Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP/‘Frontline’: Michael Flynn building Christian nationalist movement

teamed up with PBS “Frontline” on a deeply reported all-formats investigative package revealing how retired lieutenant general and former national security adviser Michael Flynn has used public appearances, endorsements and a network of well-funded groups to build a movement centered on Christian nationalist ideas.Smith spoke with more than 60 people, from Flynn’s family and friends to his opponents, examined dozens of Flynn’s speeches, interviews and other appearances, reviewed campaign finance records, corporate and charity filings, social media posts, as well as attending Flynn events. She also landed a rare interview with the retired three-star general — the footage edited by AP investigative video journalist Roosblad — and spent two days reporting on the ReAwaken America tour in upstate New York, along with photographer Kaster and a “Frontline” crew.The joint AP/“Frontline” reporting found Flynn deliberately and systematically driving a far-right political narrative with the goal of influencing elections this year and beyond.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP's Winfield holds Pope Francis’ Jesuit order to account by challenging superior to tell truth

held Pope Francis’ Jesuit order to account by challenging the superior general to come clean with the truth about a famous Jesuit artist accused of sexual and spiritual abuse of women under his care. The superior’s admission to Winfield – during a Christmas reception-turned-press conference – made headlines, and Winfield and AP were credited widely with having forced the Jesuits to answer uncomfortable questions and essentially admit they had lied. Read more.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP spotlights remarkable rise of federal prison official accused of misconduct

Mike Balsamo in Washington and Mike Sisak in New York trained a lens on a single Bureau of Prisons official, Thomas Ray Hinkle, who received promotions across four decades despite repeated allegations of abuse, misconduct and even admissions by him that he’d beaten inmates in the past as part of a gang of guards called “The Cowboys.”

After being tipped earlier this year to Hinkle’s past, Sisak and Balsamo went about securing and scrutinizing 1,600 pages of documents that provided details of the allegations and developed key sources within the prisons system who corroborated the accusations. Finally, toward the end of the reporting process, they secured comment from Hinkle and the bureau, both of which acknowledged his previous excesses but said he was a changed man.

For a dogged and impactful investigation that caps a year in which their reporting has shaken the hierarchy of the federal prison systems and forced officials to confront abuses long out of public view, Balsamo and Sisak are Best of the Week 1st Winners.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Monthslong investigation weaves sordid tale of debauchery within DEA

"The drug war is a game,” José Irizarry told two AP reporters during his final moments of freedom. “It was a very fun game that we were playing.”

Irizarry’s decision to spend some of his last few hours before beginning a 12-year federal prison sentence with two AP reporters in early 2022 was a moment years in the making that yielded a bombshell bacchanal of a story -- itself months in the making.

Four years ago, just before starting at The Associated Press, New York-based investigative reporter Jim Mustian received a tip about a DEA investigation into one of the agency’s own agents in Colombia. That spiraled into a string of AP scoops by Mustian and Miami-based Latin America correspondent Joshua Goodman on DEA corruption in Latin America, including an exclusive on the arrest of that agent. Irizarry had been accused of conspiring with Colombian drug cartels to divert millions from DEA money laundering stings in what prosecutors called one of the worst betrayals in DEA history.

For a deeply reported and compelling investigation, telling the tale of a former war-on-drugs warrior who crossed multiple boundaries, Mustian and Goodman earn AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP finds angle into #MeToo scandal of French TV star

used determination and ingenuity to make AP the first international news organization reporting on alleged sexual misconduct by France’s most famous TV anchor.The anchor, Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, has previously sued the women accusing him of rape, sexual abuse or harassment occurring from 1981 to 2018. He has also sued media reporting on the alleged misconduct, but when one of d’Arvor’s accusers wrote a book investigating multiple allegations, AP seized on the opportunity to interview the author and others, bringing the “affaire PPDA” to light and potentially marking a turning point in the French #MeToo era.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP/‘Frontline’ investigation: Russian brutality was strategic

of the AP teamed up with PBS “Frontline” on a joint investigation showing that the much-reported Russian violence against civilians in and around Bucha, Ukraine, was not carried out by rogue soldiers. Rather, it was strategic and organized brutality, perpetrated in areas under tight Russian control and where military officers — including a prominent general — were present.For a pair of stories, AP and “Frontline” interviewed dozens of witnesses and survivors, reviewed audio intercepts and surveillance camera footage, and obtained Russian battle plans.One of Kinetz’s stories tied the violence to Russian Col. Gen. Alexander Chaiko, who was in command. The other shows the wrenching impact of the Russian terror campaign on one woman who lost the man she called her “big, big love.”Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP breaks stunning story of child caught in custody battle between Afghan couple, US Marine

The story was nothing short of shocking: An Afghan baby, the only surviving member of her immediate family following an American attack on their home, was brought to the United States for medical treatment only to be taken from the Afghan couple who raised her as their own and — against the couple’s wishes — placed in the custody of a U.S. Marine attorney and his wife.

