knew offshore wind turbine pieces would depart Europe for New Bedford — and that the ship steaming in would be the visual representation of the arrival of the offshore wind industry in the U.S.Read more.
Strong source work and planning put AP in a position to dominate coverage of the United Auto Workers strike.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
AP charged a cross-formats team using digital forensics to make sense of the chaos during the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century.Read more
AP showed how and why a major influx of Mauritanians is arriving in the United States.Read more
When a wildfire broke out in Maui and obliterated the centuries-old town of Lahaina, staff in AP’s Pacific Northwest sprang into action. Honolulu’s Audrey McAvoy was on the ground within hours, leveraging the AP’s unique Hawaii footprint for the first of many days of aggressive coverage that allowed AP to own the story from the beginning.
McAvoy was quickly joined by Portland, Oregon, reporter Claire Rush, who canceled her vacation; photographer Rick Bowmer and video journalists Ty O’Neil and Haven Daley. Jennifer Kelleher joined the reporting effort from Honolulu, where she anchored the story for days with help from Chris Weber in Los Angeles and worked longtime sources, including Gov. Josh Green, to keep AP ahead. Rush, O’Neil and Bowmer slept in an SUV for two days in the burn zone.
On Aug. 9, apnews.com received 7.6 million page views — a new record and a 32% increase over traffic the previous Wednesday, and the following day also broke previous records with 7.5 million page views.
The Live Updates fixture, artfully anchored by a changing cast of characters, was also a huge winner for AP and served as a “search tree” that led readers back to AP’s content again and again.
For extraordinary coverage of the devastating fire, accomplished despite huge logistical challenges, the AP Maui team earns Best of the Week — First Winner.
told the story of a stumbling start to a historic wildfire mitigation effort intended to avoid a repeat of the climate-driven conflagrations that destroyed Western communities in recent years.Read more.
broke the news on June 21 that U.S. regulators had, for the first time, approved the sale of a new kind of meat made from animal cells.Read more.
AP learned from sources that U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped giving appointments for asylum through the CBP One mobile app in Laredo, Texas.Read more
's work on what at first seemed an under-the-radar news brief netted a tragic exclusive and UGC photos after a charter fishing vessel capsized off Alaska’s remote southeast coast, killing five.Read more.
This AP exclusive started with a tip: A Republican nominee in Ohio had made questionable claims about his tenure in the Air Force.
J.R. Majewski told voters he was a combat veteran with a tour of duty in Afghanistan, but reporters Brian Slodysko and James LaPorta, joined by investigative researcher Randy Herschaft, reported extensively using public documents, expert interviews and a survey of former employers, revealing that among multiple misrepresentations, Majewski did not deploy to Afghanistan but instead spent six-months loading planes in Qatar. He was also demoted and barred from reenlisting.
The story was a hit with readers and had rival news outlets citing AP’s exclusive, while the Republican Party pulled its advertising money from Majewski, essentially giving up on his race.
For deep source work and dogged reporting that exposed a political candidate’s blatant lies about his record, Slodysko, LaPorta and Herschaft take AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.
When protesters erupted in chants of “Let her speak” from the gallery inside the Montana statehouse, and silenced transgender lawmaker Zooey Zephyr lifted her microphone triumphantly in the air, longtime AP reporter Amy Hanson was there to capture the action with her cell phone for video, photos and words. It was the start of a week of agenda-setting, visual and comprehensive coverage by Hanson and her colleagues as Zephyr’s compelling dispute with Republican state leaders captivated audiences, culminating in the GOP voting to bar the freshman legislator from the House floor on Thursday. The powerful coverage throughout the week showcased the value of AP’s legislative footprint and was a textbook example of how we can dominate a story when we surge resources and harness our collective expertise.Hanson worked tirelessly from Helena, Montana, all week and tapped into her deep sourcing and knowledge of state politics to provide impeccable and fast reporting. Her previous source building with Zephyr after she was elected last year proved invaluable, giving the AP access to the lawmaker all week. Billings-based reporter Matt Brown and Salt Lake City-based reporter Sam Metz took turns stitching together well-written spot stories each day, updating the “What to Know” and prepping urgent new series for the next key moment in the saga. The duo also produced a smart takeout about the rise of conservative caucuses like the one in Montana that fueled the dispute.Denver-based video journalist Brittany Peterson and political reporter Nick Riccardi also went to Montana to supplement Amy’s on-the-ground reporting. Nick quickly pulled together a deeply reported and beautifully written story about support for Zephyr in her hometown, the college town of Missoula. Colleagues from around the AP coordinated with the Rockies staff to deliver several smart takes about the standoff, including a look at the underlying rhetoric in the dispute and how Republicans in Montana and Tennessee tried calling peaceful protests "insurrections" to downplay the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
For thorough, nuanced coverage that kept the AP out front, Hanson, Peterson, Riccardi, Brown and Metz win this week’s first citation for Best of the Week.
