Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP leads fight for access and answers in Hanoi

for leading the way in two formats in Hanoi, asking tough questions of President Donald Trump and then fighting for media access when the White House retaliated. Lemire’s question to Trump about the Michael Cohen hearings prompted the White House to bar reporters – but not photographers – from a dinner for the two leaders. Vucci, recognizing the significance, quickly made a case to his fellow photographers, then approached Press Secretary Sarah Sanders: photographers would not cover the dinner unless reporters were allowed in as well. Sanders conceded to one pool reporter and one TV producer in the room, ensuring that the press – and therefore the public – had access to a historic meeting. https://bit.ly/2H4aSuC

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Breonna Taylor protesters find growing sense of community

showed the human side of the national reckoning on race, revealing how a sense of community and purpose has emerged among the small band of demonstrators who have gathered for weeks in search of justice for Breonna Taylor at Louisville’s “Injustice Square.”

The Louisville-based reporters covered the protests that emerged just after Taylor was killed by police in March, and then returned to check in on a small core group of demonstrators who had hung in for the long haul. They found a group that had discovered in themselves a sense of community and purpose greater than many of them had known before.

Galofaro told the story through the eyes of Amber Brown, a Louisville bus driver who feels so connected to Taylor and so committed to justice that she returns day after day to the small public square where the protesters gather.https://bit.ly/32iqHayhttps://bit.ly/3m8Tqq6

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: Online learning and sanctions lead to a laptop shortage

reported exclusively that the world’s three largest computer makers have told school districts nationwide that they have a shortage of nearly 5 million laptops – in some cases exacerbated by Trump administration sanctions on Chinese suppliers – just as many districts move to online learning during the pandemic. AP bureaus across the country contributed by reaching out to some of the largest school districts in 15 states to assess the scope of the problem. https://bit.ly/3lkhPJb

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

With masks and gloves, Ukraine’s priests resume duties

teamed up for a deeply reported story on priests in Ukraine resuming religious services and visiting the sick and bereaved as the coronavirus pandemic’s grip slowly recedes.https://bit.ly/3gRBoGmhttps://bit.ly/3gURDT8

Best of the States

Bearing witness as COVID-19 ravages rural Georgia counties

Telling the stories of people who have suffered devastating losses is difficult at the best of times, but with this story, focused on one predominantly black rural county in southwestern Georgia where the pandemic is hitting hardest among some of America’s most exposed, the all-formats team of Claire Galofaro, Brynn Anderson and Angie Wang also had to cope with the challenges of reporting in a pandemic. 

The journalists knew they would have to take cautious risks to tell this important story, while also dealing with the emotional and ethical issues of potentially putting the people they spoke to in danger. They spent much of their time sorting out how to best protect their sources, while also getting a story worthy of the risk those sources were taking to tell it.

That story, intimately told and richly illustrated, connected with readers, some of whom said it made the pandemic finally feel real. Many said it inspired them to act, and others wrote to compliment the journalism. 

For a significant, poignant package that reveals in personal terms the already deep inequities exploited by the pandemic, Galofaro, Anderson and Wang are recognized with this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Saudis end death penalty for minors and floggings

used leaked documents and persistent source reporting to put the AP hours ahead of the competition with their story on Saudi Arabia's decree to end capital punishment for minors. The decree joined another ordering judges to end the practice of flogging. https://bit.ly/3bQ4anM

Best of the Week — First Winner

With speed and smarts, AP Germany team dominates mass shooting coverage

As news of a racially motivated café shooting started trickling out shortly before midnight on Feb. 19, the AP team in Germany burst into action with an all-hands-on-desk effort that dominated coverage of this major story. 

AP’s success included a huge win on live video coordinated by Kerstin Sopke, brisk filing of the breaking story by Geir Moulson and Frank Jordans, and Michael Probst’s photos from the scene that landed on the front pages of major publications.

Their effort was supplemented by a strong effort from other corners of the AP as journalists interviewed survivors and members of the immigrant community, wrote about the rise of far-right violence in Germany and followed the written trail left by the killer. Play for the story was phenomenal. 

For their speed, smart news judgment and superior coordination that gave AP a massive lead on a big story as it broke, Probst, Moulson, Sopke and Jordans are AP’s Best of the Week winners.

