for a month’s worth of thoughtful all-formats coverage marking the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and what was believed to be the largest LGBTQ celebration in history, culminating in a Pride parade that lasted 12 1/2 hours. https://www.apnews.com/Stonewallat50
started digging after federal prosecutors in New York took the unusual step last spring of abruptly dismissing all charges against a banker convicted of evading U.S. sanctions by funneling $115 million to his family’s business in Iran. Goodman’s curiosity was rewarded with an exclusive.Goodman worked with AP assistant general counsel Brian Barrett to convince a court to release internal communications within the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York detailing how the elite unit tried to conceal their mishandling of evidence in the botched prosecution. A plethora of private correspondence between prosecutors showed a coordinated effort to mislead the court. In one exchange of text messages, supervising prosecutors admitted “we lied” to the defense during the trial. “This is going to be a bloodbath,” one wrote, anticipating the judge’s reaction to the disclosure. https://bit.ly/30bwLzEhttps://bit.ly/30aQmAf
teamed up for fast all-formats coverage after a magnitude 6.4 earthquake quake hit Croatia at midday of Dec. 29. Belgrade reporter Dusan Stojanovic filed the first alert via London within seconds of feeling the quake. He was some 25 minutes ahead of AP’s major competitors, and text leads followed throughout the day.Meanwhile, regional news director Amer Cohadzic quickly sourced live video via a partner agency. With all internet, phones and electricity disabled in the towns of Petrinja and Sisak, this live feed on AP Direct was unmatched by other outlets. Hours later AP’s own live unit arrived on scene providing restriction-free coverage. Video edits included rescue teams arriving at the scene and user-generated footage of government buildings as the temblor struck.Coverage continued overnight and into the next day with fresh photos, video and text updates. AP’s cameras captured people being pulled from the rubble, aid being handed out to people suddenly homeless and a visits by Croatia’s president and prime minister.https://bit.ly/3ogTZ1Qhttps://bit.ly/2LbIRoBhttps://bit.ly/2LC6O8mhttps://bit.ly/3i2BKLd
used their deep understanding of the high court and meticulous preparation to put the AP out front – way out front – on every major ruling as the U.S. Supreme Court ended a momentous term. The pair delivered with speed, accuracy and insightful analysis on all the key developments in the closely watched term.https://bit.ly/3janT5Ahttps://bit.ly/2B164EXhttps://bit.ly/3gVEBnA
reported exclusively that Grammy-winning country superstar Kacey Musgraves and her musician-husband, Ruston Kelly, had filed for divorce. AP customers ran with the full story, while competitors had to cite AP in their own reporting. https://bit.ly/2O6bjq0
for exceptional coverage in all formats – a smart combination of archival material with fresh and engaging original reporting – that helped AP stand out in the crowded field of media marking the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.https://bit.ly/2Od4UJghttps://bit.ly/2CLVeQshttps://apnews.com/FalloftheBerlinWall
for coordinating as a multi-format team to produce consistently outstanding images – photo and video – during nearly two weeks of violent protests by indigenous demonstrators who clashed with police and journalists, creating a risky, complicated environment for newsgathering.https://bit.ly/2BGxLQehttps://bit.ly/2MIjb0K
President Donald Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s president, and the ensuing impeachment investigation, has been the hottest story in Washington for weeks. It’s extremely challenging to find new ways to report on the conversation and gather new details of how a rough transcript of the call was created and handled.
Deb Riechmann managed to do it all, with a deeply reported 1800-word story that laid out everything we know about who was on the call, how such conversations are memorialized and what happens to the rough transcripts once they are created.
For uncovering tantalizing new details about Trump’s fateful phone call with the Ukraine president, AP’s Best of the Week citation goes to White House reporter Deb Riechmann.
Because San Diego correspondent Elliot Spagat received a tip that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were planning massive raids on food processing plants, AP was uniquely positioned – literally – when ICE stormed seven Mississippi chicken processing plants and arrested 680 people, the largest workplace raid in a decade.
ICE’s acting Director Matthew Albence said that the investigation was so secret that even the White House didn’t know.
On the day of the raids, weeks of persistence and planning put AP way ahead of local and national media in the speed and depth of the report. Photographer Rogelio V. Solis was the only journalist on scene when about 600 agents simultaneously hit the plants, while his Jackson colleague, reporter Jeff Amy, got an exclusive interview with Albence.
