Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Persistence pays off in delivering AP scoop on DOJ probe

immediately reached out to state and county officials in Georgia to find out if they had also received subpoenas and was told they had not. She filed open records requests with state and local governments and was told there were no records to provide. But she stayed on it. The extra effort paid off. Nearly a week into her reporting, a source called to say that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger got a subpoena that day. Brumback immediately prepared a story while her source sent her the actual subpoena. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution credited the AP in describing the effort to compel Raffensberger’s cooperation.

Read more.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Source-building pays off with exclusive access to study on terrorism

Longtime cultivation of a source paid off with the AP getting exclusive access to an important new study that provided insight into how the federal justice system handles terrorism cases.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Man with handgun seeking governor arrested in Wisconsin Capitol, returns with assault rifle

AP, cultivating sources on a highly competitive beat, broke two major Statehouse stories: an armed man came to the Wisconsin Capitol twice looking for the governor, and on Friday after 5 p.m. a state Supreme Court justice being targeted for impeachment if she heard a redistricting case decided not to recuse and cast the deciding vote for the court to hear it.

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Best of the Week — First Winner

Last living suspect in 1996 drive-by shooting of Tupac Shakur indicted in Las Vegas on murder charge

It was in mid-July when Las Vegas reporters Rio Yamat and Ken Ritter began working their sources, after the police raided the home of a suspect in connection with an investigation into the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur. The result months later was a super scoop on a riveting story nearly three decades in the making.

Through their deep and extensive sourcing in law enforcement and criminal justice, Yamat and Ritter sought to penetrate a grand jury case shrouded in secrecy. For months, they regularly contacted everyone who was likely involved. It all paid off when they learned they should prepare for an indictment in mid-September. From there, it was a lesson in patience and persistence.

After months where Yamat and Ritter attended court hearings and drafted prep for a potential break, Yamat began hearing rumblings an indictment was imminent. She and Ritter were able to nail down the next morning from multiple sources with firsthand knowledge that Duane “Keffe D” Davis had been taken into custody on suspicion of murder in Tupac's killing.

They broke the news at 9:27 a.m. PDT. The alert published 93 minutes before the court convened for grand jury returns when the indictment would be made public.

For dogged reporting and deep source work that allowed AP to dominate a story that’s mystified fans for decades, Yamat and Ritter are this week’s Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Ahead of Illinois’ first-in-the-nation change, AP highlights disproportionate effect of cash bail

An AP team highlighted the disproportionate effect of cash bail as a condition of pretrial release on people of color ahead of Illinois’ historic elimination of the system through stories of residents who lost jobs, homes and time with young children due to being unable to afford bail amounts.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP team tells the story of vigilantes in Haiti from inside after obtaining a rare access 

got rare access to a neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, where vigilantes are striking back at gang members with brutal street justice.Read more.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Source work, extensive reporting leads to major scoop on US attorney’s resignation

broke the news that the U.S. attorney in Massachusetts would resign after an inspector general’s investigation uncovered serious misconduct through extensive and intrepid source work, preparation and reporting.Read more.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP reveals DEA chief is being investigated for contracts to past associates 

Josh Goodman and Jim Mustian reported exclusively that a federal watchdog is investigating whether the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration under chief Anne Milgram improperly used millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to flout normal governing hiring procedures to hire past associates at a very high cost.   

The two followed up on a previous scoop about the arrest of former DEA agent Jose Irizarry, who confessed to laundering money for Colombian drug cartels and skimming millions of dollars from asset seizures and informants.   

After an external review of the DEA’s foreign operations was slammed for underplaying its scandals, Latin America reporter Goodman and investigative reporter Mustian began asking questions.   

What they found was that a Washington law firm that was hired as part of a no-bid contract did the review, and that its author was the former right-hand man to one of Milgram’s closest friends, former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. That led to more reporting, more questions and more sources talking about how the DEA used other no-bid contracts to hire Milgram’s past associates.  

For expert source reporting that holds accountable the DEA and its highest-ranking official, Goodman and Mustian win Best of the Week — First Winner. 

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Deep persistent reporting leads to exclusive package on potential bias in child welfare algorithm 

uncovered the data behind some of the most influential artificial intelligence tools used in child welfare cases and showed they specifically flag whether parents have disabilities.Read more.

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)

Teamwork, sourcing put AP ahead on Buffalo mass shooting

teamed up to deliver fast, factual breaking coverage of Saturday’s racist mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket, then turned to stories of the victims and a community in mourning.In the chaotic first hours after the shooting, AP avoided the erroneous reporting of other outlets, including false reports that the gunman was dead. Sharp source work had AP accurately reporting the death toll ahead of the official news conference, and that authorities suspected the shooter was driven by racism.The all-formats coverage was AP’s top-performing story of the day, by far, widely used and credited by AP customers and drawing more than 1 million pageviews on AP News.Read more

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)

Washington team out front on blockbuster Trump probe document

used planning and preparation — and worked through the night — to put AP ahead on the Justice Department document that alleged efforts to obstruct the investigation of classified documents kept at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.When the nearly 40-page document landed after 11 p.m. Tuesday night, Washington reporters Tucker, Colvin and Balsamo quickly identified the newsiest, most salient points and filed an alert just minutes after the document had dropped, then followed with a textured, detailed story that moved before competitors had even published their own alerts. Kesten provided lightning-fast editing and filing, and photo editor Elswick expedited a key evidence photo.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Months of prep, source work propel AP to dominance on student loan forgiveness

How President Joe Biden would deliver on his campaign promise to forgive student loan debt was one of the most closely watched decisions coming out of the White House this summer.

