AP explored the homeless crisis in Grants Pass, Oregon, ahead of a pivotal U.S. Supreme Court case.Read more
followed up on their exceptional initial work and continued their record-breaking coverage in the week leading up to the queen’s funeral, delivering outstanding all-formats journalism and giving clients an array of offerings from virtually every event and every perspective.AP’s stories and visuals captured the pomp and ceremony, and the emotions of mourners lined up for many for hours to pay their respects as the queen lay in state. AP’s stories ranged from a first-person account of waiting in that queue to how the queen set the stage for the transition to Charles to an evocative account inside Westminster Abbey during Monday’s funeral — and much more.Coverage of the funeral itself saw stunning usage of AP’s content, while the collective 12-day round-the-clock effort won near-unanimous praise from AP customers.Read more
AP collaborated on a rare hopeful story about the world’s corals in the age of global warming.Read more
AP produced an exclusive photo, won record-breaking video usage and dominated global coverage of far-right firebrand Geert Wilders’ unexpected electoral win, thanks to expert planning, quick thinking and deep knowledge of Dutch politics.Read more
AP took a look at how while millions of people worldwide don’t have clean water to drink, luxury water brands have emerged for the world’s wealthy and elite.Read more
More than six months after the explosion that destroyed the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine’s Kherson region, an AP investigation by Samya Kullab and Ilia Novikov found that Russian occupation authorities vastly and deliberately undercounted the dead. The AP inquiry came the closest yet to revealing the real number of deaths Russia tried to hide from the dam’s destruction, which Ukrainians believe was carried out to hamper the Ukrainian counteroffensive across the Dnipro River. Russia has denied it was responsible.
AP Kyiv correspondent Kullab and news assistant Novikov were working on a different story about how residents of the affected town of Oleshky were returning slowly to Ukraine. During their reporting, a source told them of a mass grave. That sent Kullab and Novikov in a fresh direction, and the story of the hidden deaths developed from there. Eventually, the AP spoke to health workers, volunteers, residents and recent escapees who provided invaluable details. Instead of the 59 people Russian authorities said drowned in the territory they control, AP found the real number is at least in the hundreds in just one town.
For dogged pursuit of the facts and allowing victims and their survivors to be heard, Kullab and Novikov earn Best of the Week — First Winner.
When tremors struck in the early hours of Thursday morning, AP stringer Marco di Marco knew he didn’t have long to reach the scene of Iceland’s latest volcanic eruption before access would be limited by rescuers. His swiftness put the AP ahead of competitors with stunning photos and video coverage that amazed global audiences.
Iceland-based visual journalist Marco di Marco, a specialist in volcano photography and videography, has developed strong relationships with scientists, rescuers and local officials in his work with the AP. He was en route as soon as the eruption occurred, immediately alerting Stockholm-based journalist David Keyton, who put in place all-formats coverage including much-used live video feeds.
Di Marco’s knowledge of the terrain and relationship with local law enforcement enabled him to quickly position himself near where the lava flow would breach a key road, providing unique coverage of the fast-moving event. On site, he filed compressed photos to the global photo desk, edited from his phone amid extremely limited network coverage. That enabled the AP to provide clients with strong visuals just as the world was waking up to news of the eruption. Throughout the day, he provided stunning photography and videography, including aerial perspectives, while also updating AP colleagues on the developing situation on the ground.
For being the driving force behind our stunning coverage of this volcanic eruption, Marco di Marco wins Best of the Week — First Winner.
AP captured the rip-roaring sport of skijoring that took readers into a place they may never visit in person.Read more
Creative, visual storytelling by AP made an instant talker out of the Hawaii Legislature’s effort to claim the universal “hang loose” sign an official state gesture — and in the process, captured Hawaii residents’ deep connection to the so-called “shaka.”Read more
In a large-scale, innovative and comprehensive work of journalism that required months of planning and precise execution, a core team from Health and Science conceived a digital-first experience of the total solar eclipse with a livestream, live blog and scenes along the path of totality from Mexico to Maine. Executing the plan successfully required coordination that extended across formats, countries and departments.
