for an exclusive one-on-one interview in which former NBA star Kevin Garnett gave AP exclusive details about his anger with the Minnesota Timberwolves owner and described his foray into TV, leading to a pair of widely used and credited stories. https://apnews.com/bcd39c3988a84e288bda5c7b7ae5c5c...
for an only-on-AP story that used exclusive NCAA data and interviews to show that a new fair-catch rule intended to make college football safer was not cutting down on the number of kickoff returns as had been expected. https://bit.ly/2qkD965
for a series of nearly 20 videos from the Tour de France, using iPhone and GoPro to create short-form, customer-ready products. The videos drove traffic to their comprehensive text coverage of the race itself as well as “Taste of the Tour,” their daily series of entertaining, informative and entirely exclusive cross-format stories exploring the people, places, cuisine and hidden tales in the regions crossed by the Tour. They shot video and interviews in the early morning, before starting long days covering each stage, then edited their video stories in the car as they drove hundreds of miles to the stage finish, where they then leapt back into race coverage. On Twitter alone, the video series racked up close to 300,000 views, more than covering the pair’s modest wine tab.https://bit.ly/2yvemQshttps://bit.ly/2Ktu58Dhttps://bit.ly/2SUr7O2https://bit.ly/2K9dvMihttps://bit.ly/2YvHXbj
dominated coverage of figure skating from Beijing, reporting the top breaking news stories of the 2022 Olympics. With help from colleagues working in all formats, along with the Moscow staff and fellow staffers promoting AP’s content on social media, they covered all the angles with some of the biggest stories of the Winter Olympics, including AP’s most-read story of the month.Even before the pivotal night of the women’s competition, Skretta and the team delivered standout work, setting up the Games and the expected dominance of both the Russian women and American favorite Nathan Chen. And when a positive drug test was revealed for Russian favorite Kamila Valieva, the team kept AP well ahead of the competition.Among the highlights were Ellingworth’s definitive piece on Valieva's controversial coach, a follow-up the morning after the eventful women’s final, and fresh takes on the sport from Ho and Morrison, highlighting issues of body image, racism and the impact of the sport on such young skaters. Read more
produced an in-depth monthly package for the NBA’s 75th season, taking a unique decade-by-decade look at the league’s role in social issues — without ignoring the memorable moments on the court. While other news organizations centered their coverage on the celebration of the milestone anniversary, AP’s all-formats series explored the impact of issues ranging from segregation at the league’s inception to COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter in recent years.AP’s NBA beat writers and their colleagues in Sports used relationships developed over the years to secure buy-in and exclusive interviews with key figures, including Julius “Dr. J” Erving, Dominque Wilkens, Spencer Haywood and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. Each month’s package throughout the season featured a main story, an all-decade team, a timeline, AP Was There stories, photos, video and audio, all deftly displayed and regularly updated on an engaging hub.Read more
broke news in the closely watched case Brittney Griner, the WNBA star jailed in Russia, reporting exclusively that a long-awaited phone between Griner and her wife never happened because the U.S. government mishandled the call.AP’s Tucker, a Washington national security reporter, and Doug Feinberg, WNBA beat reporter, collaborated across departments using source work and trusted credentials to land a video interview with Cherelle Griner, who revealed how her wife, Brittney Griner, tried to call nearly a dozen times through the American embassy in Russia on the couple’s fourth anniversary, but they never connected because the phone line at the embassy was apparently unstaffed.Read more
for a story pointing out that the New England Patriots would be one of the last NFL teams to start a black quarterback when Jacoby Brissett played on Sept. 22. http://bit.ly/2dkHQnL
for breaking the news that the multibillion-dollar sale of Formula One to a U.S. company, Liberty Media, would go through. Harris also got Formula One’s CEO to go on the record before the deal was announced. http://fxn.ws/2cPp4cH
worked with boxing organizers and trainers to identify key boxers to follow. They spent time with several boxers, male and female, as they took their journey to this year’s finals.Read more.
