Best of the Week — First Winner

Extraordinary effort as well as outstanding planning delivered impeccable coverage around the King's coronation

The coronation of King Charles III posed huge logistical challenges for the AP to cover, especially for those stuck outside enduring hours of soaking rain. But collaboration among dozens of AP staff, led by reporter Danica Kirka, videojournalist Kwiyeon Ha, photographer Alastair Grant, photo editor Anne-Marie Belgrave, Special Events Editor Susie Blann and Senior Producer Maria Grazia Murru, resulted in two weeks of exemplary all-formats storytelling, topped by the spectacular crowning itself.  

The results showed:  explanatory and feature-driven journalism in the lead-up to the wall-to-wall coverage on the day and weekend. Kirka’s knowledge from years working the royal beat enabled AP to offer clients a variety of stories covering the king and queen's profiles, the Windsor family drama, the clouds over the Commonwealth, the future of the monarchy, the economy and much more.  

The weather and limited access on May 6 threw up several challenges. The team overcame them all to participate in huge video and photo pool operations while providing unique AP unilateral coverage from the best camera positions.  

For the story told deeply, colorfully and powerfully across all formats, Kirka, Ha, Grant, Belgrave, Blann and Murru, with dozens of others contributing, earn Best of the Week — First Winner.

Best of the Week — First Winner

The secret networks that circumvent Honduras’ abortion ban: How an AP team documented the invisible

For years, AP Mexico photo stringer Ginnette Riquelme was aware of clandestine networks helping women obtain abortions in Honduras, where they are banned under all circumstances.   

The locations were hidden, the phones untraceable, the contacts used code words to communicate. But Riquelme had a vision of how — and why — to document something that is both illegal and heavily stigmatized. With a grant from the International Women’s Media Foundation, she joined forces with Honduran journalist Iolany Pérez in El Progreso and Mexico City reporter María Verza.   

Persistence and the ability to build the trust of more than a dozen women who helped or had received the networks’ assistance resulted in a previously unseen composite of an underground system built up over years of prohibition.   

For journalism that illustrates the invisible, and in-depth and unmatched coverage of an issue that resonates far outside Honduras, this team earns Best of the Week — First Winner. 

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Cross-format team sheds light on the deadly impact of tornadoes on mobile homes

AP spent months reporting the issue of tornado deaths in mobile homes and why they still happen despite being known and avoidable.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Speedy, smart coverage on Hawaii’s wildfire breaks AP engagement records

When a wildfire broke out in Maui and obliterated the centuries-old town of Lahaina, staff in AP’s Pacific Northwest sprang into action. Honolulu’s Audrey McAvoy was on the ground within hours, leveraging the AP’s unique Hawaii footprint for the first of many days of aggressive coverage that allowed AP to own the story from the beginning.

McAvoy was quickly joined by Portland, Oregon, reporter Claire Rush, who canceled her vacation; photographer Rick Bowmer and video journalists Ty O’Neil and Haven Daley. Jennifer Kelleher joined the reporting effort from Honolulu, where she anchored the story for days with help from Chris Weber in Los Angeles and worked longtime sources, including Gov. Josh Green, to keep AP ahead. Rush, O’Neil and Bowmer slept in an SUV for two days in the burn zone.

On Aug. 9, apnews.com received 7.6 million page views — a new record and a 32% increase over traffic the previous Wednesday, and the following day also broke previous records with 7.5 million page views.

The Live Updates fixture, artfully anchored by a changing cast of characters, was also a huge winner for AP and served as a “search tree” that led readers back to AP’s content again and again.

For extraordinary coverage of the devastating fire, accomplished despite huge logistical challenges, the AP Maui team earns Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Education team’s exclusive reporting on chronically absent students drives coverage across US

Building on the groundbreaking Missing Students project, the AP’s Education team and a Stanford educational economist analyzed data from before and after the pandemic in 40 states and Washington, D.C., to show the scope of the nation’s crisis in school attendance.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP exposes harmful gaps in early childhood intervention program

AP didn’t just expose gaps in a federally mandated early childhood intervention program, we also explored the heartbreaking cost with an intimate, all-formats examination of the tangible impact on children with developmental delays.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Special Citation: Israel-Hamas War coverage

Since Oct. 7, Associated Press staff in Gaza and Israel have worked tirelessly to cover the war — and to go beyond the news with deep, impactful coverage.

