Best of the Week — First Winner

Dual winners: Resourceful AP teams deliver smart, fast, exclusive coverage in Afghanistan, Haiti

From Afghanistan to Haiti, AP staffers and stringers on two sides of the world were challenged last week to cover fast-breaking news while keeping themselves and their families safe. They excelled at both; AP’s coverage of Afghanistan’s fall to Taliban insurgents and the deadly earthquake across Haiti share Best of the Week honors.

In Afghanistan, with events unfolding at a breakneck pace, AP journalists amid the turmoil on the ground were complemented by colleagues in several countries and time zones collaborating to confirm the news and get it out.

AP sent out 17 alerts on Sunday alone, as city after city surrendered to the Taliban. And AP was among the first — perhaps the outright first — to report that President Ashraf Ghani had fled the country and Taliban forces were entering the capital.

That same weekend, when a powerful magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck southwestern Haiti leaving hundreds dead, AP journalists on the island scrambled to get to the area within hours. Editors outside Haiti jumped in to help gather and verify content, and a second team arrived in-country within a day to reinforce the coverage. AP stood out in all formats, including first live video of the disaster and photos that landed on front pages.

For outstanding breaking news coverage under extreme circumstances, the AP team in Afghanistan with their international colleagues, and the AP team covering Haiti — Pierre Luxama, Evens Sanon, Joseph Odelyn, Mark Stevenson, Fernando Llano, Matías Delacroix, Marko Alvarez and Fernando González — are co-winners of AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Source work on Texas attorney general puts AP out front of news on DOJ takeover of probe

used strong sourcing and teamwork to break the news that Justice Department officials in Washington had taken over the public corruption investigation into the Texas state attorney general and that the local prosecuting office that had led the probe for years had been recused.Read more.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP obtains first account by survivor of chocolate factory explosion

collaborated on an exclusive interview with the only survivor rescued from the site of the Pennsylvania chocolate factory explosion that killed seven people.Read more.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

RFK Jr. spent years stoking fear and mistrust of vaccines. These people were hurt by his work

AP relentlessly pursued unique examples of actual harm caused by the 2024 presidential candidate’s vaccine rhetoric.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP beats everyone on Mitch McConnell’s decision to step down

Even before Mitch McConnell began speaking in the well of the Senate on Feb. 28, everyone knew what the majority leader’s historic announcement would be. That was because AP had already delivered the news, beating all the competition.

Deputy Bureau Chief Mike Tackett had obtained McConnell’s remarks in advance, saying that he planned to step down in November to close his run as the longest-serving Senate leader. Tackett also worked out an agreement that AP could publish before McConnell made his announcement on the Senate floor.

Tackett, who is writing a biography on McConnell, worked closely with digital politics editor Katie Vogel and Washington text editor Tom Strong to make sure copy was edited and ready go. When the time came, Strong filed the urgent copy perfectly with the APNewsAlert and full story moving within the same minute.

The news sent a buzz through the Senate floor, and several journalists there asked Tackett how he did it.

Tackett’s source work also enabled Congress reporter Mary Clare Jalonick and chief congressional correspondent Lisa Mascaro to dive straight into the ‘what happens next’ portion of reporting instead of having to focus on the breaking news.

For delivering a package that kept AP ahead of amazed competitors through the day, Tackett, Vogel, Strong, Mascaro and Jalonick are this week’s Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP delivers rare visuals inside deadly Bangladesh factory fire

managed to get where other journalists did not: inside a tragic factory fire that killed dozens of workers who were locked inside the food and beverage factory outside Bangladesh’s capital. Police initially gave a toll of three dead, but the following afternoon firefighters discovered 49 more bodies, many of whom were trapped inside by an illegally locked door.Video journalist Garjon and photographer Opu had scrambled to the scene as soon as the scale of the tragedy became clear. Once there, they got inside the factory and despite intense heat and smoke, captured dramatic scenes of firefighters, with Garjon setting up an exclusive livestream using the Bambuser app on his iPhone as rescuers searched for bodies amid the burning debris. The pair’s video and and still images of firefighters’ efforts and the grim consequences of the blaze set AP's all-formats coverage apart on this latest industrial disaster in Bangladesh.https://aplink.video/196https://aplink.news/yothttps://aplink.video/wsq

Best of the Week — First Winner

Pro-painkiller echo chamber shaped policy amid drug epidemic

Combine the capabilities of The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity, and this is what you can get: A two-part blockbuster that exposed the efforts of the opioid industry and allied groups to stymie limits on the use of its powerful drugs, and detailed how they spent more than $880 million on lobbying and political contributions over the past decade.

