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
AP journalists went to tell the story of a kibbutz and its people severely hurt in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. The story of the people of Nahal Oz started decades ago, but its name became known worldwide when Hamas attackers swept through the community on Oct. 7.Read more
When news started to come in via Russian news agencies and telegram channels of a shooting attack and fire at a large concert venue in a Moscow suburb on the night of March 22, AP in all formats was quick to act.Read more
West Africa Correspondent Sam Mednick obtained exclusive accounts from massacre survivors in the remote region of Zaongo in Burkina Faso.
Killings of civilians by security forces happen regularly in Burkina Faso yet are hardly reported amid a brutal war with jihadist rebels. Few survivors are brave enough to speak out and most flee, staying silent under a repressive regime. Government investigations are also rare, and no one is held accountable.
Mednick, who is based in Senegal, was looking into reports of one of many such violent incidents that she had seen video evidence of circulating in WhatsApp groups, when a source in Dakar said he had relatives who survived the massacre and could speak to her.
Through the trusted contact in Senegal, she was able to talk to a family that lived in the area and connect with survivors.
AP was the only media able to get the story and photos of this attack, one of several killings under investigation by the U.N. and government. To date, no one has been held accountable.
Washington-based newsperson Michael Biesecker was able to add reporting on Burkina’s military links to the U.S. and worked closely with Mednick from the start to develop the reporting.
For exposing a crime that was all but impossible to report on, Mednick and Biesecker’s story is Best of the Week — First Winner.
AP turned what would’ve been a mundane story into a riveting tale of a family’s longing to have something — anything — to bury of their deceased loved one.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.
AP covered a highly anticipated Justice Department report into the Robb Elementary School shooting that promised to address a question that continues to stoke outrage nearly two years later: Why did Texas police wait more than an hour to confront the gunman inside a fourth-grade classroom?Read more
Thanks to teamwork across multiple departments and formats, AP dominated coverage of a tragic school shooting in Perry, Iowa, by being the first with photos from the scene, the first to have interviews with students, and the only media outlet to secure an interview with the mother of the 11-year-old victim, as well as exclusive photos of him.Read more
A series of capstone Maui wildfire stories that ran in the final week of 2023 — one focused on Lahaina’s losses and another on its uncertain future — showcase fruits of the extraordinary effort, commitment and selfless teamwork exhibited by AP’s Pacific Northwest, Alaska and Hawaii reporting team over months amid endless challenges to share Lahaina’s plight with the world.Read more
AP revealed how some Air Force nuclear missile officers were exposed to toxic risks that have likely been a factor in scores of cancers, despite the military saying for years that its nuclear missile capsules were safe.Read more
help show that this is more than just entertaining, but a way of life.Read more.
For the past year, education writer Bianca Vázquez Toness took on the difficult reporting task of finding students who have slipped through the cracks since the pandemic, and looked to Los Angeles, where advocates say the housing crisis is causing students to go missing from school.
She met a homeless mother renting space in strangers’ apartments, sleeping on a twin bed with her two children. The situation had devastated the teenage son Deneffy’s mental health and school performance.
After multiple visits to LA to meet Deneffy’s mother, and eventually Deneffy himself, he confided in Toness, allowing her to capture their narrative.
Photographer Jae C. Hong waited weeks for the family to feel safe having him inside, capturing powerful visuals when he was able to. Illustrations by Peter Hamlin anchored the story’s presentation. Eunice Esomonu put the Spanish version of the story in the immersive design, a first for AP.
Education journalists and readers alike have reached out to share how remarkable and powerful they found Toness’ reporting.
For building trust and cinematic reporting that showed the great lengths homeless kids must go to attend school, Best of the Week — First Winner is awarded to Bianca Vázquez Toness and Jae C. Hong.
AP relentlessly pursued unique examples of actual harm caused by the 2024 presidential candidate’s vaccine rhetoric.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
An AP team highlighted the disproportionate effect of cash bail as a condition of pretrial release on people of color ahead of Illinois’ historic elimination of the system through stories of residents who lost jobs, homes and time with young children due to being unable to afford bail amounts.Read more
The AP, drawing reporters from the Religion, Race and Ethnicity and Democracy beat teams, executed perfectly to put together a remarkable package for the 60th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.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
Migration-focused video journalist Renata Brito in Barcelona took note of a heartbreaking photo on social media to spark a story about the situation at the Tunisia-Libya border — and she used her years of source work, expertise on the border and help from around AP to confirm the story.
On July 19, the photo of a woman and child lying dead, barefoot and face down in the tawny desert sand began circulating on social media. It was retweeted by activists who accused Tunisia of abandoning migrants to their fates on the other side of Tunisia’s desert border with Libya.
But little was known about the photo or the stories of the two who had died.
On social media, some said the photo spoke to that growing crisis, but others insisted it was an old image from another country.
Three days after the photo surfaced, a source of Brito’s in Libya messaged her, saying he knew the woman and child in the photo. From afar, Brito had developed a relationship with the source for years. For this story, Brito asked the source: How did he know it was them? Could she speak to friends or family? With whom did they travel?
That resulted in a tale of dashed hope and tragedy as told to the AP by the late woman’s husband, with additional details and key context contributed by Elaine Ganley and Samy Magdy, who together are Best of the Week — First Winner.
In Kenya, police brutality has long been criticized. But the violence this month against demonstrators still shocked. AP delivered an all-formats documentation of it, along with attempts to hide it.
As Kenyans protested new taxes and the cost of living, freelance photographer Brian Inganga delivered widely shared images of several people shot by police in one of Nairobi’s most volatile neighborhoods.
As rumors circulated about the number of people shot dead, AP confirmed that police received orders not to report the deaths, not even to their oversight authority, which is illegal. East Africa correspondent Cara Anna combined that with data from a medical-legal watchdog group to show that police had killed more than 30 people.
East Africa writer Evelyne Musambi wrote about one of the victims, a young man who carted water. Kenya’s president, William Ruto, had relied on the support of just these kinds of working class “hustlers” to win office, but they took the brunt of the violence. Video journalist Josphat Kasire was instrumental in finding the victim’s family through patient efforts at the morgue.
For showing the scale of violence that the police wanted to keep under wraps, all while protecting each other’s backs amid street violence, Inganga, Anna, Musambi and Kasire are this week’s Best of the Week — First Winner.
told the story of a former U.S. military interpreter in Afghanistan, who fled the Taliban only to be shot to death while working as a ride-share driver in Washington, D.C.Read more.
