for overcoming major bureaucratic and logistical hurdles to produce the ninth installment in the “What Can Be Saved” series: an immersive look at Sanjiangyuan, China’s first proposed national park, in one of the most pristine areas of the Tibetan plateau.https://bit.ly/348cPybhttps://bit.ly/2OvkGza
conducted an exclusive investigation into an attempt by Navy SEALs to locate Mark Frerichs, an American contractor kidnapped in Afghanistan by a Taliban-linked militant network. The story, based on conversations with multiple U.S. officials, included sensitive details of the military operation, and revealed the growing exasperation of Frerichs’ family with the U.S. government for not including him in a recent peace deal with the Taliban. https://bit.ly/3do2Wkg
requested data on racial breakdowns for the COVID-19 disease in states, cities and counties nationwide, ultimately analyzing data from eight states, six major U.S. cities and six of Florida’s largest counties. The result was one of the first and most deeply reported examinations of the racial disparities of U.S. cases and deaths, reviewing more than 4,450 deaths and 52,000 COVID-19 cases across the country. https://bit.ly/2Xy7TSO
On April 6 – the day when the COVID-19 death toll in New York City exceeded the toll of the Sept. 11 attacks – a team of AP journalists fanned out to tell the stories of average New Yorkers navigating the pandemic.
From the bodega owner whose remaining customers are often funeral home workers, to a paramedic worried about the way the onslaught of cases was eating away at him and other first responders, the stories provided a vivid account of a city bent, but not broken, by the virus. “The Fight for New York” was a testament to the AP at its finest: smart planning and collaboration leading to 11 impactful text and video stories, more than two dozen photos and nine social edits, all delivered to customers with remarkable speed.
The package immediately resonated with readers, viewers and customers, winning strong play on the websites of most major news organizations.
For extraordinary teamwork, planning and execution, the team of journalists behind “The Fight for New York” wins AP’s Best of the Week award.
produced a creative and innovative package that gave young people around the world an opportunity to tell their own stories during the pandemic. Using contacts inside and outside the AP, Irvine asked people, ages 16 to 24, to talk about their experiences and film a bit about their lives. Her story, with the video compilation as the centerpiece, revealed the concerns the subjects have in common, as well as their unique circumstances.https://bit.ly/2JRBkHwhttps://bit.ly/2xeKvif
scored a pair of scoops, exclusively obtaining the FBI’s first acknowledgment of the presumed death of the agency’s long-missing former agent Robert Levinson in Iran. He was also the first to report that information about Levinson’s fate had come from Iran’s foreign minister. https://bit.ly/2RkMqJh
From the moment a caravan of Central American migrants set out from Honduras and crossed through Guatemala toward a series of standoffs with Mexican authorities, the AP was there, documenting every step.
Knowing that Mexican authorities were determined not to let the migrants pass, editors deployed cross-format teams to cover the caravan from both the Guatemalan and the Mexican sides of the border. That effort put the AP far ahead of the competition when the migrants started to cross the Suchiate River into Mexico.
In a coordinated effort, AP staffers and stringers shared information and skills to deliver dramatic coverage, including live video, as people waded across the river and scuffled with Mexico’s National Guard. The all-formats coverage was among AP’s top stories for Jan. 22.
For following the story early and then collaborating closely to produce dominant images and stories of the latest chapter in the migrant saga from Central America, the team of Moisés Castillo, María Verza, Sonia Pérez D., Marco Ugarte, Peter Orsi, Diego Delgado, Marcelo Viaño and Santiago Billy share AP’s Best of the Week honors.
for breaking news of a significant policy change by the FBI: The agency now pledges to alert states of attacks on elections systems and not just the county or local government that is hit. This means that state officials will know about attacks before certifying results in an election. https://bit.ly/2NQIWfC
Chicago-based national writer Martha Irvine has always been interested in stories about the city’s neighborhoods that buck stereotypes. So when she learned of a grassroots project to “reclaim” abandoned housing on the city’s South Side, Irvine began what she calls “a labor of love.”
She spent months getting to know the people of the Chicago Lawn neighborhood and their stories. Residents – ex-cons, immigrants, members of the urban working class – were not prepared to let their neighborhood succumb to the malaise that had engulfed other areas of the city, so they came together to make Chicago Lawn a desirable place to live.
Irvine did it all – not just writing this remarkable story, but shooting the photos and video. The package received heavy play and elicited rewarding feedback. One woman called the work “incredibly uplifting,” adding, “Loved the video, too. Inspiration station.”
