July 10, 2020

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Documenting migrant workers amid virus spike in Spain

reacted quickly to a developing story, delivering a deep, all-formats look into the plight of migrant fruit harvesters facing a coronavirus outbreak while already struggling to find work in northern Spain.AP was out first with multiformat coverage of the migrants as Spanish authorities announced that the spike in infection was forcing a lockdown in the region, Spain’s first area under restrictions since the nationwide lockdown was lifted two weeks ago. https://bit.ly/2Z5KuZ6

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Dec. 04, 2020

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP captures the essential work of Spain’s mortuary workers

produced a powerful set of images that captures the grim but essential work of mortuary workers collecting the bodies of COVID-19 victims from hospitals, nursing homes and private residences in Spain. Since the pandemic began in the spring, Morenatti has recorded the impact of the coronavirus on Spain with moving and sometimes jarring photo packages from spaces not often open to journalists: hospitals, funeral parlors and even private homes. While the images may shock, Morenatti consistently documents his subjects with sensitivity and respect. His latest package is no exception.After weeks of trying, Morenatti managed to embed with the Barcelona mortuary workers. His photos, accompanied by colleague Joe Wilson’s text, revealed the important work done by people in a profession that rarely makes headlines, and also captured the emotional toll on the workers. One image from a nursing home showed workers in protective suits removing the body of an elderly COVID victim as another resident slept in an adjacent bed. The images played widely, including the front-page of Spain’s leading daily, El Pais, and made The Guardian’s “20 Photographs of the Week.”https://bit.ly/36yJvVdhttps://bit.ly/36BFfnM

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May 13, 2022

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

All-formats package: Environmental workers facing violence

teamed up to vividly illustrate why environmental work is emerging as one of the world’s most dangerous professions, as seen through the lens of one such worker in Haiti. In 2020 alone, a record 227 environmental workers were killed globally, according to one human rights organization.Daniel reported from New York while Haiti video journalist Luxama and his colleague, photographer Joseph, followed marine biologist Jean Wiener during a rare trip to his native Haiti. Wiener has been forced to do most of his conservation work from afar because of rampant violence in his homeland.With tight collaboration between AP departments and bureaus, the compelling package of text and visuals transports readers to the ominously named Massacre River as Wiener confronts climate change in a poor nation hit hard by global warming — and violence.Read more

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June 26, 2020

Best of the States

Frontline health care workers face the emotional toll taken by the virus

As the coronavirus pandemic enters a new phase in a reopening nation, its psychological toll is sinking in for the frontline workers who have cared for the sickest patients. 

Writer Jennifer Peltz, video journalists Robert Bumsted and Ted Shaffrey, and photographer John Minchillo  went into New York City hospitals to see the impact in person, in real time and on the record. They interviewed health care workers and spent time with them on the job, seeing firsthand the lingering effects of months spent treating COVID-19 patients.

“In my wildest dreams, I never imagined how hard it would be,’’ one doctor said. 

For a fully rendered package that takes a close personal look at this important aspect of the pandemic, the team of Peltz, Bumsted, Shaffrey and Minchillo earns this week’s Best of the States award.

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Jan. 15, 2021

Best of the States

AP reporting reveals some front-line health care workers balking at COVID vaccine

The AP team of Bernard Condon, Matt Sedensky and Carla K. Johnson assembled the most detailed national look yet at one of the most vexing snags in the coronavirus vaccine rollout: Surprising numbers of health care workers — who have seen firsthand the misery inflicted by COVID-19 — are refusing the shots.

The deep reporting, with contributions from colleagues across the country, found the paradox occurring in nursing homes and hospitals, with some individual facilities seeing a refusal rate as high as 80%. The story, one of AP’s most-read on an extremely busy news week, quoted both health workers expressing fears of vaccine side effects and frustrated facility administrators.

For bringing to light an important part of the stumbling early rollout of the much-anticipated vaccine, Condon, Sedensky and Johnson win this week’s Best of the States award.

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April 09, 2021

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP examines vaccine inequity for already marginalized workers

teamed up with international colleagues for a compelling account of vaccine inequity in India, Africa and Latin America, exposing the plight of an estimated 20 million informal waste workers who keep cities clean and divert waste away from landfills but are not yet eligible to get the coronavirus vaccine.Health and science reporter Ghosal was exploring vaccine policy in India when he was stuck by the sheer invisibility of the scavengers who live on the fringes, far from the public discourse around who should be prioritized for vaccination. Ghosal worked with photographer Qadri and video journalist Ganguly for on-the-ground reporting at the massive garbage mountain on the outskirts of New Delhi. They came back with moving personal stories that added depth to the narrative, with powerful visuals laying bare the workers’ experience amid grinding poverty.To amplify the work, Ghosal reached out to colleagues across Africa and in Latin America, who shared similar accounts of exclusion and deep-rooted inequalities in access to health care. They delivered, adding to a story that included contributions by Brian Inganga and Tom Odula in Nairobi, Farai Mutsaka in Zimbabwe, Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg, Marco Ugarte in Mexico City, Ariana Cubillos in Venezuela and Manish Swarup in New Delhi.The arresting all-formats package highlighted how the pandemic has exacerbated existing income inequalities. The words and images of trash pickers wearing discarded protective suits in Nairobi, and scavengers plunging their bare hands into thousands of tons of garbage in New Delhi, reveal a community of marginalized workers who struggle to get vaccinated despite providing a service many consider essential.https://bit.ly/3utbKO7https://bit.ly/3fNIDAZhttps://bit.ly/2R8XA6l

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April 03, 2020

Best of the Week — First Winner

Portraits of heroes: AP documents courageous health professionals in Italy

With a powerful and evocative photo gallery, AP journalists in Italy captured the heroism of 16 Italian medical personnel on the front lines of the battle against the coronavirus pandemic. 

