Best of the Week — First Winner

Flawless source work, preparation deliver all-formats scoop on US-Russia prisoner swap

In a textbook display of outstanding source work and planning, Eric Tucker and Matthew Lee acted on a tip to score a massive scoop on a stunning U.S.-Russia prisoner exchange that happened despite heightened tensions between the countries.

In the process, the pair showed the rewards of careful, long-term source-building, a model of how to prepare in all formats to put the AP ahead of the competition the moment the news broke, and examples of how to build on a big story with smart sidebars in-cycle and a compelling follow-up story that offered new, behind-the-scenes details.

Their efforts paid off handsomely on Wednesday when Lee got the green light that the exchange had taken place, allowing AP to push out an alert and full story accompanied by photos and video, well before any Western media competitors were even aware the swap had happened.

For their exhaustive, comprehensive work that scooped everyone on the surprising swap, Tucker and Lee share AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

In-depth look at resisters committed to abortion access

set out to explore the abortion rights resistance — dedicated advocates for abortion access who are grappling with what is expected to be a wave of women seeking abortions as the U.S. Supreme Court takes aim at Roe v. Wade and states tighten restrictions, pushing pregnant people farther from home — some hundreds of miles away.After interviewing more than a dozen people, the pair reported for all-formats on a woman with a Midwest coalition providing “practical support” for women seeking abortions. Galofaro and Irvine spent days on her Missouri farm, shadowing Alison Dreith as she fielded calls on a hotline used by women desperate for help.And a companion story revealed the deeply religious employees of an Alabama abortion clinic who have no trouble reconciling their work with their religion, breaking preconceptions about the religious divide over abortion.Both stories won wide use and high reader engagement, prompting praise for balanced, nuanced coverage.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Teamwork, sourcing put AP ahead on Buffalo mass shooting

teamed up to deliver fast, factual breaking coverage of Saturday’s racist mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket, then turned to stories of the victims and a community in mourning.In the chaotic first hours after the shooting, AP avoided the erroneous reporting of other outlets, including false reports that the gunman was dead. Sharp source work had AP accurately reporting the death toll ahead of the official news conference, and that authorities suspected the shooter was driven by racism.The all-formats coverage was AP’s top-performing story of the day, by far, widely used and credited by AP customers and drawing more than 1 million pageviews on AP News.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP documents North Dakota lawmaker’s taxpayer-funded travel

scooped North Dakota media by revealing just how extensively — and expensively — a state senator had traveled on the taxpayer’s dime.MacPherson obtained documents showing that Republican Sen. Ray Holmberg, who recently announced he would end his 46-year-career following a report that he had traded scores of text messages with a man jailed on child pornography charges, had run up more than 14 times the average travel expenses for the state’s lawmakers over the past decade, on trips that included China, Puerto Rico and New Orleans.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Amid controversy, Black Lives co-founder gives rare interview

used years of source building and a reputation for fair and accurate reporting to land an interview with Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who acknowledged that she and the organization had struggled to handle their sudden prominence — and $90 million in donations — in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, though she denied allegations of improprieties.Cullors had not given any interview of this sort, though BLM’s purchase of a $6 million LA compound in 2020 has drawn scrutiny and heavy criticism. Morrison’s interview was cited widely and picked up by outlets across the spectrum.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Unique AP visual investigation points to 600 dead in airstrike on Mariupol theater

A deeply reported, innovative and meticulous AP investigation determined that the deadliest apparent war crime so far in Ukraine — the March 16 Mariupol theater airstrike — likely killed about 600 people, twice as many as previously reported.

AP’s first full-blown visual investigation drew on survivors’ accounts, photos, video, experts and a 3D digital model of the theater to reconstruct what happened that day. The resulting package offered a vivid, detailed narrative of the events inside the theater, including elements that had not previously been reported, all delivered in an arresting presentation.

