Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP package from Australia reveals global ravages of opioids

for months of careful relationship building with opioid addicts and their loved ones, resulting in a richly-detailed package about opioid addiction in Australia, where stigma around addiction remains high. The stories revealed how drug companies and the Australian government have contributed to the crisis, and an intimate narrative provided striking detail about the pain and impact of opioid dependency on addicts and their families. To find the right subjects, Gelineau contacted countless rehab centers, doctors, pain groups, nonprofits and addiction specialists, combed through online forums and social media and read through thousands of signatures on petitions related to opioid abuse. Putting the pieces together also required painstaking sifting through data from Australia’s de-centralized health system and 12 years of coroners’ reports to find early warnings about the opioid crisis. The work resonated with readers, and the director of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, which funded the stories, called them “stellar journalism ... so well told and presented,” while the mother profiled in the team’s narrative piece wrote to Gelineau, “I’m so grateful for having met you, Sam and Goldie. You have given me a voice.”https://bit.ly/2kebqV7https://bit.ly/2lKn9ez

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP team follows African migrants risking all to reach Saudi Arabia

After Maggie Michael, Nariman El-Mofty and Maad al-Zekri followed Ethiopian migrants across Djibouti and Yemen, they worked with the digital storytelling desk to deliver an all-formats package that hooked readers from the start, weaving together the differing fates of two migrants – one who succeeded in his epic walk to Saudi Arabia, the other who failed, left stranded and hopeless along the way.

The story demonstrated the scope of the AP’s reach, covering a little-noticed but rapidly growing route for migrants, exploring what motivates these men and women to risk their lives, and making readers care about people to whom they would not otherwise have been introduced.

The package, produced and packaged by Natalie Castañeda and Peter Hamlin, showcased how AP’s formats can work seamlessly together – from reporting on the ground to digital production – with dazzling results.

For stunningly beautiful work that took AP’s audience on the migrants’ journey from the sun-blasted wastelands of Djibouti to the shores of the Gulf of Aden and beyond, Michael, El-Mofty, al-Zekri, Castañeda and Hamlin win AP’s Best of the Week honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Trump on trial: AP delivers coverage for the history books

for anchoring expansive and informative coverage of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial – just the third such trial in American history. Coverage of the trial in all formats showcased the AP’s unmatched ability to meet the call of history with sharp storytelling, delivered with speed but hanging on substance. The AP’s mainbar provided a definitive account of the trial for more than three weeks running. And as lawmakers weighed the ultimate judgment on a president, journalists in Washington carefully reported the arguments in real-time while churning out informative sidebars, fact-checks and explanatory guides. The final story alone, on the Senate vote to acquit Trump, appeared on more than 200 newspaper front pages across the country, and hundreds of websites. https://bit.ly/2UQ9EcK

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

All-formats look at volunteer doctors responding to border crisis

for calling attention to the migrant health care crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border with a compelling, all-formats look at how volunteer doctors are stepping in to care for sick, vulnerable and traumatized asylum seekers from Central America. The team followed Dr. Psyche Calderon as she made rounds in Tijuana, part of a movement of health professionals and medical students from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border that is quietly battling to keep asylum seekers healthy and safe while their lives remain in flux.https://bit.ly/2SmiY6Vhttps://bit.ly/2SpxgUf

Best of the States

AP Exclusive: Iowa felons list bars a police department from voting; omits a drug dealer

Iowa City correspondent Ryan J. Foley has written extensively about problems tracking felons who are ineligible to vote in Iowa, but it had been five years since he’d gotten a copy of the database itself. So when a trusted source produced a state database of 103,000 felons, Foley set to work analyzing the data. He found it riddled with errors, including laughable mistakes – such as the Des Moines Police Department being banned from voting.

The story was used extensively by Iowa newspapers and broadcasters, who were especially interested given that Iowa’s governor is seeking to change the law regarding voting by felons who have completed their sentences.

