for her persistence in getting the Department of Veterans Affairs to acknowledge its health insurance plan was running out of money despite an emergency infusion of funds. http://bit.ly/2xZ7gmw
On the eve of the first world track championships since Bowie’s passing, AP sportswriters Eddie Pells and Pat Graham teamed up to report exclusively on the mental health struggles of Tori Bowie that led up to the star athlete’s death April 23 from complications during childbirth at the age of 32.
The two had covered Bowie, who won three medals at the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Games, for many years and had heard whispers of her difficulties. A few weeks after her death, the autopsy listed the cause as “complications in childbirth.”
While other outlets pursued the angle that Black women suffer disproportionately from pregnancy complications, Pells opted to explore another dimension of her story, her struggles with mental health.
He sought out people at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and within track and field, to find out how a world-famous champion, who was eight months into what would be considered an at-risk pregnancy, came to die alone at home without medical care or anyone to look after her.
For sensitively telling the story of a great athlete who became isolated from her peers and died tragically alone in part because of neglect of her mental health difficulties, Pells and Graham are Best of the Week — First Winner.
National investigative race writer Kat Stafford had wanted to create a project about lifelong health disparities Black people face for quite some time. Taking inspiration from her reporting about the toll COVID-19 exacted upon Black Americans, she sharpened her idea and embarked on reporting a five-part series.
Driven by data and the experiences of several families, individuals and communities across five states and life stages, “From Birth to Death” examines five health crises: infant and maternal health, childhood asthma, mental health, high blood pressure, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Stafford, who is based in Detroit, teamed up with video journalist Noreen Nasir and photojournalist Maye-E Wong, both of New York, for the comprehensive project that captures the health journey of Black people in America over a lifetime. The trio — along with national education writer Annie Ma, data journalist Angeliki Kastanis, illustrator Peter Hamlin, project site creator Linda Gorman, and graphics journalist Kevin Vineys — told the stories in a compelling and human way using an innovative presentation. They centered the project around the often-underrepresented voices and perspectives of Black Americans — and not just the main characters, but also Black medical experts, researchers and historians. The families featured said they feel seen and heard for the first time.
In addition, an extensive social promotion plan created by Ed Medeles, Elise Ryan and Almaz Abedje enticed readers to delve into the project.
For an innovative series that gives a fuller picture of the health disparities Black people experience in a way that resonates with a broader audience, this team earns Best of the Week — First Winner.
has been tracking the changes in obesity care.Read more.
AP reporter Michelle Smith was working on another project in June when she came up with the names of a dozen or so public health officials who had quit, retired or been fired. Sensing a trend, Smith and reporters at Kaiser Health News continued to track those departures as the pandemic worsened and the backlash against public health restrictions became more strident.
The journalists contacted officials in all 50 states and interviewed dozens of people, finding a public health leadership vacuum developing at a critical time in the pandemic. They told the stories of public servants who toiled through the pandemic only to be reviled by their neighbors — including the wrenching story of an official whose husband would not even follow her recommendation to require masks in the family store. The timely all-formats story included a data distribution, interactive graphics and a sidebar with portraits and quotes of public health officials.
For a deeply reported package that examines a vital component of the pandemic response, Smith, Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Hannah Recht and Lauren Weber earn this week’s Best of the States award.
for a particularly accessible all-formats package connecting weather extremes to global warming. The pair analyzed a century’s worth of data from more than 400 U.S. weather stations, finding that over the past 20 years, Americans have been twice as likely to experience record-breaking heat rather than record-setting cold. One city – Pasadena, California – hit 145 heat records before it set a daily cold record. Forster also assigned the data to counties so that AP customers could localize what’s happening in their communities.https://bit.ly/2uvH55Lhttps://bit.ly/2OtNWWG
The nation’s health isn’t improving. In some key measures, it’s getting worse. How is that even possible in an era of genetic medicine and other advances? And how could the AP connect that story to our customers’ own neighborhoods?
AP medical writer Mike Stobbe and data journalist Nicky Forster started with those questions and delivered a winning package on why American life expectancy is getting shorter.
The package ran shortly after the release of the CDC’s annual mortality report which found that U.S. life expectancy had declined again. To find out what was behind the numbers, Stobbe returned to West Virginia, a place he declared the unhealthiest place in America 10 years ago. He connected with people trying to get healthier, witnessed the headwinds of the opioid crisis and explained how difficult it is to improve health en masse.
