Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP way out front with Biden’s executive order on abortion

teamed up to scoop the Washington press corps on the highly competitive announcement of President Joe Biden's long-awaited executive action to protect abortion access.Acting on a tip, Kim — in just her third day on the job for AP — and Miller worked sources to confirm details of the executive order Biden would sign the next day. Their story hit the wire Thursday evening, allowing AP to own the story for a stunning eight hours before other news organizations could report from an embargoed White House fact sheet.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP duo wins over Santorini’s cloistered nuns, tells their stories

gained unprecedented access to a convent housing 13 cloistered Catholic nuns on the trendy Greek island of Santorini, a favorite of tourists. The nuns devote their lives to praying for those visitors and for the world — their near-constant prayer deemed necessary to support more publicly engaged ministries.The AP pair won the trust of the nuns, who opened the doors to areas of the convent off-limits to visitors while sharing what calls them to this sequestered life of devotion to God. The result is a distinctive and revealing package of Dell’Orto’s illuminating text and Giannakouris’ equally compelling photography.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Committed coverage pays off with exclusive on predator fish

landed an exclusive on an emerging threat to an endangered fish a few weeks after leading a large, visually rich package on conservationists’ efforts to protect the humpback chub on the Colorado River. The species, endemic to the Colorado, is threatened by non-native predator fish due to the effects of climate change.Peterson’s commitment and strength of her work led directly to a scoop a few weeks later when an official reached out only to her with the news scientists had feared: Non-native predator fish had made their way into waters inhabited by the humpback chub.The fate of the species is something periodically covered by many news organizations but this scoop on the presence of predators, particularly smallmouth bass, went unmatched. The story played widely with customers and was second overall for pageviews on AP News the day it moved.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP Exclusive: Unserved 1955 arrest warrant discovered for woman at center of Emmett Till case

“And I do not say this lightly: Holy shit.” That, from producer and Black List founder Franklin Leonard, sums up the collective reaction to the scoop by AP’s Jay Reeves and Emily Wagster Pettus: Searchers in Mississippi had discovered the nearly 70-year-old unserved warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman whose unproven accusation against Emmett Till led to the Black teenager’s lynching, a horror that galvanized the civil rights movement.

Reeves had reported previously that relatives and activists were still seeking the long-lost warrant, and years of source work paid off with a tip: The document had been found in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse. He confirmed it and teamed up with Wagster Pettus, contacting law enforcement officials and legal experts on what the discovery means to the case, which had been considered closed.

The resulting story made waves, scoring heavy play with customers and on AP platforms.For breaking news on one of the country’s most notorious civil rights cases, Reeves and Wagster Pettus share this week’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: FBI investigating abuse by New Orleans clergy

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

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP gives voice to Ohioans leaving homes for semiconductor plant

delivered an all-formats package weaving together the personal, political and economic implications of a planned $20 billion Intel semiconductor manufacturing complex in rural Johnstown, Ohio, where homes are being demolished to make way for the project that will bring jobs to the “Silicon Heartland.”Knowing that customers look to the AP for this kind of business enterprise story, the journalists set out to illustrate the changing landscape around the project, literally and figuratively, as two Intel factories are expected to open in 2025 on the nearly 1,000-acre site. Framing the coverage, the team interviewed the extended family of 85-year-old Tressie Corsi at her longtime home, grounding the all-formats package in the lives of those most directly affected by the Intel project.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Only on AP: Tournament challenges racism, French social model

inspired anti-racism advocates and young people in neglected quarters of France by shining a global spotlight on the National Neighborhoods Cup, an unusual soccer tournament aimed at celebrating the diversity of immigrants and casting a positive light on working-class areas with large immigrant populations that some politicians and commentators scapegoat as breeding grounds for crime, riots and Islamic extremism.AP was the only international media to cover the tournament, and the only media to put it into the perspective of France’s strained ideal of a colorblind republic that doesn’t identify people by race or ethnic background. The story was widely used in U.K. and U.S. media, prompted discussion online and earned praise from tournament participants.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP out-hustles the competition on Maxwell, Kelly sentencings

used thorough preparation and planning to overcome access hurdles, putting the AP ahead of the competition on the sentencings in two of the highest-profile cases of the #MeToo era: Ghislaine Maxwell and R. Kelly.With no cameras and no electronics of any kind allowed in the federal courtroom, teamwork, careful execution and a quick sprint enabled AP to get the news out first on two consecutive days.Read More