The genesis of the project was a conversation between Tom Verdin, editor of AP’s state government team, and Geoff Mulvihill, a member of that team. Mulvihill, based in Mount Laurel, N.J., has covered the opioid crisis sweeping the nation, and the two hit upon the idea of trying to determine the extent of the pharmaceutical industry’s exerting influence in state legislatures across the country.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Syria cease-fire deal rife with legal, liability questions

for working sources to provide the most detailed coverage of the Syria ceasefire deal struck by the U.S. and Russia. http://abcn.ws/2cdUVSd

Best of the States

Libraries cope with patrons visiting them to use heroin

The stories of heroin addicts overdosing in unusual places have become numbingly familiar: a McDonald’s play area, inside a children’s hospital, even while driving down the highway.

But it was another odd location -- the restroom of a library -- that drove Columbus reporter Kantele Franko to identify an additional, tragic twist to these stories. Franko learned over several weeks of reporting that the same qualities that make libraries ideal for studying and reading — unfettered public access, quiet corners and nooks, minimal interaction with other people — also make them appealing places to shoot heroin.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Checking out: Drug users take advantage of public libraries

for spotting a trend in the nation’s ongoing heroin epidemic: multiple overdoses in libraries around the country. The resulting story, which she reported and wrote while working BNS shifts, was No. 10 on Mobile over the weekend and got strong social media use. http://apne.ws/2cwDYSD

Best of the Week — First Winner

Hawaiian seafood caught by foreign crews confined on boats

AP’s Martha Mendoza, an investigative reporter based in Bangkok, and Margie Mason, medical writer in Jakarta, found that hundreds of undocumented men, many from impoverished Southeast Asian and Pacific nations, work in this U.S. fishing fleet. They have no visas and aren't protected by basic labor laws because of a loophole passed by Congress.

A story detailing the men’s plight, by Mendoza and Mason, resulted from a tip following their award-winning Seafood from Slaves investigation last year. It earns the Beat of the Week.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Yosemite adding 400 acres of meadow, forest

for source work that allowed him to break the news that Yosemite National Park had added 400 acres, its most significant expansion in nearly 70 years. http://bit.ly/2cuCJ9V

Best of the States

A distinctive retelling of a shocking tragedy

As nurse practitioners, Sister Margaret Held and Sister Paula Merrill played a pivotal role in the lives of many people in rural Holmes County, Mississippi, which with 44 percent of its residents living in poverty ranks as the seventh-poorest county in America, according to the Census Bureau.

So when the two Roman Catholic nuns were found stabbed to death in the home they shared, the news devastated friends and families, as well as the many people who came to rely on the pair for critical, life-saving medical care.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Private lives are exposed as WikiLeaks spills its secrets

When WikiLeaks announced the release of hundreds of Saudi diplomatic documents last year, AP’s Raphael Satter in Paris and Maggie Michael in Cairo provided some of the most aggressive coverage of the leak. They broke news about everything from the secretive kingdom’s checkbook diplomacy to unpaid limousine bills and cheating students.

But as they plowed through the documents, they also noticed medical and identity documents -- potentially serious privacy violations. Satter flagged the issue but never got a formal response from WikiLeaks; with other stories on the horizon and only a handful of questionable documents in hand, Satter and Michael shelved the subject.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Showcasing AP's college football poll

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.

Best of the Week — First Winner

A nightmare in South Sudan

The scene was nightmarish. Women and girls fleeing fighting in South Sudan had taken refuge in a United Nations camp. As fighting subsided, they ventured out in search of food, but just outside the camp, they were dragged off by soldiers and raped. Two died of their injuries. At least one attack was said to have occurred within sight of U.N. peacekeepers.

The details in Jason Patinkin’s only-on-AP story could not have been reported without getting into the camp – but the U.N. at first blocked journalists from entering. Demanding access along with other journalists – and winning – in the midst of already challenging coverage allowed Patinkin to produce an exclusive that prompted outrage around the world. It earns Beat of the Week.

Best of the States

BEST OF THE STATES, NO. 241

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke fell one election short of becoming Louisiana’s governor in 1991. In the years since, he has frequently mulled another run for office, but never taken the plunge. So when Duke publicly floated the idea of running for Congress, Louisiana statehouse reporter Melinda Deslatte was cautious.

But Deslatte also knew that if Duke were to actually run, it would be big news, especially in a year where race relations were front and center in the national debate.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP Exclusive: User-generated video captures slaying of Dallas police officer

The video is, quite simply, bone-chilling. Taken from a rooftop, the footage shows Micah Johnson shooting a Dallas police officer at point-blank range.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Investigation reveals omissions on Hillary Clinton’s official calendar

When investigating politicians, the adage goes, “follow the money.” But it is equally important to follow the meetings.

Best of the Week — First Winner

As Olympics loom, violence flares in Rio's slums, even those termed ‘pacified’

Ahead of the Olympics, an AP team in Rio wanted a close look at the city's slums, which have long been plagued with violence, to learn whether high-profile community policing programs are working in areas deemed `pacified.' Braving gunfire in what is considered a no-go area for reporters, AP produced up-close, all-formats coverage showing deadly violence continues to flare.