Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Team coverage of African migrants at US-Mexican border

for impressive teamwork and collaboration, using AP’s footprint to tell the story of African immigrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border in record numbers. When the migrants started showing up in remote areas of Texas, the immigration beat team deployed Selsky, a former Africa bureau chief. He found many of the African migrants being put on buses to Maine, where Whittle and Amendola picked up the story, covering Congolese and Angolan asylum seekers at a Portland gymnasium converted into a shelter. Selsky also coordinated relevant reporting from Europe, Africa and Latin America. https://bit.ly/2XVjbhc

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP hours ahead as Trump moves to end nearly all asylum at southern border

Washington-based homeland security reporter Colleen Long earned a key scoop – one that set the news agenda for days and left the competition scrabbling to catch up – when a source alerted her to a change in rules for those seeking asylum at the southern border: The rule would effectively end asylum for people coming from Central American countries and change decades of U.S. policy.

Following the tip, she also knew that she had a window of opportunity to drive her advantage home before the law was announced early the next morning. Long’s story caught other news organizations completely off guard and left major outlets to cite the AP for hours as they struggled to catch up.

For her deep knowledge of immigration policy, diligent reporting and outstanding speed of delivery on a story of vital interest, Colleen Long earns AP’s Best of the Week.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Putting a human face on US border ‘bait and switch’

for telling the story of migrants who obeyed U.S. instructions and have been waiting in Mexico to apply for asylum. A new lawsuit alleges the Trump administration is carrying out a ‘bait and switch’ by now banning asylum for many of those immigrants who passed through another country on their way to the U.S. border. https://bit.ly/2MdUBDy

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Migrants face bleak situation in camps south of the border

for bringing new attention to a growing humanitarian crisis with a pair of powerful, complementary stories on the bleak conditions facing migrants forced to wait at the U.S.-Mexico border under Trump administration policies. Verza reported that drug cartels and gangs are profiting from the policy by robbing and extorting the migrants, while Merchant revealed the dire medical conditions at a migrant camp just feet from U.S. soil.https://bit.ly/2s0z5M8https://bit.ly/2XFDxvB

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: SUV came through hole in border before crash

broke news by reporting that an SUV with 25 people crammed inside drove through an opening in the U.S.-Mexico border fence shortly before it collided with a tractor-trailer, killing 13. A multiformat AP team was among the first on scene after the crash in California’s remote imperial Valley. Over the next two days, AP provided exclusive photos and video and broke the news of the hole cut in the wall. Spagat, AP correspondent based in San Diego, had on-the-record information from the Border Patrol sector chief, allowing AP to report exclusively that surveillance video showed the SUV and another vehicle driving through the opening in the wall, and that the incident was believed part of an immigrant smuggling operation.https://bit.ly/3l8oAxLhttps://bit.ly/3qNcP1f

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP links security scanners used in Europe to Chinese authorities

reported exclusively on how Nuctech, a Chinese company with links to the military and government, has made major inroads in the market for security scanners in Europe. That raises concerns that China could exploit the equipment to sabotage key transit points or get illicit access to data.Because there is so little transparency about where Nuctech equipment has been purchased — and the company refused to confirm or deny information about its customers — the story required a lot of legwork.Kinetz, Brussels-based investigative reporter, received leaked internal communications from a competitor of Nuctech and scoured public procurement databases — which don’t provide comprehensive information — as well as parliamentary testimony in multiple languages for clues about where the equipment had been sold.AP reporters across Europe reached out to airport and customs authorities and dug into national databases to try to get a record of Nuctech purchases. Kinetz also received exclusive analysis about Nuctech’s ownership structure from a Dutch data company. The story generated interest in Europe, and member of the European Parliament reached out for more detail on AP’s reporting about how European Union funds contributed to Nuctech bids. https://aplink.news/e3e

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP’s cross-format coverage across borders dominates Title 42 coverage  

AP journalists in the U.S. and Latin America had been here before: Pandemic-related asylum restrictions in the U.S., known as Title 42, were set to expire at least twice in the previous year until courts intervened. This time though, they knew it was for real and spent weeks and months reporting smart stories about the consequences, from disinformation spread to would-be asylum seekers thousands of miles away to major shifts in U.S. immigration policy that will have effects for years to come. But it was in the days surrounding the expiration date itself that the expertise and collaboration of colleagues from California to Colombia and El Paso to Washington shone.  

