for elegant for elegant photos, reporting and writing to tell the story of what life is like for the thousands of migrants stranded for months on end at the Mexican border under Trump immigration crackdowns.https://bit.ly/2n8WrN8https://bit.ly/2nhDXdB
AP staffers displayed remarkable professionalism and composure under extraordinary circumstances in their coverage of the Nov. 14 mass shooting at Saugus High School in a Los Angeles suburb.
LA photographer Marcio Sanchez found himself in a nearly unfathomable position: He was making news photos outside a high school where a gunman had opened fire while one of his sons was locked down inside. Later, when Sanchez was safely home with his 15-year-old son Noah, his longtime LA colleague, reporter Brian Melley, did a sensitive interview with the teenager about his experience during the shooting and lockdown.
Meanwhile, veteran breaking news staffer John Antczak in the LA bureau reported the shifting numbers of casualties with careful sourcing and attribution, anchoring the coverage and avoiding the false reports put out by some media.
AP’s full complement of all-format coverage was the product of excellent reporting and editing by staffers in the field and in the bureau. That team effort was highlighted by the remarkable work of Sanchez, Antczak and Melley, who earn this week’s Best of the States award.
for breaking the news that the U.S. government held a record 69,550 infants, children and teenagers in custody over the past year, published as part of a collaboration with PBS’s “Frontline.” The story and documentary were the result of a collaboration initiated by Burke and led by international investigative editor Ron Nixon. The joint project built on years of Burke’s work with Mendoza and many colleagues on the immigration beat team and in Latin America. Together, they contniued to press for access inside shelters, interview kids who had been detained, document the trauma risks, and garner interviews with officials responsible for the situation.https://bit.ly/35oq9yBhttps://bit.ly/2O5k4kKhttps://to.pbs.org/2s3fStf
members of AP’s first misinformation beat team focusing on explaining falsehoods, propaganda and conspiracy theories while exposing the creators of this material and their techniques for dissemination. The team launched with two strong international stories – one exposing a propaganda campaign around the Turkish invasion into northern Syria, the other providing a deep look at how tech companies are grappling with the threat of online misinformation ahead of December’s UK election.https://bit.ly/2QnszJAhttps://bit.ly/378Y3sY
for an exclusive interview, after months of negotiations with the club, with Josep Bartomeu, president of FC Barcelona. The story, in which Bartomeu talks about life after Lionel Messi, was prominently picked up internationally and by Spanish media. https://bit.ly/2pp6wqY
for dominating coverage of a pro-Spanish demonstration in Barcelona that was splashed across the front pages of all four of Spain’s top newspapers in a highly unusual sweep of the photo play. Several competitive international agencies shared a crane for overhead photos of the rally, but Morenatti’s photos won decisively, this following two weeks of prominent photo play in Spanish and international media for AP’s team coverage of demonstrations both for and against the Catalan independence movement. https://bit.ly/2q5ertl
Desmond Butler and Michael Biesecker, global investigations reporters in Washington, wanted to fill out the timeline of the diplomatic scandal at the heart of House impeachment inquiry. While Biesecker worked sources in Washington, Butler traveled to Ukraine to meet with associates of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and with other sources developed over years of investigating wrongdoing in the former Soviet Union.
What they learned moved the needle on a complex narrative — associates of the Ukrainian leader said that pressure from the Trump White House started much earlier than was known previously, dating from shortly after Zelenskiy’s election in April, and before he took office as president.
The scoop was the latest in a series of breaking stories and exclusives by the pair that have defined coverage of the impeachment investigation and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s role in it.
For meticulous work that led to a major scoop and widened the horizons of the ongoing Ukraine-Trump story, Butler and Biesecker share AP’s Best of the Week award.
for delivering compelling photos and key story elements from Nagano, ground zero following Typhoon Hagibis, one of Japan’s worst typhoons in memory. Hong’s photos depicting victims coping with mass destruction in the storm’s wake dominated international play online and in print, including the front page of The Japan Times.https://bit.ly/2Pi6USKhttps://bit.ly/31I0EGq
for overcoming major obstacles to cover Turkey’s offensive into northern Syria, including disruptions of communications networks, hostility to international media and sporadic shelling. The pair provided powerful visual coverage of the military buildup on the Turkish side of the border, early scenes of troops crossing into Syria and a live shot of the border and the chaotic scene of a mortar attack in the Turkish town of Akcakale. Strong contributions from Beirut rounded out the coverage.https://bit.ly/33ehnCehttps://bit.ly/2MRpii9https://bit.ly/2nZnH1y
for team photo coverage in Beijing and Hong Kong, with photo editing and curation on international photo desks, showing the contrast between Beijing’s celebration of the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic founding, and the escalated violence of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests on the same day.https://bit.ly/35kqLWGhttps://bit.ly/35jtEqJ
An AP Best of States mention in February about the hundreds of companies avoiding President Donald Trump’s steel tariffs raised questions about Trump’s $12 billion aid package to farmers hurt by the tariffs. What happened next shows how states can produce sharp, data-driven journalism – simply by calling on the data team for help.
AP filed Freedom of Information Act requests for U.S. Department of Agriculture data that was analyzed by Balint Szalai, a Hungarian investigative reporter embedded with AP’s data team, and Washington data team intern Riin Aljas.
Among their findings: Many big farming operations were legally collecting far more than the supposed caps on aid.