For a remarkable investigation that harnessed the power of all formats to break news, the team of Hinnant, Ritzel, Chernov, Stepanenko and Goodman is AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Acute shortage of public defenders in Oregon and beyond

picked up on a seemingly mundane local story: A state working group was looking into problems with Oregon’s public defense system. That seed led the Portland-based reporter to interview attorneys, private investigators and a suspect in an attempted murder, revealing that the combination of a post-pandemic glut of delayed cases and the state’s severe shortage of public defenders means hundreds of low-income defendants don’t have legal representation — sometimes in serious felony cases — and judges have dismissed several dozen cases.Flaccus found similar crises unfolding from Maine to New Mexico. And she showed the many painful repercussions of the problem, highlighting how young victims of sex abuse and trafficking are hesitant to come forward because of disillusionment with the system.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Algorithm screening for child neglect raises bias concerns

teamed up on an exclusive package that revealed concerns over racial disparity in an algorithm used by one child welfare agency to help decide if a family should be investigated by child protective services.Long-term source work allowed the reporters to obtain research on the impact of the tool used to support social workers in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, who make split-second decisions meant to protect children from neglect. The research showed the algorithm flagging a disproportionate number of Black children for a “mandatory” neglect investigation when compared with white children, and that social workers disagreed with the risk scores the tool produced about one-third of the time.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Investigation reveals traumatic backlog of Mississippi autopsies

investigated Mississippi’s massive autopsy backlog for more than a year, gathering new data and personal stories revealing the terrible cost of the backlog which has traumatized families and jeopardized investigations.The state’s public officials had talked previously about understaffing in the medical examiner’s office, but Willingham’s reporting went much further, revealing a system long operating outside of accepted national standards for death investigations. She found that coroners were waiting years — and in some cases more than a decade — for autopsy reports. District attorneys and coroners who trusted Willingham told her about specific cases and connected her to families who told deeply personal accounts of waiting a year or more for results on loved ones.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP explores a historic Black town vulnerable to climate change

tell the story of a historic Black town in North Carolina threatened by climate change, and its residents determined to endure and prosper.Princeville, North Carolina, the oldest town in the U.S. founded by Black Americans, has flooded many times, including two horrific disasters in recent memory: Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and Matthew in 2016. And it will flood again — likely worse under the effects of global warming.AP’s all-formats trio visited the town multiple times, talking to the people who live there and reporting on the town’s historical significance as well as its efforts to rebuild and protect. They found townspeople determined to preserve their land and legacy, seeing connections to both a shared history and a continued fight for survival.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP hours ahead on long-awaited immigration asylum decision

broke the news hours ahead of the competition that the Biden administration would end the asylum limits at the U.S.-Mexico border that were put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19.For more than a year, the administration faced growing questions — and pressure — over when it would end a Trump-era rule that has resulted in migrants being expelled at the border without a chance to seek humanitarian protection.The clean beat was the product of years of source development and seamless leveraging of reporting from the White House, the investigative team and the immigration team. The spot news break was bracketed by a series of smart stories showcasing AP’s depth of expertise on immigration matters.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Standout coverage on rape trial of former Idaho lawmaker

delivered comprehensive gavel-to-gavel coverage from the dramatic trial of a former Idaho lawmaker charged with the rape of a 19-year-old intern. Reporting with authority and sensitivity, Boise correspondent Boone beat the competition with news of the verdict, then set about placing the case in broader context, speaking to experts who detailed the trauma of court proceedings for victims and pointed to national statistics showing very low rates of conviction in such cases.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Joint investigation exposes sex abuse in mega dance company

spent months digging into the secretive world of teen dance competitions, combing through court records and interviewing dozens of dancers to reveal a culture of sexual abuse and silence.In collaboration with The Toronto Star, the investigative reporters focused on one of the world’s largest dance companies, Break the Floor, documenting sexual misconduct and assault claims against some of the most famous and influential dancers in the United States, including the company’s founder and CEO, who sold the company as he came under the joint team’s scrutiny.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Inside a Lviv apartment building, AP team gives a glimpse of life for displaced Ukrainians

London-based news director Susie Blann wanted to tell the story of how the city of Lviv had welcomed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who fled their homes during the Russian invasion but chose to remain in their country.

Blann, joined by photographer Nariman El-Mofty, video journalist Renata Brito and text reporter Cara Anna, looked behind the doors of one Lviv apartment block, earning the trust of people from Irpin, Kyiv and Kharkiv who had found temporary housing there and were willing to tell their stories.

The result was a remarkable presentation produced in collaboration with Natalie Castañeda, giving a deeply personal glimpse into the lives of some of the millions of people displaced by war.

