Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP scoop: California prisons ending program to make peace among gangs

for reporting exclusively that the California prison system was ending a controversial program in which it had attempted to get inmates who were members of rival gangs to meet and mingle in outdoor recreation areas. Thompson documented a series of fights, brawls and riots in the prison system, and officials decided to suspend the program, acknowledging that it had not worked as intended. https://bit.ly/2AFGQrX

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Smart planning, sourcing puts AP ahead on Russia/Ukraine prisoner swap

for working sources and using their expertise on Russia and the Ukraine to document a major prisoner exchange that freed 35 detainees, producing photos, live video and text ahead of the competition.https://bit.ly/2kdZWRnhttps://bit.ly/2menkyU

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Deep sourcing puts AP way ahead on US-Venezuela prisoner swap

spent months earning the trust of prisoners’ families and senior U.S. officials, enabling them to break the story of the largest prisoner swap between the United States and a foreign government in recent years. Their scoop on the release of seven American prisoners in Venezuela, in exchange for the release by the U.S. of two relatives of President Nicolas Maduro, put AP far ahead on a hugely competitive story and on a development journalists at rival news organizations had themselves been chasing for years.The AP published a full, detailed story before any competitor had a single word and ahead of the official White House announcement.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP presses F1 racing on human rights; helps free political prisoner

has kept human rights on the media agenda while covering the international Formula One auto racing series. His reporting has had impact and is now credited with helping free a political prisoner in Bahrain, site of one of the races.Paris-based Pugmire, long aware of governmental efforts at “sportswashing” in authoritarian countries hosting the series, had been one of the first journalists to press world champion Lewis Hamilton last season about jailed dissidents after discovering that Hamilton had received letters with harrowing descriptions of torture and sexual abuse by authorities in Bahrain. When an 11-year-old boy whose father is on Bahrain's death row sent Hamilton a drawing of the driver’s Mercedes race car, Pugmire had asked the driver publicly what he would do it about the case. Hamilton pledged to raise the cases with Bahraini authorities, saying the boy’s letter “really hits home.” Such questioning by reporters is rare and risky at sports events in such tightly controlled countries, but Pugmire kept at it for months.Then, this past September, an 18-year-old man was released from prison in Bahrain after being allegedly being tortured since 2019, an apparent reprisal against his family. His mother had spent more than two years in prison for criticizing the Bahrain F1 race on social media.The family’s supporters credit Pugmire’s reporting for helping lead to the release.Pugmire raised the rights issue again at the inaugural Qatar Grand Prix last week, asking Hamilton about a doctor on a 138-day hunger strike. The driver, who wore a rainbow helmet in support of LGBTQ rights in Qatar, said F1 is “duty bound” to call attention to human rights.AP’s reporting emboldened other media, including the BBC and Britain’s The Times, to follow Pugmire’s lead, questioning drivers and F1’s governing body about such issues. Pugmire won praise from a Bahraini human rights advocacy group as well as AP’s news leadership.https://aplink.news/etyhttps://aplink.news/gnghttps://aplink.news/xzehttps://aplink.news/ba9

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Life after prison can be harder than life behind bars, especially for women

AP delved into the seldom-told story of life after prison for women.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Detainees in Yemen charge sexual abuse by Emeratis

for her harrowing investigation revealing widespread sexual abuses and torture in United Arab Emirates-run prisons in Yemen. https://bit.ly/2tDE0jY

Best of the Week — First Winner

Deep reporting on a failed KKK murder plot reveals white supremacists working in Florida prison

Some stories just stick with a journalist. For AP investigative reporter Jason Dearen, a sparse 2015 announcement — three currrent or former Florida prison guards, identified by the FBI as Ku Klux Klansmen, had been arrested for plotting a former inmate’s murder — sparked a yearslong reporting effort.

Dearen’s big break came last summer when trial transcripts revealed an FBI informant was the star witness against the KKK members, his secret recordings providing a rare, detailed look at the inner workings of the klan cell and the domestic terrorism probe. Dearen and visual journalist David Goldman retraced the klansmen’s steps through Palatka, Florida, then producers Marshall Ritzel, Samantha Shotzbarger and Peter Hamlin stepped in to create a riveting online presentation.

