Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Revealing look at Canada’s troubled euthanasia system

reported extensively on Canada’s euthanasia laws, which are some of the world’s most permissive and have spurred criticism from the United Nations and even the pope. AP medical writer Cheng noticed a pattern after several troubling incidents in the country; she found Canada has fewer safeguards in place than many other countries. Terminal illness is not a requirement for euthanasia, and treatment of the disabled is a particular outlier.The piece includes families’ experiences: Detroit-based video journalist Householder crossed the border to Ontario, telling the story of a woman who was shocked that her father was accorded euthanasia within days of a fall, and Cheng reported on a man whose application for euthanasia listed just one condition: hearing loss.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP shines with multimedia coverage of the Women’s World Cup

AP covered 64 Women’s World Cup matches over two countries and four time zones.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Telling the epic story of perilous migration through one lost boat 

Two years ago, Barcelona video journalist Renata Brito learned of a mysterious boat that had washed up in Tobago with dead men aboard. With that, she and colleague Felipe Dana, a photographer and video journalist, began a dogged quest to find out who the men were, what had happened to them, and what heartbreak and unresolved questions they had left behind.     From Mauritania to France and Tobago, they found forensic evidence and built trust with a network of sources. By the end of their exhaustive journey, they knew who these men were and what led them to their deaths. They even confirmed one man’s identity with a DNA test. 

Immersive storytelling’s Nat Castañeda worked with Brito and Dana to shape the project, including a 13-minute minidocumentary. Immersive developer Linda Gorman worked up a complex interactive, and an Audience Engagement team led by Sophia Eppolito spent weeks developing a social plan.   

For compiling the compelling and tragic story of a group of doomed migrants who would otherwise have been forgotten, Brito, Dana, Gorman, Castañeda and Eppolito earn this week’s Best of the Week — First Winner. 

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP investigation uncovers brutal murder of a 16-year-old by Burkina Faso soldiers

A video in Burkina Faso showing men in military fatigues walking among the bloodied bodies of boys with their hands bound surfaced on social media in mid-February. A six-week AP project delivered a frame-by-frame analysis of the graphic, 83-second video of the killings and tracked down the relatives of one of the victims: Adama, a 16-year-old cattle herder, piecing together his final hours. A soldier smashed his head with a large rock.

Government officials denied involvement in the killings, but analysis by Global Investigative Reporter Michael Biesecker was able to show the soldiers were wearing uniforms and had vehicles consistent with members of the Burkinabe military. After West Africa Correspondent Sam Mednick got a tip, Biesecker was able to geolocate the killings to Camp Zondoma, a military base near Ouahigouya.

Mednick and her Ouagadougou translator located the teen’s family after people in the capital with ties to Ouahigouya connected them with Adama’s uncle, the first person willing to talk. The translator whose identity cannot be disclosed played a key role in getting the family to speak, despite great personal risk. Mednick persuaded the uncle to let her interview the boy’s mother, who was unaware that her son’s death had been filmed.

Visual journalist Marshall Ritzel produced a video highlighting the visual investigation and exclusive interviews with Adama’s family. An edit of the video by digital audiences producer McKinnon de Kuyper was among AP’s top social posts of the week.

For shining a spotlight on the sort of casual murder that takes place in countries around the world, Mednick, Biesecker, Ritzel, the anonymous translator in Ouagadougou and de Kuyper win this week’s first place best of the week.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP, first international media reporting in all-formats a case of Russians giving birth in Argentina

reported in all formats, before any other international media, about a relatively new phenomenon in Argentina: pregnant Russians traveling to Buenos Aires after the war in Ukraine to give birth in the South American country and being able to get an Argentina passport to have access to 171 countries without a visa.Read more.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP team documents growth of landmines’ hidden toll in Myanmar

Months of reporting by Victoria Milko, David Rising and a colleague in Myanmar led to the most authoritative look yet at the problem of landmines in the country.

Their story recounted how a boy was maimed and teenagers killed. The team was also able to get military defectors and others in the country to share with AP how civilians are used as human shields and how groups reuse mines they claim to have cleared. The story demonstrates that this will be an issue in the country for years to come.

For their work documenting the horror of landmines in one of the world’s most isolated countries, we are honored to award Milko, our AP colleague in Myanmar and Rising this week’s Best of the Week — First Winner.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP scores exclusive interview with Pope Francis, making news worldwide with a papal call to decriminalize homosexuality

Vatican Correspondent Nicole Winfield's tenacious reporting has already delivered numerous exclusives over a two-decade career covering three popes. Yet an on-camera, sit-down interview with a pontiff had eluded the AP.