Meanwhile, Minneapolis reporter Steve Karnowski spoke to longtime USDA critics and interviewed farmers who defended taking the big checks, saying they didn’t even cover their losses under Trump’s trade war.
The Only-on-AP story ran on dozens of sites, and because the data and analysis were released to AP members in advance, many chose to localize their stories.
For sophisticated data analysis and on-the-ground reporting that shed light on a key consequences of trade policy, Karnowski, Szalai and Aljas share this week’s Best of the States award.
The first installment of “What Can Be Saved?” – a ground-breaking new series from The Associated Press – was so deeply immersive that viewers could almost smell the sea-salt of Jamaica. The island nation was the first stop in what will be 12 installments reported from five continents focusing not on the well-documented gloom of climate change, but on often unsung people around the world who are combating environmental destruction in big ways and small.
From Jamaica, the AP reporting team of photographers David Goldman and David Phillip, science writer Christina Larson and video journalist Kathy Young came back with the astounding narrative of underwater nurseries where islanders are growing coral by hand, branch by branch on underwater lines, to reverse decades of destruction to Jamaican reefs.
The series is already attracting global attention, and with 10 more episodes to come, teamwork throughout the AP has been essential in pulling together all the pieces of “What Can Be Saved?” into a seamless product that AP clients can use in whole or in part.
For their thoughtful, painstaking and visually stunning reporting that launched a mammoth team effort to approach the climate-emergency story with fresh eyes and tell it in compelling new ways, Goldman, Phillip, Larson and Young win AP’s Best of the Week honors.
In the weeks after Jocelyn Gecker’s bombshell investigation detailing multiple sexual harassment allegations against Placido Domingo, competitors were out in full force, trying to produce their own stories about women who had encounters with the opera superstar.
But only the AP was able to advance the story, offering the accounts of an additional 11 women who said the legend had behaved inappropriately, including one who said on the record that Domingo insisted on kissing her and later forcefully grabbed her bare breast under her robe. In addition, backstage staff told the Jocelyns – AP’s Gecker and Noveck – how they strove to keep young women from ever being alone with Domingo.
No one could match the pair’s reporting, which produced one of the most-read stories on AP’s platform and formed the basis of stories by many other media outlets. Meanwhile, more opera companies announced they were canceling or reassessing their relationship with Domingo.
For remarkable source building and reporting that continued to give AP ownership of this highly competitive story, Gecker and Noveck earn this week’s Best of the States award.
Jocelyn Gecker’s bombshell investigation of sexual harassment allegations against opera superstar Placido Domingo started with a song.
San Francisco-based Gecker was at a party about 18 months ago when she noticed the beautiful voice of the woman next to her singing “Happy Birthday,” and complimented her. The woman was a former opera singer who confided that the industry had a dark underbelly, offering her assessment that “Placido Domingo is the Bill Cosby of the opera world.”
The discussion sparked months of work by Gecker to publicly reveal what many said had been an open secret in the opera world. In all, Gecker would find nine women who accused Domingo of sexual harassment and a half-dozen more who said the star made them uncomfortable. Getting people to go on the record proved challenging, but a breakthrough came when one of Domingo’s accusers agreed to tell her story on camera. The resulting 5,200-word story – and Domingo’s response – commanded instant attention and heavy engagement in global media.
For finding a major international story in an unlikely setting, and her care in dealing with sources while reporting tenaciously on a sensitive topic, Gecker earns AP’s Best of the Week honors.
for making AP the first international outlet with images of the aftermath of a devastating suicide bombing that killed 80 people at a crowded wedding party in the Afghan capital. The New York Times was among those using the work. https://bit.ly/2MwahVd
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
for reporting that the gunman in the Dayton, Ohio, shooting that killed nine people had significant red flags in his background.Following up on a thinly sourced local news report that Ohio shooter Connor Betts had a hit list in high school, Biesecker and Dunklin began calling dozens of former classmates, particularly those who may have had a chance of knowing Betts well. They struck paydirt with a former track teammate and a classmate who gave firsthand accounts of knowing not only about the hit list of people Betts wanted to kill, but also a rape list of girls he wanted to sexually assault. Both students had knowledge of separate high school suspensions of Betts, and with help from Smyth and others on the ground in Dayton, AP found more people who could confirm the accounts. https://bit.ly/2YIUEQg
for resourceful coverage of Mozambique’s historic peace deal as other international outlets struggled to catch up. Acting on a tip, the AP team overcame logistics hurdles to set up all-formats coverage at a remote wildlife park as Mozambique’s rebel-turned-opposition group disarmed and its leader warmly embraced Mozambique’s president. AP’s exclusive content, including the photo of the hug, was widely used and left competitors scrambling. https://bit.ly/2ZBHT78
for breaking news that a federal grand jury is investigating top GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy and whether he used his role as vice chair of President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee to drum up business deals with foreign leaders. https://bit.ly/2JyrREc
for making AP the only international media organization to visit Jeffrey Epstein’s private Caribbean island and capture the mood of fear and suspicion among locals. The idyll was where he hosted celebrities, built a gold-domed temple and allegedly raped at least one of his child victims. Some locals called it “pedophile island.” The story was a hit online, including 371,000 pageviews on APNews, making it the most-read story on the site this week.https://bit.ly/2Y2AwIphttps://bit.ly/2Gmv6xY