From live feeds and NR/CR videos to powerful photographs, text stories, audio and interactives, the Associated Press has written the first draft of history by covering the spot news around the clock — and by going deeper with resonant journalism about individuals directly affected by the war. These stories are written by colleagues who themselves have evacuated their homes and struggle to get food and water, by colleagues for whom air raid sirens have become a part of daily life.

Outside of the region, colleagues have written thoughtful analysis and all-formats takeouts on the broader resonance of the Israel-Hamas war. They’ve edited text, photos and video and worked to ensure that our standards are met throughout the report.

Because of that work across the AP, we this week honor all of those colleagues who’ve contributed to the urgency, breadth and depth of the report across all formats in our coverage of the Israel-Hamas war with a Special Citation, most especially those in the region.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

In the US, Black survivors are nearly invisible in the Catholic clergy sexual abuse crisis

AP broke new ground in detailing how Black victims of Catholic clergy sex abuse have largely been overlooked.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Photo-driven Aral Sea project gives voice to underrepresented community affected by climate change

AP presented the story of the drying Aral Sea, showing what it once meant to those who relied on it, and the impact of climate change on those in the region. Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP exposes harm caused by lack of mental health protocols for transgender teens in crisis

With lawmakers in state after state invoking the best interests of children in pushing for bans or severe limits on health care for transgender children, The AP’s all-formats deep dive explored the other side of that coin, the impact of the lack of standards of care and treatment for transgender teens in crisis.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Looking into the changing face of free speech on American university campuses

In a deeply reported story with historical scope, AP traced the changing flavor of free speech on the American college campus as higher education reeled from the ousters of two Ivy League university presidents over free-speech issues.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP investigation uncovers mishandling of sexual harassment case in US Biathlon

AP used its contacts in biathlon to uncover a case of sexual harassment that was mishandled by the U.S. Biathlon federation.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reveals grueling working conditions in Indian shrimp industry

A team of AP journalists in India and the United States provided an unprecedented cross-format look at the Indian shrimp industry, capturing labor and environmental abuses by the world’s top exporter of shrimp to America.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Biden administration falling short on EV charging station goals

AP created an accountability story examining how President Joe Biden was doing on the goal of building a national network of electric vehicle charging stations.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP hosts digital-first experience of total solar eclipse with livestream, blog and scenes from Mexico to Maine

In a large-scale, innovative and comprehensive work of journalism that required months of planning and precise execution, a core team from Health and Science conceived a digital-first experience of the total solar eclipse with a livestream, live blog and scenes along the path of totality from Mexico to Maine. Executing the plan successfully required coordination that extended across formats, countries and departments.

Coverage of the eclipse began in February with weekly all-formats storytelling by the Health and Science team, with contributions from Global Beats and U.S. News teams. Work also began to develop a livestream eclipse show, featuring Health and Science audience and social lead Kyle Viterbo; video journalists Mary Conlon and Laura Bargfeld; and aerospace writer Marcia Dunn, along with engineer Hugo Blanco.

In the control room, Global Beats video news editor Kathy Young, Entertainment video editor Brooke Lefferts and U.S. assignment manager Robert Bumsted worked with video operations manager Derek Danilko and broadcast engineer Rob Weisenfeld to produce the six-hour livestream. They worked with video journalists who went live along the path, including Alexis Triboulard, Lekan Oyekanmi, Nick Ingram, Teresa Crawford, Patrick Orsagos and David Martin, while video curation editor Francisco Guzman kept real-time track of audience engagement.

A live blog launched at 5:30 a.m. EDT with posts prepared by Health and Science editor Stephanie Nano, and deputy editor Jon Poet, live blog editor Emily Olson and digital editor Sophia Eppolito kept it running with fresh dispatches and visuals over 12 hours from journalists in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada.

Unique and quickly filed images of the event were captured photojournalists Fernando Llano, Eric Gay, Mat Otero, Tony Gutierrez, Jeff Roberson, Michael Conroy, Carolyn Kaster, Jon Cherry, Matt Rourke and Bob Bukaty, with coordination by chief photographer Julio Cortez.

For conceiving a digital-first approach that caught the attention of our customers and our digital audience, the Health and Science team of Viterbo, Conlon, Bargfeld, Dunn and Nano are this week’s Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Once praised, a settlement leaves sickened BP oil spill workers with next to nothing

Through thousands of pages of legal documents and dozens of interviews over a year and a half of reporting, the AP exclusively reported that a medical settlement and litigation from the 2010 BP Gulf oil spill left many workers with nearly nothing for illnesses attributed to cleaning up the disaster.Read more