That changed dramatically Jan. 24. After years of lobbying, the pope sat down for an historic interview with Winfield, whom Francis has for years called the “prima della classe,” or “first in class,” as a sign of respect for her tough but fair reporting on his pontificate. In fact, during the interview, he mentioned how Winfield’s questions about sex abuse during a 2018 airborne press conference led to his “conversion” moment when he realized that Chilean bishops had been covering up cases of abuse for decades.

For weeks, Winfield prepared the interview with Rome Senior Producer Maria Grazia Murru, who for decades has led the Vatican video operations. They coordinated every detail and prepared the right questions and approach for the interview. Murru designed the video coverage plan and spearheaded the production of social media promotion material. And together, they wrote letters in the most formal Italian to Francis’ private secretaries, until a date was finally arranged — for late January, a time that seemed ripe to make news. It was one week ahead of his planned trip to Africa and just over a month ahead of the 10th anniversary of his pontificate.

Video’s Paolo Santalucia and Photos’ Domenico Stinellis planned the lighting at the venue and sorted out technical details, and photographer Andrew Medichini’s images captured the historic event. Spanish language editor Cristina Fuentes-Cantillana transcribed and translated the full interview, conducted in the pope’s native Spanish.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Police seize on COVID-19 tech to expand surveillance

An AP team of journalists around the globe disclosed that governments worldwide used the COVID-19 pandemic to build tools and collect data to help curtail the virus, but those tools and data are being repurposed for surveillance by police and intelligence services.

Fresh off a fellowship studying artificial intelligence at Stanford University, reporter Garance Burke returned to AP’s investigative team with an idea for a gripping global project: Could AP staff track how policing worldwide had changed since the pandemic began?

More than a year later, Burke and the cross-format, cross-border team she led produced a sweeping investigation revealing how law enforcement across the globe mobilized new mass surveillance tools during the pandemic for purposes entirely unrelated to COVID-19.

For using Burke’s newfound knowledge and keen interest in AI to bring forth a disturbing story on surveillance and policing with global ramifications, the team of Burke, Federman, Jain, Wu, McGuirk and Myers, supported by numerous other colleagues across the AP, share Best of the Week – First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Only on AP: Central Europe readies for potential nuclear fallout

made AP the first major news organization to take a serious look at readiness in the countries most likely to be affected, as fighting around Ukraine’s nuclear power plants and Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons reawaken nuclear fears in Europe. Some of Ukraine’s neighboring countries have started distributing potassium iodide pills, and officials are preparing old Soviet-era nuclear shelters for possible use.After two weeks spent persuading authorities to give AP’s journalists access to the underground shelters, the team reported comprehensively and responsibly — and with strong visuals — on European readiness for a possible nuclear attack. The team was careful to avoid sensationalizing the coverage or raising unnecessary fear.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP/‘Frontline’ investigation: Russia stealing, selling Ukraine’s grain

used satellite imagery and open source video and photos, as well as ship-tracking data to document a massive operation in which Russia has been stealing Ukrainian grain and selling it to countries in the Middle East. Russia has denied the practice; AP and its partner, PBS “Frontline,” proved otherwise.While other news organizations have reported on the grain theft, the AP team first to track the smuggling operation, from silos in occupied Ukraine all the way to grocery store shelves in Turkey and Syria. The jnvestigation was also the first to name names, tracing the owners of the companies that were shipping and receiving the grain, and their ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Aggressive AP coverage as Venezuela releases 1 of 6 US oil executives

A team of AP reporters delivered two straight days of deeply reported, distinctive and aggressive coverage on the release by Venezuela of two American detainees, including one of the group of oil executives known as the Citgo 6 — an internationally competitive story.AP’s coverage depended on cross-border coordination between Goodman in Miami, Garcia Cano in Caracas and Tucker in Washington, all leaning on sources and hustling to track fast-moving developments in Venezuela. Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP sources: Ukrainian grain shipments won’t solve food crisis

combined on-the-ground reporting, key analysis from experts and their own subject expertise to shed light on the real-world impact and limitations of renewed Ukrainian grain exports on the global food crisis.The team’s reporting reveals how everyone from Lebanese farmers and Syrian refugees to African aid groups don’t expect the much-publicized initial shipments to solve food insecurity as millions go hungry. The story builds on months of AP coverage showing how the Russia-Ukraine war has worsened the effects of drought, inflation, conflict and other factors in countries gripped by hunger.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP investigation finds Ukrainian refugees forcibly evacuated, subjected to abuse in Russia

The idea for this deeply reported story emerged months ago when AP noticed Ukrainian refugees being sent to Russia — then disappearing.