The resulting all-formats package had immediate impact, with Florida papers featuring it on home pages and front pages, and prompting calls for investigations into white supremacy among prison workers. The story found 360,000 readers on AP News and kept them there for an average of more than five minutes — longer than any other AP story in memory.

For dogged reporting and an immersive all-formats narrative that exposes a salient, timely issue, Dearan, Goldman, Ritzel, Shotzbarger and Hamlin win AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Costs have more than doubled to overhaul California prison medical records

for reporting that the cost of California's project to modernize its prison medical records system has ballooned to nearly $400 million and is years behind schedule. http://abcn.ws/2hqvFZU

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Breaking news of top US prison official’s ouster after Epstein death

for breaking the news that the head of the long-troubled federal prison system was being removed in the wake of Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide. Balsamo had been pressing sources at the Justice Department about the fate of Hugh Hurwitz, the acting director of the Bureau of Prisons. Two guards and the warden had been disciplined, but nothing was said about the senior leadership. Balsamo worked up prep in case Hurwitz resigned or was fired.

Nine days after Epstein’s death, Balsamo heard from a source who had just met with Attorney General William Barr: Barr was going to remove Hurwitz. The decision was extremely sensitive; even Hurwitz didn't know yet. Balsamo had just a brief window to break the news before it became public, but because he had the prep in place, he was able to move quickly. AP had a 650-word story before any other outlet had even sent an alert. Hurwitz’s removal quickly became one of the top stories of the day, with Balsamo’s story receiving wide play, even by some news organizations with their own Justice Department reporters. https://bit.ly/2NBYC7k

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Innocent suspects face terrible choice: Plead guilty or risk life in prison

for using data and shoe-leather reporting to spotlight a terrible choice faced by many innocent people in a judicial system full of overworked defense lawyers and expedient judges and prosecutors: Plead guilty or risk going to prison for life. Last year, they found, 68 of 157 exonerations were in cases in which the defendant had pleaded guilty after facing that choice. http://apne.ws/2fVEf1O

Best of the Week — First Winner

Reporter’s instincts, deep preparation break stunning news of Cosby case reversal and prison release

Comedian Bill Cosby had been in a Pennsylvania prison for more than two years last December when the state’s high court took on his appeal of his sexual assault conviction.

As seven months went by without a decision, Philadelphia-based legal affairs reporter Maryclaire Dale — who had been instrumental in breaking the original Cosby story — thought there might be something newsy in the works. Her instincts led to deep preparation that put AP ahead on one of the biggest news stories of the summer, one that almost no one but Dale had anticipated.

When the court tweeted out its opinion Wednesday, AP’s news alert moved within minutes, followed less than one minute later with a short breaking news story that Cosby's conviction was overturned, and that he would be released from prison. Both alerts beat all the competition; a full story moved less than two minutes later. Dale and colleagues followed up with full coverage throughout the day, with Cosby later appearing before cameras at his home, as the original news story drew heavy engagement online and maintained the top spot in Google’s news carousel.

For sharp anticipation and flawless execution that put AP ahead on a story that dominated the news cycle, Dale earns AP’s Best of the Week award.

Best of the States

Innocent suspects face terrible choice: plead guilty or risk life in prison

It’s hard to imagine why anyone would plead guilty to a crime they didn’t commit. But as Richmond-based reporter Alanna Durkin Richer and Miami legal affairs reporter Curt Anderson found, it happens more often than you might think.

Digging through publicly available data on exonerations, they found alarming statistics: More than 300 of the roughly 1,900 people who have been exonerated in the U.S. since 1989 pleaded guilty. So Richer and Anderson set out to explain why anyone would plead guilty to a crime he or she didn’t commit ...