Best of the States

Going to extremes to tell the story of sexual violence and shortcomings of enforcement

In western Alaska, rape survivors and their supporters say Nome’s police department has often failed to investigate sexual assaults, especially when the victims are Alaska Native women.

Delivering sensitive-but-powerful coverage from a challenging environment, enterprise photographer Maye-E Wong and freelance correspondent Victoria Mckenzie tell the story of average Americans struggling with sexual violence and law enforcement in small communities. Their work made clear that Nome’s struggles don’t represent an isolated case; it is a microcosm of how police and towns and cities across the U.S. have failed survivors of sexual assaults.

For going to extremes – literally and figuratively – to shed light on a remote corner of the larger issue of sexual violence and enforcement, Wong and Mckenzie share this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Outstanding video coverage from Hong Kong and Pyongyang

for deftly directing unmatched video coverage of two major stories in Asia. Amid recent clashes in Hong Kong, Wober was fully committed to coverage on July 1, the anniversary of the territory's 1997 handover. But he was also keenly aware of the unprecedented meeting that took place the previous day between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung Un at the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas. Wober had asked Pyongyang for video reaction from the North Korean capital. While monitoring the building tension on the ground in Hong Kong, he checked in with the team in North Korea, coordinating the video feed from Pyongyang. As a result, only AP was able to deliver North Koreans’ reaction on video. And while working the two stories, Wober accommodated an interview request from client Sky News, describing the tense situation in Hong Kong.

As an already long day wore into the evening of July 1, hundreds of Hong Kong protesters smashed their way into the territory’s legislature, vandalizing the main legislative chamber before being cleared by police firing tear gas into the crowd. Wober and another member of his crew stayed on to deliver hours of powerful live and recorded video unmatched by competitive agencies. https://bit.ly/2RNfGY2

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reveals politics of immigration policy shifts

for two stories on how the Trump administration is dealing with the surge of migrant families at the border and a claimed lack of detention space. Merchant spotted a solicitation for contractors to build tents near the U.S.-Mexico border to temporarily detain immigrant families, and he followed up with an accountability story revealing that thousands of beds for detained families are empty at a time when President Trump was calling the country “full,” and threatening to send migrants to sanctuary cities as political retribution.https://bit.ly/2GuBJxmhttps://bit.ly/2L4OQuG

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

While focused on Mexico, illegal immigration from Canada ‘skyrockets’

for getting exclusive stats and reporting that show Mexicans are being apprehended at the U.S.-Canadian border in record numbers. https://bit.ly/2NI8yc5

Best of the States

Victims of the Paradise wildfire; stunning portraits of how they lived and died

The wildfire that consumed Paradise, California, claimed 85 lives while virtually burning the town off the map. But beyond those facts lay a rich narrative of the individuals who perished while calling Paradise home.

AP San Francisco reporters Janie Har and Jocelyn Gecker set out to tell the stories of the victims of the deadly Paradise fire far more comprehensively than was possible in the immediate aftermath: Who were they? Where and when did they die? Did they even have a chance to flee?

To paint a picture of how the tragedy unfolded, the pair spent months tracking down family members – many of whom were wary – to talk about their loved ones, assuring them that AP’s coverage would be more than a recitation of the grim facts. Interviews with California fire officials, a newly available simulation of the fire’s movement on the fateful morning and public records requests enabled AP to produce an interactive graphic giving the exact locations where people died and their approximate times of death.

The result was a riveting package that coupled intimate portraits of the victims with the circumstances of their death. Most never had a chance to flee their homes as the fast-moving fire barreled through.

The moving package was well-received by members throughout California and from coast-to-coast.

For carrying the Paradise story forward with enterprising, sensitive work that focused on the victims’ narratives, Har and Gecker share this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Only On AP: Bizarre tale of publishing, divorce ... and poisoning?

for carefully piecing together, over the course of a year, a riveting saga about a small-town Arizona publisher who said his estranged wife tried to poison him. He then used his newspapers to publicly shame her even after law enforcement had cleared her and raised questions about his possible use of illegal drugs. https://bit.ly/2PLcz09