The process was painstaking, but AP spoke with 36 Ukrainians, most of them from the devastated city of Mariupol, all of whom were sent to Russia. Some had made their way to other countries, but almost a dozen were still in Russia, an important find. The refugees’ personal stories humanized the larger findings of the investigation: Ukrainian civilians have indeed been forced into Russia, subjected along the way to human rights abuses, from interrogation to being yanked aside and never seen again.

The story was widely used and cited by other news organizations, and a week after it ran it was still near the top for AP reader engagement.

For teamwork across borders that resulted in the most extensive and revealing investigation yet into the forcible transfers of Ukrainian refugees, the team of Lori Hinnant, Vasilisa Stepanenko, Cara Anna, Sara El Deeb and colleagues in Russia and Georgia earns AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP investigation reveals childhood vaccine crisis in Venezuela

produced a distinctive, exclusive investigative story using data analysis and deep reporting to reveal that many Venezuelan children lack access to essential vaccines, putting the country among the world’s worst for inoculating children against potentially fatal diseases and leaving neighboring countries vulnerable to outbreaks.Data on vaccination rates is elusive in Venezuela, where institutions are shrouded in secrecy, corruption and bureaucracy. The country hasn’t published rates since 2015. But Garcia Cano, Caracas-based Andes correspondent, obtained rare government data from a source, as well as estimates from public health agencies, showing the vaccination crisis is growing.She also visited clinics, spoke with families and interviewed public health experts for a comprehensive look at the availability of vaccines in Venezuela’s unraveling health-care system.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Data and on-the-ground reporting reveal toll of Somali famine

joined forces to deliver an all-formats package on the unfolding crisis in Somalia, where severe drought is driving hunger-related deaths.Until this Only on AP story, media coverage of the drought in the Horn of Africa consisted largely of aid groups’ dire warnings or isolated stories of grieving families, but little concrete information on how many people have begun to die. Nairobi-based correspondent Anna instead dug into unpublished humanitarian reports and coordinated with dedicated Mogadishu freelancers — correspondent Faruk, photographer Warsameh and video journalist Nor — producing a story that merges exclusive data on the mounting deaths with compelling personal accounts that put a human face on the crisis.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

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)

AP dominates French election coverage with nimble live video

used sharp planning and fast election day pivots to put AP well ahead of the competition, delivering unmatched live and edited video coverage of the first round of France's presidential election — a vote with implications for Europe’s future.As the election unfolded Sunday, senior producer Schaeffer recognized leading French broadcasters heavily using AP’s morning live feed from voting stations. Seeing the demand, he and the team quickly committed to live coverage throughout the day. That usage by French broadcasters was particularly telling: They chose AP over their own coverage — and crucially, over AP’s major French competitor, a tribute to the broad, balanced coverage which dominated AP’s live offerings throughout the day.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

F1 races in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia; AP raises human rights

continues to hold Formula One accountable for racing in countries where human rights are routinely trampled. While covering the exceptionally intense and challenging kickoff to the F1 racing season in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, Pugmire, AP’s Paris-based auto racing writer, held exclusive interviews with a released torture survivor and the 12-year-old son of a man on death row, and pressured Formula One heavyweights to advocate for human rights in both countries.Pugmire’s persistence led seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton to tell him, “You sure don’t make it easy for me.” To which Pugmire replied, “That’s because you’re the only one who doesn’t duck questions.” In the private conversation that followed, the two shared experiences of meeting released prisoners, and Hamilton complimented Pugmire on his commitment to the issue. Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP’s all-formats team delivers unmatched coverage of refugees fleeing Ukraine

With hundreds of hours of live coverage, gripping portraits of people fleeing, and broad takes on the impact of the migration wave, AP’s multiformat team covering people displaced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has provided unrivaled coverage of Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II.

AP journalists posted at Ukraine’s borders and within the country have put a human face to the mass movement of refugees, mostly women and children who have left their homes traumatized and exhausted, sometimes after being trapped for days or weeks in their basements to escape bombardment.

AP’s coverage started a week before the war began at the Medyka border crossing in Poland, which just days later would become a main entry point for tens of thousands of Ukrainians. In the month since, text, photo and video journalists have worked tirelessly to capture the surge, from the stress on countries accepting the brunt of the new arrivals to the generosity shown by volunteers opening their homes to the refugees.

For chronicling the exodus of an estimated 3.5 million Ukrainians with compassion, vigor and dedication to the story, AP’s border/refugee team earns Best of the Week — First Winner.