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

California effort to solve overcrowding in prisons could free 9,500 inmates in 4 years

for being first to report that California's latest plan for reducing the state prison population could result in 9,500 inmates going free in four years. http://bit.ly/2mA7ZrV

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Severed heads, ripped out hearts during Brazil prison massacre underscore gang war

for getting exclusive access to a Brazil penitentiary where the country’s worst prison massacre in 25 years happened, and for obtaining the results of an investigative probe. http://apne.ws/2llQMgo

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Gaza man tells AP he was tortured by Hamas, forced to divorce

reported exclusively on the imprisonment, torture and lost love of Palestinian activist Rami Aman, who spent months enduring brutal interrogations in a Hamas prison but was offered an unconventional proposition: Divorce your wife and you are free to go. Aman had recently signed a marriage contract with the daughter of a Hamas official, but the ruling Islamic militant group apparently wanted to dispel any hint that it supported Aman’s outreach to Israeli peace activists. He eventually caved to the pressure and now the love of his life has been whisked out of Gaza against her will. Akram, AP Gaza City correspondent, started reporting the all-formats exclusive a year ago when he met Aman after his release from the Hamas prison. They stayed in touch and Akram slowly learned the chilling details of the torture and forced divorce. Akram spent months persuading Aman to share his story on the record, and he spent an additional two months fact-checking the story, including a conversation with Aman’s ex-wife who confirmed the account. Aman also agreed to go on camera and share his story for AP’s video clients. https://bit.ly/3mti4SV

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: Video reveals brutality of knife attack in Ohio prison

for video obtained exclusively by the AP that revealed for the first time the extent of the injuries suffered by inmates in a 2017 stabbing attack by another prisoner and raised questions about how the bloody attack happened inside the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, one of Ohio’s most secure prisons. https://bit.ly/2ShlcVs

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Interview yields a chilling exclusive on inmate deaths at a South Carolina prison

for landing an exclusive telephone interview with a South Carolina prison inmate who calmly confesses his role in the deaths of four fellow prisoners. https://apnews.com/f939c602fe9f40e3a33ebe78331a08e...

Best of the States

FOIA checklist enables reporter to break news in case of missing boy’s impostor

Knowing what information can be obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests (FOIAs) from various public agencies is critical to breaking news. And keeping a checklist of those information gold mines is key to accessing that knowledge, Columbus, Ohio-based reporter Andrew Welsh-Huggins has found.

Welsh-Huggins used those skills to great effect in the case of the man accused of pulling a cruel hoax by pretending to be a long-missing Illinois boy. The story captured the nation’s attention and set reporters in motion trying to flesh out the background of a 23-year-old ex-con who Ohio authorities say faked being Timmothy Pitzen. Pitzen was 6 years old when he disappeared in 2011.

Welsh-Huggins’ checklist for enterprise off the news includes FOIAs to all agencies a suspect has had contact with. He filed a FOIA with the Ohio corrections department to obtain access to the disciplinary records of suspect Brian Rini, knowing from experience that the agency would release them.

A few days later the agency handed him 15 disciplinary reports showing that Rini was someone who liked to fabricate stories – including things as mundane as being short of toilet paper and as serious as being raped by a guard.

The AP was alone with the story, which got strong play in Ohio and across the country.

For using his knowledge of FOIA to break news on this highly competitive story, Welsh-Huggins wins this week’s Best of the States.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

In Afghanistan, jailed Taliban await peace, their freedom​​

for negotiating rare, exclusive access to Afghanistan’s notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison, where she was able to interview Taliban prisoners without supervision by guards or prison officials. The prisoners see a peace deal being hammered out between the United States and the Taliban as their ticket to freedom. https://bit.ly/2T3bxlo

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP Exclusive: Inside the 11-day search for escaped Alabama inmate and his jailer accomplice

As the search for Alabama fugitives Casey White and Vicky White captured the attention of the world, Washington-based federal law enforcement reporter Mike Balsamo reached out, working his network of sources in the Justice Department and the U.S. Marshals Service for details.

Balsamo also connected with the U.S. marshal for the Northern District of Alabama, knowing he would be the person most likely to have the inside information that would enable AP to put together a clear timeline of a messy escape saga littered with gaps and confusing accounts.

That contact turned out to be pivotal after the pursuit came to a violent end in Indiana on May 9. The marshal’s exclusive account of the 11-day search, coupled with details Balsamo picked up from other sources, gave AP a story rich with previously unreported detail and context. It also made for an exceptionally easy-to-follow narrative. The resulting story played widely, from Alabama to Australia.

For using all his resources to distinguish AP’s coverage on this extremely competitive story, Mike Balsamo is AP’s Best of the Week – First Winner.