Their multiday coverage received monster play, including 3 million social interactions for the first-day story alone.
For scoring scoops on a major ICE operation, Spagat, Amy and Solis are the winners of this week’s Best of the States honors.
for comprehensive all-formats coverage that enabled AP to dominate the story of two California teenagers arrested in the deadly stabbing of a police officer in Rome. When the story emerged late on a Friday, AP immediately deployed live video and photo to the Carabinieri station where the Americans were being interrogated and staked out the building into the early morning. Other agencies were slow to react. Thanks to excellent teamwork across formats in Rome and with colleagues in California, AP continued to own the story in subsequent days, particularly for video, with unmatched interviews, including an eyewitness account and live coverage of the main suspect’s father arriving in Rome. AP was also aggressive in pursuing photos of the suspects and details of the investigation. https://bit.ly/2TczODshttps://bit.ly/2KwQW35
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke fell one election short of becoming Louisiana’s governor in 1991. In the years since, he has frequently mulled another run for office, but never taken the plunge. So when Duke publicly floated the idea of running for Congress, Louisiana statehouse reporter Melinda Deslatte was cautious.
But Deslatte also knew that if Duke were to actually run, it would be big news, especially in a year where race relations were front and center in the national debate.
for producing an engaging series of exclusive profiles on eight breakthrough entertainers for 2018, with video, text and photos of each discussing the years that launched them on the path to stardom. https://bit.ly/2POedOg
for breaking the news of the arrest of a caretaker of a desecrated cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut – a development that allowed Collins to update a deeply reported story on complaints from relatives about the state of the burial ground. https://bit.ly/2zWdi9M
California’s news staff still was in the midst of reporting the tragic night-spot shooting in Thousand Oaks when news reached the AP that a wildfire in Northern California was spreading quickly, sending thousands fleeing.
Bay Area freelance photographer Noah Berger, as good a fire chaser as there is anywhere, tipped the office off that the Northern California fire looked explosive. By 11 a.m. Sacramento reporter Don Thompson was hitting the road, and a first AP NewsAlert moved saying people fleeing for their lives had abandoned vehicles as the fire swept in.
AP’s all-formats coverage went into high gear, with staffers pouring in from the region. In addition to Thompson, who stayed at the scene with fire crews for several days straight, Portland, Ore., all-formats reporter Gilly Flaccus arrived, producing unmatched interviews in text and video of survivors and of crews searching for the remains of those killed. San Francisco reporter Paul Elias gathered information on the dramatic rescues and chaotic evacuation, while Las Vegas photographer John Locher and Denver videographer Peter Banda provided gripping visuals from the scene.
AP was first to report thousands of homes destroyed, first to report a named victim, and we were alone in accompanying a search and recovery crew in all formats as they went to a victim’s home and found her remains.
The coverage was nuanced and emotional. California News Editor Frank Baker says there was no one on the California staff who didn’t contribute, working unrelentingly from last week’s elections and mass shooting straight into the wildfire.
For outstanding work, bolstered and supported by California’s all-formats reporting staff and editors, Thompson, Flaccus, Elias, Berger, Locher and Banda share this AP's Best of the Week.
for careful planning, effective customer service and impactful, all-format coverage of typhoon Mangkhut and its aftermath in the Philippines and Hong Kong.https://bit.ly/2Ijr5Knhttps://bit.ly/2xEWjr5https://bit.ly/2xEWVwT
for being first to report that the U.S. government's top official overseeing the student loan market was resigning in protest of the White House’s policies toward student loan borrowers. https://bit.ly/2NnWmh3
for uncovering a new program that allows Palestinians to clear their records with Israeli security officials in exchange for information about friends, relatives or neighbors. https://bit.ly/2Ibrpd5
for showing that Florida’s transportation agency had ordered key design changes to a pedestrian bridge that later collapsed and killed six people. https://hrld.us/2J7uGLJ
for an exclusive interview with William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, that revealed the Fed will likely pare its bond portfolio and raise interest rates this year. AP also published a 6,100-word transcript. http://bit.ly/2vy0y7t
for following up the Trump administration’s actions promoting the coal industry with a reality check story and a quickly turned enterprise piece about what the actions might mean for one coal town. The latter story prompted a tweet from the president. http://apne.ws/2oF2cS5 http://apne.ws/2oDzzVQ