Forster, meanwhile, assembled an array of data that explained what was happening around the U.S. He matched longevity estimates for more than 65,000 neighborhoods with demographics, and found striking connections to income, race and education. He then built an interactive that allowed readers to see life expectancy in their own neighborhood and wrote a sidebar on the AP’s findings.
For getting beyond the numbers for a richer understanding of why American lifespans are shrinking, and giving AP customers the data to localize their stories, Stobbe and Forster win the week’s Best of the States award.
for the first on-camera interview with the Brazilian consul general, one of few people to meet with former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn, who was arrested over suspicion of underreporting millions in income. Ghosn, once one of the most powerful men in the business world, was reportedly holding up well during his detention in Japan, and was asking for thrillers to read. https://bit.ly/2QMhP8l
for a complete, all-formats explanation of what gene-edited food is and what it means for people who eat food (i.e. everyone), farmers and animals.https://bit.ly/2B5LWyMhttps://bit.ly/2QcdkTZ
How best to capture the story of recovering opioid users?
Chicago-based medical writer Lindsey Tanner and Atlanta-based photographer/videographer David Goldman teamed up to produce an intimate look at a diverse group of people – among them, a lawyer, a businessman and a trucker – who got caught up in the worst opioid epidemic in U.S. history.
Their illuminating package – combining Tanner's powerful text and Goldman's photos with a haunting mini-documentary – earns the Beat of the Week.
for revealing that a series of mystery illnesses in Cuba had started by hitting undercover CIA agents, and that yet another American had been confirmed as a victim. http://bit.ly/2wO5KlF
When news first broke in early August about mysterious incidents involving U.S. diplomats in Cuba, the AP was all over the story, beating the competition to several key early details. These included talk among officials about a possible “sonic attack” and suspicions that ranged from Cuban culpability to possible intervention by an outside culprit like Russia.
But so many questions were left unanswered. And with the FBI deep into one of the most perplexing investigations in modern diplomatic history, U.S. officials in the State Department, White House and elsewhere were saying as little as possible about what they were learning.
That’s when the Washington bureau put together a multi-beat team of reporters to try to put the pieces together. Their comprehensive work wins Beat of the Week.
A face transplant: It’s one of the rarest of surgeries, a medically complex, emotionally fraught procedure – and a challenge to cover as a truly revealing news story and not just a sensational headline.
That’s why AP National Writer Sharon Cohen’s narrative of the first face transplant performed at the renowned Mayo Clinic was so remarkable, combining detailed reporting on state-of-the-art medical science with a unique tragedy-to-triumph human story. The narrative, Andy’s New Face, which engaged readers and commanded front pages for days after its release, earns the Beat of the Week.
for a profile of President Donald Trump’s choice for an important health care post that shed light on the nominee’s business arrangements and possible conflicts of interest while acting as an adviser to then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. http://apne.ws/2l9wuY2
for using a public records request to become the first to obtain an analysis showing nearly 400,000 Arizona residents could lose Medicaid coverage under the GOP's proposed health care overhaul bill. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/arizona/ar...
for breaking the news that a deal was in the works to revive the Republican health care bill in the House that lawmakers would pass by a razor-thin margin two days later. http://on.freep.com/2qsRFur
for obtaining a decade worth of private notes on every official trip taken by outgoing World Health Organization director-general Margaret Chan, allowing her to report on unusual meetings with Russia, North Korea and Turkmenistan. https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-exclusive-outgoing-h...
for exposing the plight of a prisoner, ill while awaiting extradition to Spain, whose health care was being neglected until AP’s report led a federal judge to intervene and force jailers to get him treatment. https://apnews.com/d2341eaf760a4e76b2b2d4932969def...
for breaking major developments in the Senate Republicans’ struggles to get a health care bill, from the first word of the Congressional Budget Office’s report that 22 million would be uninsured under the bill, to a key senator’s defection, to plans to delay a vote until after the July 4th recess. http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/govt-and-pol...
for a quickly turned AP data analysis that found that the vast majority of people who will be affected by President Donald Trump’s decision to end a key health insurance subsidy are in states he won. http://bit.ly/2gnjqB2