AP reporters Juliet Linderman, Martha Mendoza and Claire Galofaro broke the competitive story after poring through hundreds of pages of legal filings and documents, talking to Afghan officials and pushing relentlessly for interviews with everyone involved. Then the trio wove their reporting into a beautifully written, compelling narrative that reads like an international thriller. The piece prompted strong reader reaction, with many asking how they could hold the government agencies involved responsible.

For intensive, lightning-fast work to put AP first on this deeply reported, deeply moving story, Linderman, Galofaro and Mendoza earn AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

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

Best of the Week — First Winner

Informant raped during unmonitored drug sting; AP finds little regulation of common police tactic

Investigative reporter Jim Mustian told the exclusive story of a female informant raped twice in an undercover drug sting after her law enforcement handlers left her alone and unmonitored — a case that revealed the perils such informants can face while seeking to “work off” criminal charges in often secretive arrangements.

Mustian spent weeks interviewing sources and obtaining confidential documents after receiving a tip about the incident which took place in central Louisiana early last year. His reporting showed authorities’ apparent disregard for the safety of the informant, while experts told him that such drug stings are conducted countless times a day across the country, but they are notoriously unregulated.

Mustian’s story was among the most-read stories of the week on AP News and earned prominent play by AP members and customers.

For deep reporting that exposed a horrific case and took a hard look at a common police practice, Mustian earns AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP finds deep support for election lies among GOP candidates

worked with statehouse reporters across the U.S. to highlight just how many election deniers are seeking statewide offices that play a role in overseeing, certifying or defending elections.Democracy team reporter Riccardi and his colleagues found nearly one in three Republicans running for governor, secretary of state or attorney general have echoed former President Donald Trump’s lies about widespread fraud costing him reelection, according to the AP review. Only 40% would acknowledge that Joe Biden was legitimately elected president.Graphic artist Duckett formatted the data for a series of interactives embedded in the story, which made headlines and found an audience even while much of the media was focused on the death of Queen Elizabeth II.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

All-formats sweep as AP breaks news of Supreme Court nominee

beat all the competition, breaking the news of President Joe Biden’s nominee for the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy. AP flooded the media space with content on every platform, delivering a comprehensive package that told customers and readers everything they need to know about federal appeals court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, what comes next and who bears watching in the process.The initial scoop came from smart source work, and the impressive range of content that quickly followed was made possible by advance coordination across formats and departments — AP was poised with thorough preparation on each of the front-runners for the nomination. Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reports on consequences of shrinking US police ranks

spent weeks finding and reporting on real people across the country affected by the trickle-down effects of a shortage of police offers.Instead of focusing solely on the police, whose ranks are thinning because of burnout and other issues, Portland, Oregon-Based Flaccus, working with photographer Mitchelldyer, gave voice to the parents of a cold-case victim whose case was pushed aside because of rising gun homicides.In Philadelphia, Lauer and photographer Rourke showed how complaints have swelled over abandoned cars and other quality-of-life issues in low-income areas. And in Los Angeles, Dazio, video journalist Garcia and photographer Dovarganes found the problem has deeply impacted police homeless outreach.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Smart source work delivers exclusive on Polanski case transcript

scooped everyone by obtaining the first copy of a newly unsealed transcript in Roman Polanski's long-running underage sex abuse case, filing a story before anyone else had it, including prosecutors and the director's attorney.Melley drew on experience to quickly find the court reporter and arrange to electronically obtain the 400-page transcript of testimony by a former prosecutor who handled the case. In the previously sealed testimony, the former prosecutor said that the judge in the 1977 case was reneging on a promise not to jail Polanski, prompting the director to flee the country on the eve of sentencing.After receiving the files, Melley worked late into the night to deliver the news, putting AP significantly ahead on a high profile, internationally competitive celebrity court case.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: FBI investigating abuse by New Orleans clergy