For their tireless, resourceful work in demanding circumstances, the team of Blann, Anna, El-Mofty, Brito and Castañeda is the AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Russians dare to protest war; AP dares to report it

gave voice to Russians who dare challenge the official Kremlin narrative of the war in Ukraine.The correspondent, unnamed for their security, used excellent reporting skills to build trust among sources in Russia who gave their accounts of speaking out against the war being waged by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the consequences they face for having done so.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Promises, cash for making protective gear in US fall flat

delivered a distinctive accountability story, finding that U.S. governors’ promises to produce personal protective gear domestically remain unfulfilled, despite tens of millions in taxpayer money to support the proposals.Missouri-based state government reporter Lieb identified at least $125 million in PPE production grants to more than 300 business in 10 states but found that most of the companies were leaving the business because they couldn’t find buyers. Company executives told Lieb that production was again going overseas, potentially putting U.S. supplies of protective gear at risk in a future pandemic.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Exclusive AP data reveals popularity of US homeschooling

obtained data across the country to establish the continued popularity of homeschooling for American families — even as schools reopened and vaccines became widely available.Because the federal government does not have a current database of homeschooling numbers, Thompson built her own by reaching out to education departments in all 50 states for their data. She also interviewed families for their perspectives on homeschooling, and used her experience on the education beat to put the trend in the context of homeschooling regulation debates, concerns over neglected students and a broader decline of public school enrollment.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: States passing tough abortion laws often have weak social programs

collaborated with a team of AP state reporters on an analysis of federal data, finding that states passing the toughest abortion restrictions are generally the most challenging places for people to have and raise children. With the U.S. Supreme Court widely expected to roll back abortion rights later this year, the data and reporting revealed a weak network of social services in many of these states for women who become pregnant and may be unable to obtain an abortion.AP’s analysis, led by data journalists Fassett and Lo, looked at seven social safety net measurements collected by the federal government; visualized in an engaging interactive by the data team’s Gorman. The reporting team, led by Utah statehouse reporter Whitehurst, interviewed parents, researchers and nonprofit groups that provide support to pregnant people, new parents, infants and young children. And while the data overwhelming showed that Republican-controlled states with strict abortion laws performed the worst on these social services, the reporting also came with the important caveat that a few Democratically controlled states with more permissive abortion laws also measured poorly in some categories.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Ukraine visuals document an exceptionally dark chapter of the war; intelligence says aides misled Putin

AP teams have again dominated coverage of war in Ukraine on two fronts, this time in horrifying images of civilians killed in Bucha and surrounding areas outside Kyiv, and in stories out of Washington and London, where AP was first with a report that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aides have been misleading him about the war.

Recently declassified information from a reliable source led to Washington’s scoop that Putin was reportedly “misinformed by his advisors about how badly the Russian military is performing.” AP’s story beat the competition and scored sky-high reader engagement, and a smart follow-up out of London delved into the strategic value of declassifying such intelligence.

On the ground in Ukraine, AP video and photojournalists arrived Saturday in Bucha, outside Kyiv, after Russian forces were ousted. There they found civilians lying dead in the streets, destroyed Russian military equipment and dead Russian servicemen. The following day the AP journalists were first to record the bodies of eight men who were killed execution style, as well as a mass grave and the bodies of a village mayor and her family.

The grim images define one of the darkest chapters on the war so far and raise fears of what may be unfolding in areas as yet inaccessible to journalists.

For their vital role documenting this brutal episode of the war, and for revealing reports of failures in the Kremlin’s intelligence at the highest levels, the journalism of Nebi Qena, Sasha Stashevsky, Vadim Ghirda, Andrea Rosa and Rodrigo Abd in Ukraine, Aamer Madhani and Nomaan Merchant in Washington, and Jill Lawless in London receives AP’s Best of The Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Tip and teamwork deliver scoop on seizure of oligarch’s yacht

put the AP hours ahead of the competition on the seizure of a Russian oligarch’s yacht in Spain.A tip to U.S. Department of Justice reporter Balsamo triggered the coverage; he alerted Madrid chief correspondent Parra who confirmed details of the seizure and put Ubilla on the scene, reporting and making images as authorities boarded the $120 million vessel belonging to billionaire friend of Putin.The all-formats piece was one of AP’s most-read stories of the day; it was hours before competitors could report the basics using the federal government’s press announcement — and even then they still had to rely on Ubilla’s visuals.Read more