used sophisticated imaging technology, expert analysis and longtime source building to deliver a series of exclusive stories on Iran’s nuclear program and America’s response to it.Read more.
In more than 30 stories dating to early May, AP journalists covered all aspects of the trial of Robert Bowers for killing 11 people inside a Pittsburgh synagogue building in 2018.Read more
AP spent months reporting the issue of tornado deaths in mobile homes and why they still happen despite being known and avoidable.Read more
get AP access to thousands of pages of documents that gave a glimpse of the federal government’s haphazard handling of nuclear waste in the St. Louis area.Read more.
When a Texas sheriff’s story about a mass shooting didn’t add up, Dallas-based reporter Jake Bleiberg dug in.
During the four-day search for a man accused of fatally shooting five of his neighbors in April, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers told a crush of reporters that his deputies got to the scene in 11 minutes, but the suspect had vanished. Bleiberg was among the Texas reporters covering the shooting who heard from area residents that deputies rarely responded to calls faster than 30 minutes. As he worked the phone to get a fuller picture, Bleiberg connected with a source who provided him with the report of a police consultant who county officials hired to examine the sheriff’s office. Bleiberg quickly authenticated the document and headed down to the rural corner of East Texas to continue reporting along with video journalist Lekan Oyekanmi and freelance photographer Michael Wyke.
They conducted more than 20 interviews with current and former deputies, county officials and residents. Bleiberg successfully pressed for the release of public records related to the shooting and obtained revealing court documents and evidence gathered in a whistleblower lawsuit against the sheriff. The reporting revealed that the latest inaccuracies were part of years’ worth of accusations against the sheriff, including neglecting basic police work, evidence of the improper seizure of tens of thousands of dollars of property, ignoring previous concerns over the alleged shooter, and his deputies failing to follow up on reports of 4,000 crimes — including sexual and child abuse.
For a tireless effort to reveal years of corruption accusations and dysfunction previously unknown outside of the local area, Jake Bleiberg earns Best of the Week — First Winner.
told the story of a stumbling start to a historic wildfire mitigation effort intended to avoid a repeat of the climate-driven conflagrations that destroyed Western communities in recent years.Read more.
led an all-formats team to look at the impact of the mine on Native Americans who have long lived in the area.Read more.
AP gained unprecedented access to key sources in stories on underreported and often marginalized groups in the small Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda.Read more
's persistent public records work, coupled with strong expertise and collaboration across the newsroom helped land exclusive reporting detailing Jeffrey Epstein’s final days before he took his life while incarcerated at a federal jail in New York.Read more.
was the first to report on lawsuits filed against Texas by women who sought abortions because their babies would survive, or their health was endangered.Read more.
took what could have been a relatively mundane state wire brief about a vote on a local ordinance and transformed the story into an engaging all-formats national package with text, audio, photos and video that became the third most viewed story on AP News on the day of publication.Read more.
scored an exclusive interview with a cabbie who acted as the getaway driver for Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan after they were trailed by photographers after a charity event in New York, thanks to a cross-Atlantic team.Read more.
exposed how jeweler Cartier used images of Yanomami, a tribe devastated by gold mining, to cast itself in an environmentally conscious light, an “Only on AP” exclusive that led to Cartier taking down a problematic image and saying it had been a mistake.Read more.
examined serious flaws in state crime victims’ compensation programs that exposed deep racial disparities across states.Read more.
in Athens pulled off an exclusive interview with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who is seeking reelection.Read more.
in Washington reported exclusively on the results of a first-of its-kind federal investigation of hospitals that refused to provide an emergency abortion to a woman whose premature labor put her life at risk.Read more.
zeroed in on an ambitious approach that would thematically cut across several global beats and intersect with India’s immense geographical diversity.Read more.
Josh Goodman and Jim Mustian reported exclusively that a federal watchdog is investigating whether the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration under chief Anne Milgram improperly used millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to flout normal governing hiring procedures to hire past associates at a very high cost.
The two followed up on a previous scoop about the arrest of former DEA agent Jose Irizarry, who confessed to laundering money for Colombian drug cartels and skimming millions of dollars from asset seizures and informants.
After an external review of the DEA’s foreign operations was slammed for underplaying its scandals, Latin America reporter Goodman and investigative reporter Mustian began asking questions.
What they found was that a Washington law firm that was hired as part of a no-bid contract did the review, and that its author was the former right-hand man to one of Milgram’s closest friends, former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. That led to more reporting, more questions and more sources talking about how the DEA used other no-bid contracts to hire Milgram’s past associates.
For expert source reporting that holds accountable the DEA and its highest-ranking official, Goodman and Mustian win Best of the Week — First Winner.
leapt on an early, off-the-record source telling us that a seemingly low-level highway shooting with three injured was actually linked to another crime scene with four dead that had not been publicly reported yet, positioning AP to get ahead and stay ahead in a week of strong all-formats coverage.Read more.
exclusively reported that a federal judge donated tens of thousands of dollars to New Orleans’ Roman Catholic archdiocese and consistently ruled in favor of the church amid a contentious bankruptcy involving nearly 500 clergy sex abuse victims, an apparent conflict that led to calls for him to recuse himself.Read more.
