.