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

The erosion of hope: Kathy Gannon on 35 years in Afghanistan

is an AP icon — she has had an unsurpassed view on the ground in Afghanistan for the past 35 years. So when an editor suggested she write a first-person piece reflecting on her decades of coverage, she stepped up with a vivid and intimate retrospective.The story, full of personal anecdotes, brings Afghanistan's recent history to light, tracking the country’s slow descent into despair. The pacing is such that the piece reads like a narrative, leading with the 2014 shooting that seriously injured Gannon and killed a beloved colleague, then taking the reader effortlessly through the country’s conflicts and shifting regimes. Like everything she writes, the piece focuses squarely on the people of Afghanistan, conveying Gannon’s respect for their kindness and resilience, even as hope fades.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Resourceful teamwork across borders on Oslo mass shooting

teamed up to provide fast and effective coverage of a June 25 mass shooting during an LGBTQ Pride festival in Oslo, Norway, that left two people dead and more than 20 wounded.When the news broke in the middle of the night that a gunman had opened fire in the Norwegian capital, quick decision-making, a rapid response and even a bit of luck enabled AP to produce a fast, comprehensive all-formats report that was widely used by clients worldwide.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Months of planning, preparation put AP out front with unmatched coverage of SCOTUS abortion ruling

With extensive preparation ahead of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the AP moved at lightning speed, covering the historic ruling comprehensively in all formats. Months of meticulous planning and prep work paid off when the court’s opinion came down Friday morning, enabling AP to get the word out ahead of the competition and then deploy teams of journalists to capture reaction and the broader ramifications of the ruling.

Countless AP journalists in Washington and around the country delivered spot and enterprise coverage in all formats, including live and edited video, insightful analysis, striking photos, state-by-state updates and the stories of people on both sides of the abortion issue.

For exemplifying the news cooperative at its best, covering a pivotal moment with far-reaching consequences for American society, AP recognizes journalists Mark Sherman, Jessica Gresko, Jacquelyn Martin, Steve Helber, Gemunu Amarasinghe, J. Scott Applewhite, Andrew Harnik, Rick Gentilo, Dan Huff, Nathan Ellgren, Mike Pesoli, Kimberlee Kruesi, Lindsay Whitehurst, John Hanna, Matt Sedensky, David Goldman, Rogelio Solis, Rick Bowmer, Eric Gay, Alex Connor, Kevin Vineys and colleagues throughout the organization with Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP delivers sweeping multiformat coverage of Title IX at 50

collaborated on a comprehensive all-formats package marking the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the groundbreaking law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools or education programs.Journalists in multiple disciplines — sports, education, race and ethnicity, and others — teamed up to develop story ideas and execution, coordinating resources to address the most important topics regarding Title IX: how the law was born, the impact it has had on athletes and women in general, the challenges it faces, the progress made and where the law falls short.The package included exclusive interviews with sports legends Billie Jean King and Ann Meyers, stories on transgender athletes, campus sexual assault, inequalities in opportunities for women of color, a scoop on an NCAA report examining the current status of Title IX, an AP Poll of Americans' perception of the progress made by Title IX, and more. All delivered over the course of 10 days in a curated presentation incorporating text, video, photos and graphics.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Fin-tastic! AP dives deep into the world of mermaiding

reported from the Philippines and Australia for this engaging package that introduced readers and viewers to the growing subculture of mermaiding, and how it has come to represent diversity.The piece, as enlightening as it is entertaining, celebrates the range and spirit of the merfolk community with writing both amusing and sensitive, complemented by distinctive photos and video including striking underwater and drone images. The piece was the second-most-read on the AP News platform, elicting compliments from no less than the actress who voiced Disney’s mermaid Ariel.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Wife of WNBA’s Griner tells AP: US embassy botched call

broke news in the closely watched case Brittney Griner, the WNBA star jailed in Russia, reporting exclusively that a long-awaited phone between Griner and her wife never happened because the U.S. government mishandled the call.AP’s Tucker, a Washington national security reporter, and Doug Feinberg, WNBA beat reporter, collaborated across departments using source work and trusted credentials to land a video interview with Cherelle Griner, who revealed how her wife, Brittney Griner, tried to call nearly a dozen times through the American embassy in Russia on the couple’s fourth anniversary, but they never connected because the phone line at the embassy was apparently unstaffed.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Marcos’ son leads Philippines, opening wounds for reporter’s family

