Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP exclusives stand out in COVID-19 coverage

New York-based health and science reporter Mike Stobbe and Rome video journalist Trisha Thomas delivered two very different exclusives that stood out amid the week’s impressive range of AP coronavirus coverage.

Stobbe was the first to report that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wanted to tell a wide swath of Americans that they shouldn’t get on commercial flights because of the virus. But the agency was overruled by the White House. Instead, federal officials settled on softer, less direct language. Realizing the significance, Stobbe pressed multiple sources until he had confirmation of the White House action.

Meanwhile, continents away, Rome visual journalist Trisha Thomas was visiting Padua when she learned the Italian city was about to be locked down. After making frantic arrangements to leave by train, she turned her personal odyssey into a cross-format package, producing a first-person essay and video story that gave a human face to Italy’s virus emergency.https://bit.ly/2TUgQCohttps://bit.ly/2W6dxL8

Best of the States

AP travels to the edge of America for start of the 2020 census in tiny Alaska town

On the edge of America, the U.S. Census started in a tiny Alaska town on the Bering Sea. Toksook Bay, population 661, is only reachable by plane, and isn’t an easy place to live, much less report. The temperatures hover around zero, and daylight is scarce this time of year.

After months of planning, Alaska news editor Mark Thiessen and San Diego photographer Greg Bull spent four days in the remote community, getting rare access to day-to-day life and an interview with the person who would be the first counted, 90-year-old Lizzie Chimiugak. 

And when the Census director finally arrived, delayed by bad weather that kept many other news organizations away, Thiessen and Bull were able to quickly file the spot news that Census 2020 had begun.

For overcoming myriad technical obstacles and very cold fingers to cover the news in a far-flung part of the country, while also providing a window into a world unlike any other place in the U.S., Thiessen and Bull win this week’s Best of the States award.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Sky-high reporting and smart use of all formats puts AP ahead amid Persian Gulf tensions

As tensions between Iran, its neighbors and the United States ratcheted up last week, AP’s staff in Baghdad, Dubai and Tehran turned out aggressive, yet cautious coverage, bringing facts and unique perspectives to the tense and escalating situation in the Persian Gulf, often well ahead of the competition.

Those stories included reports of “sabotaged” oil tankers off the coast of the UAE, and AP broke the news that Iran had quadrupled its uranium enrichment.

Meanwhile, AP’s Tehran team produced an all-formats piece on the mood of people on the city’s streets that could not be matched by competitors, and AP was first to report an FAA warning that Iran could misidentify commercial flights in the region.

AP was also aggressive on related developments, ensuring that clients had video and text coverage of tweets by President Donald Trump and Iranian officials.

For smart judgment, planning and effective use of AP’s resources to break news and bring facts to a region on edge, the team of Jon Gambrell, Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Mehdi Fattahi, Bassem Mroue, Nasser Karimi and Vahid Salemi wins AP's Best of the Week, with the support of their colleagues and contributors in the region.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Video, photos lead competitive coverage of Florida crash

for speed and resourcefulness that gave AP video and photos a clear win over the competition, providing live, distinctive close-up visuals of a commercial jet that skidded into a river from a military base runway. Replogle broadcast first agency live video from a unique vantage point on a resident’s dock, then he and McCullough secured a speedboat for an even closer look, again sending live video and exclusive stills. https://bit.ly/2JgrtfYhttps://bit.ly/2V7ekaEhttps://bit.ly/2PQtCj1

Best of the States

​ONLY ON AP: Tractor-trailer trafficking survivor says people cried for air, begged for water

Houston newsman Frank Bajak headed to San Antonio with an overriding goal: Get an interview with a survivor of the immigrant-smuggling nightmare that claimed the lives of 10 people in the suffocating heat of a nearly sealed tractor-trailer.

The challenge was daunting. Survivors had been distributed among seven hospitals in the pre-dawn hours on the Sunday they were discovered in the truck outside a Walmart, with immigration and border patrol guards standing vigil outside their rooms.

Bajak's persistent, resourceful and ultimately successful effort to a secure that exclusive interview is recognized with this week's Best of the States prize.

Best of the States

AP finds US buildings using the same cladding blamed in London fire

Sometimes a story doesn’t come from a reporter’s beat or region, just from natural journalistic curiosity.

Atlanta’s Jeff Martin was intrigued after investigators blamed the deadly tower fire in London in part on the flammable cladding that wrapped around its exterior. Wondering what buildings in the U.S. might be using the cladding, he went to the manufacturer’s website and found a trove of information in a promotional brochure.

The brochure said the cladding was used on a terminal at the Dallas airport, the Cleveland Browns stadium, an Alaska High School and a high-rise hotel in Baltimore. Martin, Gainesville, Florida, reporter Jason Dearen, and Baltimore reporter Juliet Linderman helped coordinate a cross-country, multi-media reporting effort that wins this week’s Best of the States.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Hawaii may be breaking its own laws by allowing foreign workers to fish

for following up on an earlier investigation and showing that Hawaii may have been breaking its own laws for years by allowing thousands of foreign workers to catch and sell seafood as part of the state’s fishing industry, worth $110 million a year. https://www.apnews.com/c17b1543c8294a40902aeeff608...

Best of the States

AP provides superior coverage of Oakland warehouse fire that killed 36

As soon as the flames were doused on an Oakland, California, warehouse known as the Ghost Ship two things were clear: The death toll would be huge, and telling the story would be complicated. It took a cross-format team effort to tell the story, and the staff in California rose to the occasion, including incoming San Francisco news editor Juliet Williams, who got an early start on her new job, dashing to the bureau from Sacramento to run the story.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Pirates prey on Venezuelan fishermen as industry unravels

for being first to report how pirates are taking over in the coastal state of Sucre, as the fishing industry and many others collapse across Venezuela. https://apnews.com/tag/VenezuelaUndone

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Auditors question spending at Louisiana fisheries agency

for her APNewsBreak detailing how money intended to make sure fish was safe to eat following the BP oil spill instead went to things like iPads, cameras and now-missing fishing equipment. http://apne.ws/2dlSaAR

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.