reported exclusively that the FBI has opened a sweeping probe into sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans, marking a rare federal foray into such a case, looking specifically at whether priests took children across state lines to molest them.Mustian’s scoop, based on law enforcement authorities and others familiar with the probe, marked a major shift in strategy for federal authorities, who have rarely opened investigations into the Catholic clergy abuse scandals, particularly cases built around the Mann Act, a century-old, anti-sex trafficking law that prohibits taking anyone across state lines for illicit sex.Mustian’s detailed reporting found that many of the cases the FBI is probing in New Orleans allege abuse by clergy during out-of-state trips, including to Mississippi camps or amusement parks in Texas and Florida.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP investigation of Louisiana State Police triggers federal probe

fittingly beat the competition with news of the biggest impact yet from their two-year investigation of beatings and cover-ups by the Louisiana State Police: The U.S. Justice Department is launching a sweeping civil rights probe of the agency to see if there is a pattern of excessive force and racial discrimination.Based on their deep sourcing, Mustian and Bleiberg were able to exclusively report the federal “pattern-or-practice” investigation as a news alert about an hour before the official announcement in Baton Rouge. It marked the first such action against a statewide law enforcement agency in more than two decades. All the examples cited by the assistant attorney general as justitification for the probe came from a string of AP scoops that exposed (often with video) beatings of mostly Black men and the Louisiana agency’s instinct to protect troopers rather than investigate them.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

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Acute shortage of public defenders in Oregon and beyond

picked up on a seemingly mundane local story: A state working group was looking into problems with Oregon’s public defense system. That seed led the Portland-based reporter to interview attorneys, private investigators and a suspect in an attempted murder, revealing that the combination of a post-pandemic glut of delayed cases and the state’s severe shortage of public defenders means hundreds of low-income defendants don’t have legal representation — sometimes in serious felony cases — and judges have dismissed several dozen cases.Flaccus found similar crises unfolding from Maine to New Mexico. And she showed the many painful repercussions of the problem, highlighting how young victims of sex abuse and trafficking are hesitant to come forward because of disillusionment with the system.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Investigation reveals traumatic backlog of Mississippi autopsies

investigated Mississippi’s massive autopsy backlog for more than a year, gathering new data and personal stories revealing the terrible cost of the backlog which has traumatized families and jeopardized investigations.The state’s public officials had talked previously about understaffing in the medical examiner’s office, but Willingham’s reporting went much further, revealing a system long operating outside of accepted national standards for death investigations. She found that coroners were waiting years — and in some cases more than a decade — for autopsy reports. District attorneys and coroners who trusted Willingham told her about specific cases and connected her to families who told deeply personal accounts of waiting a year or more for results on loved ones.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: States passing tough abortion laws often have weak social programs

collaborated with a team of AP state reporters on an analysis of federal data, finding that states passing the toughest abortion restrictions are generally the most challenging places for people to have and raise children. With the U.S. Supreme Court widely expected to roll back abortion rights later this year, the data and reporting revealed a weak network of social services in many of these states for women who become pregnant and may be unable to obtain an abortion.AP’s analysis, led by data journalists Fassett and Lo, looked at seven social safety net measurements collected by the federal government; visualized in an engaging interactive by the data team’s Gorman. The reporting team, led by Utah statehouse reporter Whitehurst, interviewed parents, researchers and nonprofit groups that provide support to pregnant people, new parents, infants and young children. And while the data overwhelming showed that Republican-controlled states with strict abortion laws performed the worst on these social services, the reporting also came with the important caveat that a few Democratically controlled states with more permissive abortion laws also measured poorly in some categories.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP wins access as opioids victims confront Purdue’s Sackler family

leveraged years of source building and evenhanded reporting on opioid litigation in the U.S., securing rare access in all formats to an unprecedented federal court hearing in the most high-profile opioids case in the U.S.In the virtual hearing, people who had become addicted to opioids, and the parents of children lost to addiction, would finally confront members of the family that owned Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin. Mulvihill overcame federal court restrictions to get full access to the Zoom link for the hearing, and he leaned on his relationship with victims’ attorneys to have a multiformat team at a law firm as victims made emotional statements to members of the Sackler family. Read more