Photo editor Alberto Pellaschiar proposed the idea, and hospitals – reassured by AP’s reputation for professionalism – permitted photographers Antonio Calanni and Luca Bruno and chief photo editor Domenico Stinellis to make photos of the doctors and nurses during breaks or as they finished their shifts. 

The intimate portraits conveyed the fatigue and determination of the men and women working round-the-clock to save lives. Chief correspondent Nicole Winfield studied the portraits and interviewed some of the subjects to put their struggle into words.

The impact was tremendous – the stark, understated images and accompanying story riveted audiences around the globe. 

For conceiving and executing a brilliant series of images that captures in human terms the battle against the disease, Pellaschiar, Stinellis, Calanni, Bruno and Winfield win AP’s Best of the Week.

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April 03, 2020

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Telling the story of NYC’s virus-besieged emergency rooms

told the story of New York City’s besieged emergency rooms, where overwhelmed nurses, doctors and paramedics face warzone-like conditions. The reporting team mined sources developed over the years and others on social media to reveal caregivers contending with a flood of sick and dying patients, equipment shortages and the impossible task of deciding who lives and who dies. With hospitals closed to cameras, photo staffers, notably Mary Altaffer and John Minchillo, documented the story with shots of exhausted-looking health workers and paramedics coming and going from hospitals amid makeshift morgues and lines of anxious people waiting for tests.https://bit.ly/2w423guhttps://bit.ly/2R7dY4F

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Dec. 04, 2020

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP coverage of refugees in Sudan opens a window into Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict

The thousands of refugees spilling over the border into Sudan from Ethiopia’s Tigray region are some of the only firsthand witnesses to a worsening conflict that remains out of reach for most of the world’s media. Crossing a remote desert area, they recount ethnic-targeted killings, many fleeing at a moment’s notice and leaving loved ones behind amid an offensive by the Ethiopian government against Tigray separatists. 

Video journalist Fay Abuelgasim and photographer Nariman el-Mofty have put individual faces on the complex story since arriving at the Sudan-Ethiopia border area nearly two weeks ago. Along with reporters Sam Magdy in Cairo and Cara Anna in Nairobi, their work has revealed the human toll of a conflict to which access remains tightly restricted, even as the United Nations warns of possible war crimes. AP clients have recognized the work with strong play.

For their determined, resourceful and revealing work to document the individual struggles of an escalating refugee crisis, Abuelgasim, el-Mofty, Anna and Magdy earn AP’s Best of the Week award.

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July 16, 2021

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP delivers rare visuals inside deadly Bangladesh factory fire

managed to get where other journalists did not: inside a tragic factory fire that killed dozens of workers who were locked inside the food and beverage factory outside Bangladesh’s capital. Police initially gave a toll of three dead, but the following afternoon firefighters discovered 49 more bodies, many of whom were trapped inside by an illegally locked door.Video journalist Garjon and photographer Opu had scrambled to the scene as soon as the scale of the tragedy became clear. Once there, they got inside the factory and despite intense heat and smoke, captured dramatic scenes of firefighters, with Garjon setting up an exclusive livestream using the Bambuser app on his iPhone as rescuers searched for bodies amid the burning debris. The pair’s video and and still images of firefighters’ efforts and the grim consequences of the blaze set AP's all-formats coverage apart on this latest industrial disaster in Bangladesh.https://aplink.video/196https://aplink.news/yothttps://aplink.video/wsq

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Sept. 02, 2016

Best of the Week — First Winner

Private lives are exposed as WikiLeaks spills its secrets

When WikiLeaks announced the release of hundreds of Saudi diplomatic documents last year, AP’s Raphael Satter in Paris and Maggie Michael in Cairo provided some of the most aggressive coverage of the leak. They broke news about everything from the secretive kingdom’s checkbook diplomacy to unpaid limousine bills and cheating students.

But as they plowed through the documents, they also noticed medical and identity documents -- potentially serious privacy violations. Satter flagged the issue but never got a formal response from WikiLeaks; with other stories on the horizon and only a handful of questionable documents in hand, Satter and Michael shelved the subject.

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Sept. 16, 2016

Best of the Week — First Winner

Hawaiian seafood caught by foreign crews confined on boats

AP’s Martha Mendoza, an investigative reporter based in Bangkok, and Margie Mason, medical writer in Jakarta, found that hundreds of undocumented men, many from impoverished Southeast Asian and Pacific nations, work in this U.S. fishing fleet. They have no visas and aren't protected by basic labor laws because of a loophole passed by Congress.

A story detailing the men’s plight, by Mendoza and Mason, resulted from a tip following their award-winning Seafood from Slaves investigation last year. It earns the Beat of the Week.

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Nov. 25, 2016

Best of the Week — First Winner

Too quiet on the set: Filming accidents often go untold

The 2012 film “The Avengers” cemented Marvel’s dominance at the box office, but the movie had a secret: A man had died bringing the blockbuster to the big screen. John Suttles died after falling from his truck while preparing to drive it to a set, but his name was not listed in the film's credits. Outside the production and Suttles’ family, the only clue to his death and its connection to the movie was an 84-page investigative file by the workplace safety agency, Cal/OSHA.

That clue was uncovered by AP Entertainment Writer Anthony McCartney, who began investigating set accidents in 2014. After diving into state and federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration records, he discovered that dozens of workers had been killed and more had been seriously hurt on big-name television and film properties. Set accidents remain largely hidden, and the consequences usually amount to mere thousands of dollars in fines paid out of multimillion-dollar budgets, he reported. McCartney also catalogued numerous fatal film-set accidents internationally. His painstaking work wins Beat of the Week.

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