used his family's harrowing experiences with the regime of Ferdinand Marcos as the hook for a deeply reported first-person essay examining how the Filipino diaspora is reacting to the election of the late dictator’s son as president of the Philippines.Boston-based reporter Marcelo is a Filipino American who grew up hearing the traumatic story of Emmanuel "Manny" Yap, an uncle he never met who was disappeared by the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The family’s experience with the brutal regime offered unique framing for the piece, setting AP apart from other news organizations as Marcelo wove their anguish into a broader narrative powered by interviews with other Filipinos abroad.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP ahead on disappearance, killings of British journalist and Indigenous expert in the Amazon

When a much-loved British journalist and an Indigenous expert disappeared in the remote reaches of Brazil’s western Amazon, AP excelled in all formats. The comprehensive coverage included widely used video packages, speedy, accurate reports on breaking news and insightful features — all setting AP apart.

From the announcement that Dom Phillips and Bruno Araújo Pereira were missing, AP mobilized to provide first agency photo and video coverage. AP had staff on the ground well before any other international media — and before federal police arrived to investigate.

As the story developed, regional expertise helped AP report accurately, avoiding the reporting mistakes of other media, and expand beyond the spot news with enterprising coverage, including profiles and an explainer, placing the tragedy in context.

For putting AP out front with fast, smart, best-in-class coverage, the AP team of Fabiano Maisonnave, Edmar Barros, Mauricio Savarese, Tatiana Pollastri, Rosa Ramirez, Silvia Izquierdo, Chris Gillette, David Biller and Peter Prengaman earns Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

A week at war: AP resets with spot, enterprise Ukraine exclusives

delivered must-read, must-watch stories, adding new layers of depth to AP’s already pacesetting journalism as the Russian invasion of Ukraine grinds into its fifth month.AP journalists in the region, seeking to dispel the notion voiced by Western leaders that global audiences are beginning to experience “war fatigue,” recognized the need for a shift in focus from increasingly incremental developments. They pivoted swiftly to impactful big-picture views of the conflict, all while ensuring competitive coverage of major spot news.Ranging from analysis of the war’s shifting front lines to essential multiformat reporting on longer-term repercussions — the legacy of land mines, the plight of Ukrainian youth, the effect on global food security, among others — and including exclusive video and photos from front-line positions, the AP provided clients and readers with an exceptional body of work over the course of seven days.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

All-formats reporting gives voice to abortion opponents

took readers to Columbia, South Carolina, and the front lines of the fight against abortion as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs a decision that could reverse Roe v. Wade.National reporter Sedensky and photo/video journalist Goldman spent several days with members of A Moment of Hope, a group that assembles outside a Planned Parenthood clinic every abortion day, trying to change the minds of women who show up. The resulting all-formats package weaves together the voices of both opponents and defenders of abortion and the history of the movement as it relates the gripping case of one pregnant woman and the conflict playing out at the clinic as the woman decides whether to end her pregnancy.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reports legacy of slave who inspired beach’s name

tell a story that resonated across the nation on the eve of Juneteenth: the curious history of a Massachusetts beach named after an enslaved African American. Legend has it that Robin Mingo was promised his freedom if the tide ever receded enough for him to walk out onto a rocky ledge offshore of what is now known as Mingo Beach on the campus of Endicott College.Boston reporter Marcelo and photographer Senne interviewed students and faculty at the school who have been researching the local tale and proposing ways to memorialize the slave at his namesake beach. They hope the efforts spark broader discussions about the role of slavery in New England.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Reporter’s persistence rewarded with exclusive Biden interview

scored an extremely rare one-on-one interview with President Joe Biden that yielded a half-hour conversation on topics ranging from the nation’s economic woes to its damaged psyche.Biden did no print interviews in the first 16months of his presidency, except for a few chats with columnists. That dry spell ended when Boak sat down with Biden on Thursday, the result of a year and a half of persistence by the White House reporter. The session made news as Biden told AP the American people are “really, really down” after a tumultuous two years, but he stressed that a recession was “not inevitable” and held out hope of giving the country a greater sense of confidence.Read more