For detailed research and reporting that produced an engaging story of statewide interest, Foley earns AP’s Best of the States award.

Best of the Week — First Winner

As women take to the streets, an in-depth look at domestic violence in France

Kamil Zihnioglu has seen lots of protests while working as a photo stringer for The Associated Press in Paris, but these campaigns were different, focused on a dark, unreconstructed side of an otherwise progressive France.

Every time a woman is killed by her partner, hundreds of activists take to the streets under cover of night to plaster signs decrying the deaths and pleading for government action. 

But Zihnioglu wanted to tell the story behind the protests. He spent weeks gaining the activists’ trust, and he teamed up with visiting video journalist Mstyslav Chernov to tell their story. Meanwhile, reporter Claire Parker and the Paris video team of Catherine Gaschka and Oleg Cetinic produced a powerful all-format package digging into deadly domestic violence in France.

For bringing attention to an issue that is often ignored, Kamil Zihnioglu, Claire Parker, Mystslav Chernov, Catherine Gaschka and Oleg Cetinic win AP’s Best of the Week.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP dominates with live video, photo coverage of fiery Hong Kong university siege

When heavily-armored police stormed protesters occupying Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University, AP journalists were there to comprehensively document the violent confrontation that ensued.   

The effort to retake the school and arrest protesters trapped on the campus was beamed to customers around the globe in real-time, putting AP ahead of the competition with photos and live video of a dramatic escalation in the struggle between authorities and those protesting Beijing’s tightening policies toward Hong Kong.

The scoops were the result of months of protest coverage by AP visual journalists in Hong Kong, careful planning of how to report the siege, and wise use of AP resources around the world. 

The team on the ground – photographers Vincent Yu and Kin Cheung of Hong Kong; Han Guan Ng, Beijing; and Achmad Ibrahim, Jakarta; and video journalists Raf Wober, Hong Kong; Johnson Lai, Taipei; Dake Kang, Beijing; Andi Jatmiko, Jakarta; and freelancers Katie Tam and Alice Fung – delivered days of impressive coverage around the siege.

For smart planning and outstanding execution to document a chaotic story with breathtaking speed and depth, the visuals team covering the Hong Kong protests wins AP’s Best of the Week.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Migrants face bleak situation in camps south of the border

for bringing new attention to a growing humanitarian crisis with a pair of powerful, complementary stories on the bleak conditions facing migrants forced to wait at the U.S.-Mexico border under Trump administration policies. Verza reported that drug cartels and gangs are profiting from the policy by robbing and extorting the migrants, while Merchant revealed the dire medical conditions at a migrant camp just feet from U.S. soil.https://bit.ly/2s0z5M8https://bit.ly/2XFDxvB

Best of the States

LA photographer’s son locked down in school shooting; team coverage stands out

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.

Best of the States

AP reveals research into a rare-but-severe infection carried by family pets

It could have been a routine follow-up story, but Milwaukee video journalist Carrie Antlfinger found a way to tell that story and break news. 

Very little was known last year when Greg Manteufel, a perfectly healthy Wisconsin man, developed a severe blood infection attributed to a bacterium commonly found in the saliva of cats and dogs. 

While reporting on Manteufel’s effort to reclaim his life after more than 20 surgeries and the loss of his limbs, Antlfinger discovered an angle that had not been pursued by other outlets: Researchers had identified a genetic factor that appears to make otherwise healthy people susceptible to the disease.

Antlfinger shot video, photos and wrote the story, which received strong play in all formats.