For a compelling all-formats package that shed light on a Chicago neighborhood’s success story and resonated with readers, Martha Irvine earns this week’s Best of the States award.
for reporting exclusively that the Boy Scouts of America was taking a surprising step: It was putting Philmont Scout Ranch – a pristine 150,000 acre camp in New Mexico, considered the crown jewel in the organization’s network of camps – up as collateral as it deals with financial fallout over a wave of sex-abuse lawsuits. It was the latest in a series of scoops by Crary about the Boy Scouts and their financial troubles, including his recent break about the organization increasing membership fees by more than double. https://bit.ly/2qZsQbe
You know your scoop has touched a nerve when it gets tweeted by both Ann Coulter and Chelsea Clinton.
Such was the case with Colleen Long’s multiplatform APNewsBreak that the U.S. approved thousands of requests by men to have their child or adolescent brides admitted to the United States. The story not only pointed to problems in immigration law, but also lax state laws that make immigration by child brides possible.
The story started with a tip from Ron Nixon, AP’s new international investigations editor, who had been told by a source that data requested by the Senate Homeland Security Committee would be startling.
Nixon passed the information to Long, the Washington-based homeland security reporter, who persuaded committee staff to give her the story exclusively. She also went beyond the striking data to give readers a sense of how the issue affects women’s lives, speaking with women who had been married as children. A compelling video accompanied the piece.
On a busy news day, the story was one of AP’s most widely used, fronting many news websites and posted to Facebook by multiple news organizations. The video piece also had a strong showing, receiving thousands of YouTube streams and 27 customer downloads.
For revealing a little-known loophole in immigration policy that raises concerns over security and exploitation, and for connecting the data to women victimized by the policy, Colleen Long wins this week’s Best of the AP.
Immigration and Homeland Security reporter Colleen Long’s ears perked up in early October when she heard agency officials mention “CODIS” as they briefed reporters on the likelihood they would expand their practice of collecting DNA from migrants.
CODIS, she knew from experience, was an FBI database usually associated with violent crimes, so Long was surprised to hear of its use in connection with migrants whose only crime was crossing the border illegally. Long followed up with detailed questions at the briefing but didn’t get answers, so she kept pressing officials.
Her persistence was rewarded with an advance briefing on the new rule, and additional details about how the DNA policy would be implemented. Long’s story moved hours ahead of the official announcement, becoming one of the most-read stories of the day.
For making the early connection to the policy implications of the DNA database, then pressing the issue with officials until she had the exclusive details, Long earns this week’s Best of the States award.
for breaking the astonishing news that the U.S. was signing an agreement that would send would-be asylum-seekers to one of the world's most violent countries, El Salvador. Long was was hours ahead of the official announcement and the first to get a copy of the agreement.https://bit.ly/2mt3oZh
Amid reports of an opioid settlement, an investigation shows the myriad ways that the Sackler family which owns Purdue Pharma in a web of companies and trusts, many of them overseas.Adam Geller, national writer, New York. Geller reviewed court papers, securities filings and documents leaked from an exclusive Bermuda law firm. He found that the family has shielded its wealth in ways that could complicate efforts to recover the money in opioid settlements.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/familys-web-makes-it-hard-to-track-cash-from-opioid-maker/2019/08/29/80d4f43e-ca99-11e9-9615-8f1a32962e04_story.html
for braving security restrictions and overcoming a complete communication lockdown to report in all formats on life under siege from Indian-administered Kashmir.When New Delhi moved Aug. 5 to revoke the Himalayan region of its statehood, all lines to the outside world were severed. With a strict curfew in place the AP crew overnighted in the office, but transmission in any format was a challenge. Defying the crackdown on movement and filming, the team managed to send photos, video and text with a passenger on a flight to Delhi.Meanwhile, Saaliq, a native Kashmiri himself, spoke to people struggling to buy necessities and to those injured during sporadic protests. His story, some of which he dictated over the phone from a Srinagar hotel, was one of the first reports in the international media that allowed Kashmiri voices to be heard after the dramatic developments. Hussain followed with personal stories of how Kashmiris were coping with life surrounded by armed police and paramilitary soldiers. And with short windows of internet access and many trips to the airport, the AP team managed to move words and images of thousands of protesters, including a widely used photo of a group of women marching after Friday prayers, and security forces patrolling the city. The lockdown continues. While some local media have suggested normalcy has returned to Kashmir, AP offers a critical counter narrative grounded in dogged reporting to show the world what is happening in the disputed region.https://bit.ly/31EKii3https://bit.ly/2H8adH7https://bit.ly/3063jJV
Houston-based immigration reporter Nomaan Merchant uncovered a heartbreaking tale in his coverage of the lingering toll of President Donald Trump’s family separation policy: a 9-year-old boy, Byron Xol, who is still separated from his parents. The boy eventually landed in the home of a Texas family who took custody of the child, while his parents were deported to Guatemala.