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
put AP far ahead in confirming the details of a fatal stampede at a soccer stadium in Cameroon during the Africa Cup of Nations tournament. An early coverage decision made AP the only English-language news outlet with firm details on the tragedy for hours.Read more
for connecting sports writers across the AP with their colleagues at Canadian Press to survey players on all 31 National Hockey League teams on a defined set of topics, fueling exclusive stories during the playoffs. Among the takeaways: Almost half of the players surveyed support a change to the current playoff format.https://bit.ly/2UAregR
As he geared up to cover Sunday’s AFC championship between the Jacksonville Jaguars and New England Patriots, Boston photographer Charlie Krupa knew the biggest national sports story of the week had been the mysterious practice injury to the throwing hand of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
Krupa and every other photographer at the game made photos showing the bandaged hand as Brady warmed up, played, and celebrated yet another AFC championship on stage at midfield afterwards.
But after covering countless high-profile sporting events around the globe during his AP career, Krupa knew there was one more picture he needed to make.
When Brady took the podium for the post-game news conference, Krupa watched through the lens for that fleeting moment of Brady’s unbandaged hand. His exclusive pictures, published on ESPN and Boston Globe websites, among others, confirmed Brady had sustained a cut at the base of his right thumb that required several stitches.
For journalistic tenacity and photographic skill that gave AP an exclusive beat, Krupa receives this week’s Best of the States prize.
for extra effort after covering a Florida Panthers-Carolina Hurricanes hockey game; learning that the Florida team’s coach, Gerard Gallant, had been fired and that his former team had left without him, DeBlaker captured exclusive images of Gallant stepping into a cab.
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for breaking the news that FIFA has abolished its anti-racism task force ... http://bit.ly/2dkNqGw
for disclosing that the world governing body for track and field was weighing whether to tighten the rules that allow athletes to switch the country they represent. http://bit.ly/2bGeItU
For 80 years, AP has organized the longest-running college football poll of its kind. Every week through each season, AP’s marquee listing tells who’s up, who’s down and most significantly, who’s No. 1. The 2016 preseason poll will start the buzz again when it comes out this Sunday.
But in this anniversary year, AP Sports wanted to do something extra: Produce a composite poll showing which 100 teams ranked highest over the full eight decades and 1,103 polls. The result – anchored by Ralph Russo, Paul Montella and Howie Rumberg – was an exclusive package that dramatically moved the needle on digital, social media and in print, while further boosting the profile of the AP Top 25 poll. It earns the Beat of the Week.
Greg Beacham, sports writer, Los Angeles, for being first to report that the oldest son of the late Kimbo Slice was making his professional debut in mixed martial arts, a sport with a rapidly growing fan base.
raced to cover rapidly developing stories as dozens of sports leagues and federations around the globe made decisions affecting players, fans and entire seasons in reaction to the spread of the coronavirus.https://bit.ly/2IXA9Wehttps://bit.ly/3a1Vg5Khttps://bit.ly/2UoUAkehttps://bit.ly/3923lWVhttps://bit.ly/2U37Xru
When the Supreme Court allowed all states to offer betting on sports, some lawmakers across the country saw an opportunity: Here was a way to bolster state budgets with revenue from an activity that was already happening in the shadows. But an AP review showed that actual tax revenue has yet to match expectations in the majority of states that legalized sports gambling.
State government team reporter Geoff Mulvihill, based in New Jersey, and Rhode Island statehouse reporter Jennifer McDermott looked through monthly state revenue reports and then compared the tax revenue generated to the original estimates in the legislation that authorized sports betting. They found that in four of the six states that legalized it last year – Rhode Island, West Virginia, Mississippi and Pennsylvania – tax revenue was far below what the state had projected it would be.
The revenue story was the latest in a string of distinctive stories from reporters working the sports betting beat. Many of the stories, including the state revenue piece, have been accompanied by a data set compiled by Mulvihill that tracks every piece of legislation related to sports gambling. It is being made available to all AP customers who subscribe to our data distribution platform and has been promoted to local reporters as a way to add context to their stories.
For revealing the difference between lawmakers’ promises on tax revenue and the reality, Mulvihill and McDermott win this week’s Best of the States prize.