Coverage of the eclipse began in February with weekly all-formats storytelling by the Health and Science team, with contributions from Global Beats and U.S. News teams. Work also began to develop a livestream eclipse show, featuring Health and Science audience and social lead Kyle Viterbo; video journalists Mary Conlon and Laura Bargfeld; and aerospace writer Marcia Dunn, along with engineer Hugo Blanco.
In the control room, Global Beats video news editor Kathy Young, Entertainment video editor Brooke Lefferts and U.S. assignment manager Robert Bumsted worked with video operations manager Derek Danilko and broadcast engineer Rob Weisenfeld to produce the six-hour livestream. They worked with video journalists who went live along the path, including Alexis Triboulard, Lekan Oyekanmi, Nick Ingram, Teresa Crawford, Patrick Orsagos and David Martin, while video curation editor Francisco Guzman kept real-time track of audience engagement.
A live blog launched at 5:30 a.m. EDT with posts prepared by Health and Science editor Stephanie Nano, and deputy editor Jon Poet, live blog editor Emily Olson and digital editor Sophia Eppolito kept it running with fresh dispatches and visuals over 12 hours from journalists in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada.
Unique and quickly filed images of the event were captured photojournalists Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Mat Otero, Tony Gutierrez, Jeff Roberson, Michael Conroy, Carolyn Kaster, Jon Cherry, Matt Rourke and Bob Bukaty, with coordination by chief photographer Julio Cortez.
For conceiving a digital-first approach that caught the attention of our customers and our digital audience, the Health and Science team of Viterbo, Conlon, Bargfeld, Dunn and Nano are this week’s Best of the Week — First Winner.
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.
AP landed exclusive access to the intimate moments shared by the winner of a regional election in northeastern Spain.Read more
Years of experience covering demonstrations in France were vital in the AP’s ability to outshine its competitors in coverage of a demonstration against antisemitism that drew more than 100,000 people.Read more
found innovative ways to break news, tell important stories in all formats and stay ahead of the competition as the search for survivors in the Surfside condo collapse stretched into a second week.When the AP team — Florida staffers and out-of-state reinforcements — learned an implosion of the remaining structure was likely looming, they rented a 26-foot scissor lift, fastened a live broadcast unit to it with bungee cords and covered it from incoming weather with a tarp. This work by Bumsted, Ellgren and Lee allowed AP to get a clear view of the eventual implosion and deliver visuals over several news cycles that were picked up by major customers.Meanwhile, AP reporters found compelling narratives, including Kennedy’s story on the last dramatic moments of the collapse as told by people who barely escaped. This piece had a rare engagement score of 100 with a highly unusual average time on page of more than 3 minutes — holding readers’ attention with vivid detail and emotion.Gómez Licón’s story about the sensitive nature of dealing with remains also played widely. And her story about a missing widower was matched by several outlets that cited AP. AP also beat national and local competitors by an hour or more on breaking news of the death toll increasing, thanks to staffers finding a source of official briefings.https://apnews.com/hub/surfsid...https://aplink.news/0p5https://aplink.video/eklhttps://aplink.news/c9fhttps://aplink.news/wtkhttps://aplink.news/hk7
continued AP’s dominant coverage of Myanmar’s unrest, this time revealing how Myanmar security forces were deliberately and systematically attacking medics in the middle of the pandemic. In an extremely difficult story to report, the AP team was able to track down health workers who were in hiding and carefully contacted them using encrypted apps.One interviewee spoke of a newborn in the embattled town of Mindat who had died due to suspected pneumonia because his parents could not find a doctor. Going on scant information, AP finally broke that story open thanks to a tweet by someone in Myanmar referencing the baby's death that included the parents' names. Stringers then overcame bad communications, an adversarial military and monsoon season to locate the parents of the dead child in a refugee camp. The resulting story by Sydney-based Gelineau and Jakarta-based Milko was one of heartbreak and sensitivity with disturbing but compelling video produced by multiformat journalist Allen Breed, including medics being beaten by police, and photos that laid out how, despite the brutality, the health care workers continued trying to save lives.Physicians for Human Rights called it an ”amazing piece,” and the “deepest dive” so far into the attack on doctors in Myanmar. It was shared on Twitter by prominent human rights advocates and called a “gripping and important investigation” and a “devastating investigative report.”https://aplink.news/o02https://aplink.video/i3n
The extreme drought in the American West has already taken a dramatic toll. And now, near the Oregon-California border, as many as several hundred wells have dried up in the past few weeks, leaving dozens of homeowners in the parched region with no running water at all. Reporter Gillian Flaccus and freelance photographer Nathan Howard documented the residents’ plight and the challenges facing authorities responding to the situation.