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Exclusive: A young mayor and a fatal attraction to opioids

for a sensitive portrayal of the family of a 24-year-old Pennsylvania mayor whose cause of death a year ago had been kept under wraps. The family gave a detailed and heartbreaking account of his heroin overdose, enabling a hugely compelling story and beautiful portraits that generated high praise and AP chart-topping engagement from readers across the country, and front-page play in papers from one end of the state to the other. https://bit.ly/2Lh2jvU

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

US spends millions to protect Confederate graves and cemeteries

for using freedom of information requests to wrest details from a recalcitrant Veterans Administration to reveal that the government quietly is spending millions of dollars to provide security, including in some cases round-the-clock protection, at Confederate cemeteries. https://bit.ly/2yyU5dd

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

APNewsBreak and exclusives on disappearance of Interpol's ex-president

for an AP exclusive and the first one-on-one interview with two he wife of Interpol's ex-president, who disappeared in China.https://bit.ly/2EvQGlbhttps://bit.ly/2OurGz3

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Florence's environmental toll: coal ash and hog waste

for leading strong AP coverage of the devastation of Hurricane Florence. Biesecker drew on experience to warn readers that the storm would likely cause widespread water pollution from ruptured hog lagoons and swamped coal ash dumps, and scored a series of storm-related scoops. Helber captured iconic images including a widely used aerial shot that earned a rare two-page spread in Time magazine.https://bit.ly/2xMWdwMhttps://bit.ly/2NEn7lrhttps://bit.ly/2zw7WlNhttps://bit.ly/2Og1G9U

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP and partners document Puerto Rico hurricane deaths

Colleagues,

Welcome to Best of the Week.

This officially marks a rebirth of sorts for our weekly global staff contest, which celebrates some of the best work from around the AP world.

This week’s winner celebrates a great team effort by colleagues in Latin America and beyond, as well as a really productive partnership with two other news organizations. It’s creative and insightful work that breaks news and includes great visual journalism and innovative presentation. It rose to the top of an impressive field of entries.

Today, and each Friday going forward, the weekly winner is revealed at the Global News Meeting at 9:15 a.m. ET, which all AP staff are invited to attend.

Please join me in congratulating this week’s honorees.

BC

Since the early days after Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico on Sept. 20, 2017, the debate over the death toll has raged. The Trump administration seized on initial reports that fewer than 100 people had died, but those numbers belied the scope of the devastation. The storm left the island without electricity for months, hospitals and other key infrastructure shuttered, roads unpassable and pharmacies closed.

In June, Caribbean News Director Mike Weissenstein in Havana forged a partnership with Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism and U.S.-based news site Quartz to undertake the most comprehensive list to date of Puerto Ricans who died in the wake of the storm.

For the project, Weissenstein, San Juan newswoman Danica Coto, Washington-based data journalist Larry Fenn, New York-based reporter Claudia Torrens, Miami-based reporter Gisela Salomon, Washington-based reporters Luis Alonso and Ben Fox, as well as senior Havana-based producer Chris Gillette, Havana photographer Ramon Espinosa, Santo Domingo reporter Ezequiel Lopez Blanco, Mexico-based digital producer Dario Lopez, New York-based motion graphics producer Peter Hamlin and enterprise editor Raghuram Vadarevu, based in Phoenix, share the Best of the Week award-

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Black Lab found alive and well; man exonerated of sex crime

for a deep records search and interviews on deadline that revealed how the discovery of the location of a Labrador dog named Lucy saved a man from a sex conviction. https://bit.ly/2Ohqnzn

Best of the Week — First Winner

Of Peacock and Gypsy: New Australian law helps unite sperm donors and offspring

The best stories sometimes present themselves not in the newsroom but in our personal lives, in the most random of ways. We just have to be paying attention – and thinking like reporters – to notice them.

That’s what Sydney-based enterprise writer Kristen Gelineau was doing when a friend mentioned he’d found out through an Ancestry.com DNA test that his biological father was a sperm donor. The friend then told Gelineau about a new law in the Australian state of Victoria, which gave offspring of long-anonymous sperm and egg donors the right to know who the donors were. Gelineau had missed the news of the law, but immediately started researching it and thought “Wow. Now THIS is a story!!”

She was right – and her multi-format account of one such unique reunion, told in ways both comic and moving, wins Beat of the Week for Gelineau, enterprise photographer Maye-E Wong, NY-based digital storytelling producer Natalie Castañeda and New Delhi-based videojournalist Shonal Ganguly.