For a compelling story of recovery that also broke medical news, Antlfinger receives this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Planning pays off: AP first with news of ‘El Chapo’ conviction

for careful planning and quick reaction on verdict day, putting AP ahead of all media with the news that notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was convicted at his closely watched federal drug-trafficking trial. AP was credited with breaking the highly competitive news at outlets around the globe. https://bit.ly/2VhusqD

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP breaks news of Epstein autopsy report

for their source work to break the news that Jeffrey Epstein’s death had officially been ruled a suicide by hanging. Sisak ensured AP would be at the top of the medical examiner’s call list by gently nudging the ME’s office daily, several times a day, about the release of the autopsy findings. Balsamo had put the AP on high alert earlier in the day when a source confirmed that federal investigators had been told to expect the medical examiner’s determination that afternoon. As a result, AP was one of just two news organizations to get the findings first, with AP putting out its alert followed by an updated story less than two minutes later. AP was widely attributed with news of the ruling on the air and in mobile push alerts. https://bit.ly/2TOH3BN

Best of the Week — First Winner

Chance encounter, tenacious reporting reveal harassment allegations against Placido Domingo

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.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP investigation: Guam’s ex-archbishop protected culture of clergy sex abuse of children

Knowledge of clergy sex abuse is widespread on the mainland of the United States. But it has long been a secret in the small, overwhelmingly Roman Catholic U.S. territory of Guam.

Washington-based investigative reporter Michael Biesecker, working with Atlanta-based enterprise photographer David Goldman and Seattle video journalist Manuel Valdes, helped to puncture that veil of silence when AP examined thousands of pages of court documents in lawsuits brought by abuse victims and then conducted extensive interviews.

The AP team detailed a pattern of repeated collusion among predator priests, with abuse that spanned generations and reached all the way to the top of the territory’s church hierarchy, ruled over by then-Archbishop Tony Apuron, who himself had been accused of the rape of a 13-year-old choir boy when Apuron was a parish priest.

The care and sensitivity of the reporting and images were essential to the project’s power. “To see my story told in this way gives me a lot of peace, that I have a purpose,” said Walter Denton, a former U.S. Army sergeant and survivor of abuse nearly 40 years ago.

For telling a sensitive and little-known story of systemic clerical abuse dating from the 1950s to as recently as 2013, Biesecker, Goldman and Valdes share AP’s Best of the Week award.

Best of the States

Source’s tip, weeks of planning put AP at scene of massive Mississippi immigration raids

Because San Diego correspondent Elliot Spagat received a tip that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were planning massive raids on food processing plants, AP was uniquely positioned – literally – when ICE stormed seven Mississippi chicken processing plants and arrested 680 people, the largest workplace raid in a decade.

ICE’s acting Director Matthew Albence said that the investigation was so secret that even the White House didn’t know.

On the day of the raids, weeks of persistence and planning put AP way ahead of local and national media in the speed and depth of the report. Photographer Rogelio V. Solis was the only journalist on scene when about 600 agents simultaneously hit the plants, while his Jackson colleague, reporter Jeff Amy, got an exclusive interview with Albence.

Their multiday coverage received monster play, including 3 million social interactions for the first-day story alone.

For scoring scoops on a major ICE operation, Spagat, Amy and Solis are the winners of this week’s Best of the States honors.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Only on AP: Intimate, compelling all-formats coverage of Congo’s deadly Ebola outbreak

It’s a story so dangerous that the journalists who covered it are still checking their temperatures regulary to ensure that they’re not infected with one of the world’s most lethal diseases. Yet AP’s all-formats journalists helped tell intimate stories about the second-worst Ebola outbreak in history.

The team – Johannesburg Chief Photographer Jerome Delay, West Africa Bureau Chief Krista Larson, Istanbul video journalist Bram Janssen and Congo stringer Al-Hadji Kudra Maliro – had been planning since April to report on the outbreak in Congo, a journey complicated not only by risk of the disease but also the threat of rebel attacks. And their story took on even greater urgency when the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a world health emergency.

Readers, and editors, around the world took notice as the team produced a series of compelling stories from the epicenter of the outbreak.

For careful planning and execution of multiformat coverage that brought the frightening outbreak to a deeply personal level, Larson, Delay, Janssen and Kudra win AP’s Best of the Week.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

All-formats coverage of new mother and baby in flood-ravaged India

for his exclusive all-formats coverage of a young mother and her just-delivered infant as she and her family were flooded out of their village.