As anticipation built, and other news organizations couched their reporting in terms of what Biden was “expected to” announce, AP’s Washington bureau worked sources to deliver a massive scoop, confirming and reporting the details 16 hours before Biden stood in front of the cameras.

What followed was no less impressive: All nine of AP’s stories, breaking and enterprise, centered on real people, with on-camera reaction from borrowers, as well as a Q&A updated by search trends, an engaging Instagram reel, a Twitter Spaces session and more. In all, AP’s coverage pulled in 1.1 million views on AP News and 1.2 million interactions on Facebook. For preparation and determined reporting that produced a major scoop, deep coverage and resourceful engagement on an issue affecting millions of Americans, AP is delighted to honor the team of Seung Min Kim, Zeke Miller, Chris Megerian, Michael Balsamo, Collin Binkley, Bianca Vázquez Toness, Adriana Morga, Cora Lewis and Alex Connor as Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: DEA appeared to intervene after off-duty shooting by agent

investigated a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent’s deadly shooting of a mentally ill neighbor in Mississippi, revealing new details that raise questions about why the agent never faced trial on a murder charge — and the role played by DEA brass to quickly insert themselves into the case, blocking local authorities from talking to the agent.Mustian exclusively obtained hundreds of pages of investigative documents and transcripts, and spent days on the ground interviewing people with knowledge of the case for a story that questions the justification for the shooting, how Agent Harold Duane Poole avoided trial and whether the DEA overreached to protect one of its own amid a flurry of misconduct cases in the agency.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)

Teamwork delivers standout AP coverage of July 4 mass shooting

mobilized on July Fourth to deliver fast, multiformat coverage of the mass shooting at a parade in Highland Park, Illinois, that ultimately resulted in seven deaths and dozens wounded. Local and regional staffers responded quickly with all-formats coverage in the Chicago suburb while colleagues across the U.S. and into Mexico stepped in to assist with reporting, writing and editing.Monday’s efforts laid the groundwork for coverage in the days that followed, including more breaking news updates, victim profiles, a narrative on how the events unfolded, explainers, an investigative piece on how the suspect was able to get weapons despite Illinois’ red flag law and more.The mainbar story trended near the top on AP platforms for much of the week and made the front page of newspapers across the country.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP Exclusive: Unserved 1955 arrest warrant discovered for woman at center of Emmett Till case

“And I do not say this lightly: Holy shit.” That, from producer and Black List founder Franklin Leonard, sums up the collective reaction to the scoop by AP’s Jay Reeves and Emily Wagster Pettus: Searchers in Mississippi had discovered the nearly 70-year-old unserved warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman whose unproven accusation against Emmett Till led to the Black teenager’s lynching, a horror that galvanized the civil rights movement.

Reeves had reported previously that relatives and activists were still seeking the long-lost warrant, and years of source work paid off with a tip: The document had been found in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse. He confirmed it and teamed up with Wagster Pettus, contacting law enforcement officials and legal experts on what the discovery means to the case, which had been considered closed.

The resulting story made waves, scoring heavy play with customers and on AP platforms.For breaking news on one of the country’s most notorious civil rights cases, Reeves and Wagster Pettus share this week’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP explores El Salvador’s strict abortion ban through the voices of women who lived it

As the U.S. Supreme Court considers overturning the constitutional right to abortion, reporter Luis Henao and video journalist Jessie Wardarski provided a compelling account of what can happen under a total abortion ban, through the testimonials of women who were raped or suffered miscarriages in El Salvador — where the country’s harsh anti-abortion law committed them to long prison terms.

Henao and Wardarski traveled to rural El Salvador to meet women willing to share on camera their harrowing stories of being imprisoned under the law. To these Salvadoran women, their plight should serve as a cautionary tale for Americans.

The AP pair also sought the views of a Catholic cardinal and a lawmaker who defended the ban on abortion. The resulting all-formats package was used by hundreds of news outlets, was widely praised by experts on the issue and generated impassioned commentary on social media.

For engaging, insightful coverage that gives voice to women who have suffered the consequences of an abortion ban, and shedding light on an issue that sharply divides opinions in the U.S. and beyond, Henao and Wardarski earn AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Governor saw Greene arrest video months before prosecutors

scored their latest in a string of exclusives on the deadly 2019 arrest of Black motorist Ronald Greene, finding that Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards watched a key video of Greene taking his final breaths — a full six months before prosecutors were aware the footage even existed.While the Democrat has distanced himself from allegations of a cover-up in the explosive case by contending evidence was promptly turned over to authorities, AP’s monthslong investigation involving dozens of interviews and hundreds of pages of documents found that wasn’t the case with the 30-minute video he privately viewed in the fall of 2020.Response to the story was swift. A bipartisan legislative committee investigating the case in response to AP’s previous reporting indicated that it would move quickly to call Edwards and key members of his staff to testify under oath.Read more