Feb. 03, 2023

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Local church helps Norwegian Arctic mining community evolve amid climate-change impact

provided an intimate and visually captivating portrait of the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard as its residents persevered through the round-the-clock polar night.

The AP team established a close rapport with the pastor in the community, joined the church’s children’s choir on a trip to a Russian/Ukrainian village, and spent a day at a century-old coal mine threatened with closure in two years. The trip had extra challenges for photo and video because it took place in mid-winter. For Cole, it meant developing a special sensitivity for light – from the glow of the aurora to the beam of a headlamp. Read more.

AP 23025713913297

April 07, 2023

Best of the Week — First Winner

3 days, 2 nights, 1 train: Kyiv team crosses Ukraine with Zelenskyy in unprecedented embed

Months of building trust with the Ukrainian government led to unmatched access to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his travels across Ukraine. It resulted in a powerful all-formats series of stories that made headlines across the world and gave an in-depth portrait of a wartime leader in perpetual motion. 

For months, The AP team has been working on improving our links with the Kyiv government. Persistence paid off. AP was offered an exclusive interview with the president, to be carried out by Executive Editor Julie Pace. She traveled into the country, accompanied by Europe and Africa News Director James Jordan and teamed up with Arhirova and Lukatsky and on-deployment Prague video journalist Adam Pemble for two nights and three days on the president’s train.  

For their herculean efforts to organize and deliver the meeting, engineering an opportunity for AP to conduct the most extensive embed with the Ukrainian president to date, Arhirova, Lukatsky and Pemble share Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

AP23089439729051