Nath traveled solo – first by road and then by boat – to remote, flooded areas of Assam state in northeastern India, where he persuaded a doctor to let him accompany a medical team that was going to visit a newborn delivered while the mother was trying to reach a hospital by boat. She had given birth before being forced back to her own flooded village. After a risky ride through swollen waters, Nath and the medics reached 20-year-old Imrana Khatoon and her infant daughter, and the decision was made to move them both by boat to another nearby hospital.

Despite challenging logistics, including no power, Nath shot photos and video of the entire sequence as the team worked in candlelight. Then, once back in communication, he coordinated text, photos and video with editors. The result was an exclusive, visually-driven package of determination, hope and new life in the flood-ravaged region.https://bit.ly/2ZaJNeQhttps://bit.ly/2GtReX3https://bit.ly/2YjvWWr

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

3 years after Prince’s death, first interview with his former protégé

for the first interview since Prince’s death with Apollonia Kotero, the Purple One’s former protégé and close friend. Kotero opened up about falling into depression after Prince’s death, and the superstar’s unfulfilled plans to re-launch her career – 30-plus years after she appeared in his “Purple Rain” film and became the lead singer of the group he formed, Apollonia 6. https://bit.ly/2ZkU7Aw

Best of the States

Only on AP: Death of ‘hood CNN’ video pioneer exposes gangland reporting risks

There’s always a better story behind a statistic.

Chicago’s homicide rate is one of the worst in the United States. By digging into one drive-by shooting, Chicago-based legal affairs reporter Michael Tarm and Houston-based video journalist John Mone found out how one victim’s life had inspired a generation of gang territory storytellers.

Telling it took a lot of sourcework.

Tarm had already been working on a story about social media and gangs, and he’d watched a few of Zack Stoner’s reports on Chicago street gangs and rappers on his ZackTV1 YouTube channel. When reports surfaced that Stoner was gunned down, Tarm began to look deeper, stumbling across a wider story – about a new brand of gutsy gangland reporters in Chicago and elsewhere who have avid followers on YouTube.

Getting access to the storytellers was tough, but eventually the name of Texas-based reporter Shawn Cotton emerged. Cotton was eager to discuss Stoner, his impact on the genre and the effect his killing had on him and others. Mone rode along with Cotton to the Meadow Brook subdivision in Fort Worth, dubbed “Murder Brook” by some of the kids on the street where Cotton filmed.

The multi-platform work played prominently with impressive reader engagement.

For relentless sourcework to show how a generation of storytellers is impacting its communities, Tarm and Mone win this week’s Best of the States.

Best of the States

APNewsBreak: Despite denials, US shares terror watchlist with private sector

For years, the federal government has denied widely sharing its terrorist watchlist with the private sector. But American Muslims have long had suspicions to the contrary, as those mistakenly placed on the list faced everyday difficulties ranging from making electronic bank transfers to boarding airplanes.

Source building and careful document review by Northern Virginia correspondent Matthew Barakat finally revealed that the federal government shares its terrorist watchlist with more than 1,400 private entities, including hospitals and universities. The government’s acknowledgement of the practice, buried in a civil lawsuit, was significant because officials have repeatedly denied that the list was given to private groups. Barakat’s sources and his thorough coverage of the 2-year-old case had him ready to jump on the filing as soon as it became public.

His APNewsBreak on Feb. 19 earned wide attention, including hundreds of members using the story. Others scrambled to catch up, with The Washington Post crediting AP for breaking the story when it ran its own version in the paper.

Over the next two days Barakat was also first to report on a call for a congressional probe, and he was the only reporter in court when a federal judge berated government lawyers, ordering them to disclose the private sector entities to the lawsuit’s plaintiffs.

For his methodical document work and source-building that helped hold the federal government accountable, Barakat wins this week’s Best of the States award.