Through combined efforts and seamless collaboration, these journalists produced not only deeply reported, people-focused and contextual spot coverage that showcased the AP footprint, but also resulted in a truly layered report including live video, photo galleries, dozens of video edits, vignettes, spot takeouts and several days of smart follows that dominated search and page views.   

For an extraordinary effort that showed the AP’s breadth and depth of knowledge on this issue, the team earns Best of the Week — First Winner. 

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Reporting on border graveyards prompts change in wall construction

for a story on two 19th-century cemeteries that stood in the way of the president’s border wall. The Trump administration had refused to give specifics about its plans for the cemeteries, but after the story, including interviews with family members of people buried there, the administration shifted course, avoiding the graveyards in the wall construction project. https://bit.ly/2QNsxJe

Best of the Week — First Winner

A master class: AP teams deliver sweeping coverage of the migrant surge at the US-Mexico border

When the U.S.-Mexico border became a major front-page story again in recent weeks, the AP set out to tell the story of newly arriving Central American children and families in trademark AP fashion: with compelling all-formats journalism and richly reported viewpoints from migrants to bring perspective to readers on the topic of immigration.

Photographers Julio Cortez and Dario Lopez-Mills, reporters Adriana Gómez Licón and Elliot Spagat, and video journalists Eugene Garcia and John Mone answered the call and more, delivering a string of stories last week that amounted to a master class in how to cover the border.

Among the highlights were the story of a 7-year-old girl crossing the border without her parents in the middle of the night, the story of migrant families dumped by the Biden administration in a dangerous Mexican border town while other families in the same circumstance gained entry into the U.S., and in-flight coverage of a 5-year-old Honduran immigrant en route to Baltimore. The immersive multiformat work received tremendous play. 

For bringing to life the human stories of those seeking entry to the United States, especially the sharp increase in the number of families and children in recent weeks and the struggles of border officials to cope, Gómez Licón, Cortez, Mone, Spagat, Lopez and Garcia share AP’s Best of the Week honors.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP team exposes perilous conditions and spurs action for 250 kids at Border Patrol lockup

First word came from a trusted source cultivated by AP investigative reporter Garance Burke – Customs and Border Protection was holding 250 migrant infants and children at a Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, without enough food, water or basic sanitation. “Are you available today?” the source asked, and AP swung into action.

El Paso, Texas, correspondent Cedar Attanasio met with attorneys who had just interviewed the children, while investigative reporter Martha Mendoza set to work contacting lawmakers and government officials. Burke, with the help of attorneys, found parents of the young children who were locked inside and inconsolable. The trio worked through the night, drafting a story focused on the fact that girls as young as 10 were caring for a toddler handed to them by a guard.

The story had enormous impact almost immediately. National outlets scrambled to match the story, citing AP extensively. The reporters’ next-day story was about lawmakers’ calls for change, and on Monday Mendoza and Burke again broke news: The Trump administration was moving most of the children out of Clint.

For a highly significant scoop that dominated the news cycle on multiple days and returned world attention to the border crisis, Mendoza, Burke and Attanasio win AP’s Best of the Week award.

Best of the States

AP Exclusive: California synagogue hadn’t used security funds received shortly before shooting

After a gunman opened fire in a Southern California synagogue on Passover, killing a woman and wounding a man, his 8-year-old niece and the rabbi leading the service, the inevitable question was asked: Could anything have been done to stop the violence?

Reporters Don Thompson and Adam Beam in Sacramento and Julie Watson in San Diego combined to report exclusively that the synagogue itself had recognized security deficiencies and even received a state grant to address them.

But it hadn’t spent the money, the AP team revealed.