Merchant had been looking for an opportunity to write a detailed narrative that would illustrate the stress that separations have on families. When he learned on short notice of Byron’s upcoming birthday, he decided it was the perfect time to tell the tale.
Merchant and his Houston colleagues – video journalist John Mone and photographer David Phillip – went to the boy’s current foster home outside Austin. Meanwhile, photographer Santiago Billy, reporter Sonny Figueroa and video stringer Sergio Alfaro went to the Guatemalan village of the Xol family. Together they captured the emotion of the day and the sharp contrast between the two worlds, as the dad phoned Byron on his birthday.
The story they produced was gripping, used by more than 400 AP members in the U.S. It was just one of a series of strong pieces that have put names, faces and personal narratives to the immigration story, keeping AP’s coverage ahead.
For recognizing the moment and mobilizing quickly across formats and borders, Alfaro, Billy, Figueroa, Merchant, Mone and Phillip share AP’s Best of the Week.
for wrenching stories from survivors of sex abuse carried out by Boy Scout leaders. Changes in statute-of-limitation laws in various states have triggered a new wave of litigation against the Boy Scouts by men who said they were abused by unit leaders decades ago. What was missing from those stories were detailed accounts from abuse survivors – a gap filled by a powerful all-formats package that received tremendous play. https://bit.ly/2EU7ekq
for breaking major news about an iconic all-male black college allowing transgender students for the first time. It was a notable shift for Atlanta’s Morehouse College and came as colleges around the country have been wrestling with LGBT questions. The scoop prompted local and national media to match the story. https://bit.ly/2Ur5vYP
For years, the federal government has denied widely sharing its terrorist watchlist with the private sector. But American Muslims have long had suspicions to the contrary, as those mistakenly placed on the list faced everyday difficulties ranging from making electronic bank transfers to boarding airplanes.
Source building and careful document review by Northern Virginia correspondent Matthew Barakat finally revealed that the federal government shares its terrorist watchlist with more than 1,400 private entities, including hospitals and universities. The government’s acknowledgement of the practice, buried in a civil lawsuit, was significant because officials have repeatedly denied that the list was given to private groups. Barakat’s sources and his thorough coverage of the 2-year-old case had him ready to jump on the filing as soon as it became public.
His APNewsBreak on Feb. 19 earned wide attention, including hundreds of members using the story. Others scrambled to catch up, with The Washington Post crediting AP for breaking the story when it ran its own version in the paper.
Over the next two days Barakat was also first to report on a call for a congressional probe, and he was the only reporter in court when a federal judge berated government lawyers, ordering them to disclose the private sector entities to the lawsuit’s plaintiffs.
For his methodical document work and source-building that helped hold the federal government accountable, Barakat wins this week’s Best of the States award.
As the opioid epidemic barrels into its third decade, it’s increasingly hard to find fresh ways to report on the problem. One group that has always been present, usually in the background of stories, are the parents, hundreds of thousands of them who desperately tried to save their children, then buried them anyway. Louisville, Kentucky-based national writer Claire Galofaro chose to focus on them, the survivors who have lost the most to the epidemic.
The project involved journalists across formats throughout the country – Jae Hong, Steven Senne, Pat Semansky, Jeff Roberson, Mark Humphrey, Rodrique Ngowi, Krysta Fauria, Dario Lopez, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Carla Johnson – teaming with Galofaro and enterprise editors Pauline Arrillaga, Jeannie Ohm, Raghu Vadarevu and Enric Marti to think creatively about how text, video, multimedia and photos could work together.
The result was two beautifully written narratives paired with photographs, an extensive Q&A about the epidemic, a full video story and three digital videos in which we hear three different mothers talking about the extreme lengths they went to to try and save their children.
The series struck a raw nerve – engagement was extraordinary: The main story was No. 1 on apnews.com the day it ran, and it appeared on newspaper front pages nationwide. A week later, news outlets were still using it. Hundreds of readers sent emails and tweets. More than one person said that they felt like they were sitting with these families in their living rooms.
For a cross-format effort so intimate, so devastating, it recaptured the attention of a nation that had been exhausted by stories about the opioid epidemic, the team that produced the Left Behind package wins this week’s Best of the States award.