Flaccus used sources she had built in months of reporting on the dire conditions in the Klamath River Basin, convincing people to let Howard depict their hardship over water in photos and video. Digital storyteller Samantha Shotzbarger then weaved all the elements into a compelling multimedia offering. The story drew widespread play in the U.S., especially in the West.
For continuing to shine light on the effects of the drought afflicting the U.S. West, Flaccus, Howard and Shotzbarger win this week’s Best of the States award.
From Afghanistan to Haiti, AP staffers and stringers on two sides of the world were challenged last week to cover fast-breaking news while keeping themselves and their families safe. They excelled at both; AP’s coverage of Afghanistan’s fall to Taliban insurgents and the deadly earthquake across Haiti share Best of the Week honors.
In Afghanistan, with events unfolding at a breakneck pace, AP journalists amid the turmoil on the ground were complemented by colleagues in several countries and time zones collaborating to confirm the news and get it out.
AP sent out 17 alerts on Sunday alone, as city after city surrendered to the Taliban. And AP was among the first — perhaps the outright first — to report that President Ashraf Ghani had fled the country and Taliban forces were entering the capital.
That same weekend, when a powerful magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck southwestern Haiti leaving hundreds dead, AP journalists on the island scrambled to get to the area within hours. Editors outside Haiti jumped in to help gather and verify content, and a second team arrived in-country within a day to reinforce the coverage. AP stood out in all formats, including first live video of the disaster and photos that landed on front pages.
For outstanding breaking news coverage under extreme circumstances, the AP team in Afghanistan with their international colleagues, and the AP team covering Haiti — Pierre Luxama, Evens Sanon, Joseph Odelyn, Mark Stevenson, Fernando Llano, Matías Delacroix, Marko Alvarez and Fernando González — are co-winners of AP’s Best of the Week award.
definitively examined, from six continents and in all formats, the impact of climate change, merging the science behind a major — and sobering — United Nations report with the voices of people who are living it.Weeks before the Feb. 28 release, climate news director Peter Prengaman, reporters Seth Borenstein and Frank Jordans, both veterans of climate coverage, and Stockholm-based video journalist David Keyton brainstormed the plan, putting AP’s global footprint to use: Instead of just one big, all-formats story — the norm for previous reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — AP would use the report as a jumping-off point to explore the state of climate change from each continent. Read more
In a textbook display of outstanding source work and planning, Eric Tucker and Matthew Lee acted on a tip to score a massive scoop on a stunning U.S.-Russia prisoner exchange that happened despite heightened tensions between the countries.
In the process, the pair showed the rewards of careful, long-term source-building, a model of how to prepare in all formats to put the AP ahead of the competition the moment the news broke, and examples of how to build on a big story with smart sidebars in-cycle and a compelling follow-up story that offered new, behind-the-scenes details.
Their efforts paid off handsomely on Wednesday when Lee got the green light that the exchange had taken place, allowing AP to push out an alert and full story accompanied by photos and video, well before any Western media competitors were even aware the swap had happened.
For their exhaustive, comprehensive work that scooped everyone on the surprising swap, Tucker and Lee share AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.
visited Eutaw, Alabama, to better understand the issue of viability — a key word in the superheated debate over abortion — as experienced by families who know what it means to have a baby born at the edge of life.Ungar, who has covered maternal and newborn health for years, knew doctors were getting better at keeping very premature babies alive. She reviewed data and research, interviewed physicians and was connected to Michelle Butler who was in just her fifth month of pregnancy when she she gave birth to twins, including Curtis, the world’s earliest surviving premature baby.Butler let the all-formats team of Ungar, Wang and Dill into family’s life. What emerged was an emotional narrative of extreme joy and profound loss, explaining the science and ethics involved and bringing deeply reported, balanced, real-world context to one of the biggest, most provocative issues of the year.Read more