When COVID-19 hit, tearing through prisons and killing thousands, it severely disrupted or shut down the very programs prisoners desperately need to prepare them for eventual release. Trauma counseling, college courses, and job training in carpentry, masonry and barbering were slow to adjust to pandemic learning. Isolation and uncertainty replaced creative outlets and mental health therapies for months on end. National Writer Aaron Morrison and video journalist Noreen Nasir paired with Los Angeles photographer Jae C. Hong to explore the problem through a behind-the-scenes look at a California prison.
Visual access inside U.S. prisons is extremely rare; Morrison got the AP access using connections with sources. The team was particularly mindful of how to humanize the men beyond just their blue uniforms and tattoos, especially as they expressed themselves with such vulnerability through the intensive therapy work and programs.
For extraordinary work that allowed AP’s audience to see the impact of the COVID epidemic in prisons, Morrison, Nasir and Hong share Best of the Week — First Winner honors.
For innovation and connecting with new audiences, the AP Entertainment video team of West Coast Entertainment Video Editor Ryan Pearson, U.S. Entertainment Video Editor Brooke Lefferts, and video producers Gary Hamilton and Leslie Ambriz are the first winners of this week’s Best of the Week award. The team used its contacts at the Recording Academy to develop and successfully execute a hosted 2 ½-hour red carpet livestream from the Grammy Awards that drew in more than a half million viewers, outpacing rival streaming shows. The AP’s new social video team quickly cut and posted videos from the live feed on a variety of social sites, which garnered nearly 1 million views. The Grammys livestream took weeks of planning and technical assistance to pull off and showed that AP can produce a highly technical live event in the entertainment space, and that entertainers will seek out AP’s spot on a bustling carpet. The video recording of the livestream also will greatly improve the AP’s archive of early hip-hop artists who were not covered by AP in their heyday.
in Anchorage spotted a small item on the website of a radio station that serves a remote part of Alaska that described how a Federal Emergency Management Agency contractor had badly botched the translation of brochures into Alaska Native languages.Read more.
used multiple formats to tell the story of Asian population growth in North Texas and how it's bringing change to the state. Spotting an Asian population growth trend in North Texas while covering the census beat, Schneider teamed up with Tang to get a fuller picture. The duo found a lot of the growth came from South Asians. Tang traveled to Texas, developing a story that put Texas’ growth into the context of overall Asian growth in the U.S. They also showed it’s not all Texas sunshine and smooth sailing for those trying to live their American dream. Some struggles, including racism and balancing being American and South Asian, can come with it.Read more.
kept the AP ahead and produced a nuanced and well-rounded report on the victims and students in the fatal shooting of three football players at the University of Virginia and wounding of two other students.Read more.
broke the news: After redistricting, hundreds of early voters in Nashville, Tennessee, were sent to the wrong congressional districts, jeopardizing election integrity. The first sign of trouble came when Kruesi was given conflicting information from state and local election officials about where she was supposed to vote, after Republicans redistricted the left-leaning city in hopes of flipping a Democratic seat.Nashville writers Kruesi and Matisse started reporting on the mixup and alerted election officials, who scrambled to fix the problem while confirming that more than 430 votes were cast in error; a lawsuit prompted by AP’s reporting said the number could ultimately reach into the thousands.Read more
teamed up with a cast of AP colleagues to deliver scoop after scoop on Elon Musk’s tumultuous first week at Twitter. AP prevailed by placing a premium on one defining element of the storyline: How the platform is changing and how that affects regular people and their discourse on the platform.After Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion, the Technology team knew that the first week would be critical to determining what the celebrity CEO intended for the platform. As the company veered into uncharted territory, the journalists worked sources, aggressively but responsibly reporting what AP could see and confirm, ensuring reliable, fact-based coverage.From the chaotic layoffs to the fire sale on blue check marks to a sweeping look at Musk’s debut as Twitter CEO, the AP team broke news, setting the standard for coverage of the social media giant.Read more
The story was nothing short of shocking: An Afghan baby, the only surviving member of her immediate family following an American attack on their home, was brought to the United States for medical treatment only to be taken from the Afghan couple who raised her as their own and — against the couple’s wishes — placed in the custody of a U.S. Marine attorney and his wife.
AP reporters Juliet Linderman, Martha Mendoza and Claire Galofaro broke the competitive story after poring through hundreds of pages of legal filings and documents, talking to Afghan officials and pushing relentlessly for interviews with everyone involved. Then the trio wove their reporting into a beautifully written, compelling narrative that reads like an international thriller. The piece prompted strong reader reaction, with many asking how they could hold the government agencies involved responsible.
For intensive, lightning-fast work to put AP first on this deeply reported, deeply moving story, Linderman, Galofaro and Mendoza earn AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.