For their exclusive follow-up to a crime that generated global attention, Thompson, Watson and Beam win this week’s Best of the States.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Memos reveal exclusive details of Trump border policy shift

for exclusively obtaining Customs and Border Protection memos that showed how the Trump administration was carrying out a program that requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases play out, including the instruction that border agents explicitly target Spanish speakers and migrants from Latin America. https://bit.ly/2HvWomX

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Tear gas, drama in New Year’s border clash with migrants

for his excellent coverage of migrants climbing a wall and running as U.S. agents fired tear gas. While many people were raising their glasses to celebrate the New Year, some 150 migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border tried to cross into the U.S., where Border Patrol agents stood wearing camouflage and carrying assault-style riffles. Ochoa's widely used photos captured the drama of the migrants, including children, running away from the gas.https://bit.ly/2Ce6Zyqhttps://bit.ly/2Fq4jRx

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP first with news of 2,000 kids separated from families at US border

It was the answer to the question everyone was asking, about the biggest story in the world. Just how many children had been separated from their parents at the U.S. border as a result of the Trump administration’s new zero-tolerance immigration policy?

Colleen Long, newly arrived on her Washington beat, got the hugely important scoop, beating all of her seasoned competitors with that very number: nearly 2,000.

Long had just moved to the nation’s capital after more than a decade covering law enforcement in New York, assigned to the Department of Homeland Security. She went right to work grilling sources – anybody she could find.

After speaking to some two dozen people, Long hit pay dirt. A source called and said, “I'm going to give you a big scoop.”

The information put AP more than an hour ahead with the news that, at that point, nearly 2,000 children had been forcibly removed from their families at the border over a six-week period. Long’s competitors – including reporters who have been covering the beat for years – had to wait for the numbers to be released on a conference call later in the day.

For determined, aggressive reporting that yielded a huge payoff, Long wins the Beat of the Week award.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Mind-blowing exclusive: Security troops on US nuclear base took LSD

After five years exposing the struggles of the U.S. Air Force’s nuclear missile corps – security lapses, leadership and training failures, morale problems – Bob Burns uncovered an exclusive that was mind-blowing in every sense of the word: Airmen guarding a base in Wyoming had bought, distributed and used LSD.

Burns, a Washington-based national security writer, knew from his previous reporting on the missile corps that illegal drug use was a recurring problem and that the Air Force was reluctant to discuss it.

When the court martial proceedings began in 2016 he started filing FOIA requests for the transcripts and supporting legal documents. It took the Air Force well over a year to finish responding to Burns’ requests, but by January 2018 he had the bulk of the records he needed to piece together the story, including trial transcripts and related documents, with descriptions of drug experiences of airmen, ranging from panic to euphoria.

For his extraordinary revelation that some of the nation’s most deadly weapons were in the hands of hallucinating airmen, Burns takes this week's Beat of the Week award.

Best of the States

APNewsBreak: Phone tip leads to shady company linked to border wall contract

The short Associated Press story out of San Diego about the first border wall contract awarded under the Trump administration made only a brief mention of the Omaha, Nebraska, company that had won the contract. But that prompted a woman to call the AP. She made several claims to Chicago-based Central Desk editor Jeff McMurray without offering proof, but he figured it was interesting enough to pass along. Omaha breaking news staffer Margery Beck was asked to check into the company.

As Beck examined state business records and court documents, she discovered that the company, SWF Constructors, operated at the same address as another business that had been sued a dozen times, including at least three times by the federal government, for failing to pay subcontractors on government projects. That company, Coastal Environmental Group, was also the subject of an Interior Department audit questioning $2 million in billing for a Superstorm Sandy cleanup contract.

For aggressive records-based reporting that resulted in a timely story no one else had, Beck receives this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

APNewsBreak: Commandos take on Trump border wall prototypes – and lose

for being first to report that testing of prototypes of Trump’s proposed wall with Mexico found that their imposing heights would likely stop border crossers, a finding that pleased border hawks. http://bit.ly/2n4PUzF

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP breaks news of contractor appeals that delayed Trump border wall prototypes

for breaking news that appeals by two contractors had delayed until November construction of prototypes for a U.S.-Mexico border wall. http://cnb.cx/2wexLDb http://bit.ly/2v62lyM

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Department of Homeland Security doubts effectiveness of travel ban

for getting hold of a report from the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence arm that concluded citizenship was an inadequate indicator to use for a travel ban to keep out people who may pose a threat of violent attacks. http://trib.in/2kVAsaO

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

APNewsBreak: Barely half of illegal border crossers caught

for obtaining a never-released Department of Homeland Security report on border security, looking at who and what gets into the U.S. from Mexico. It showed barely half of people who entered the country illegally last year were caught. DHS publicly has cited a capture rate of 81 percent. http://abcn.ws/2dzBhy0