Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Liberal US cities change course, clearing homeless camps

Sara Cline documented how liberal cities from Seattle to Austin, Texas, to New York, are taking a far more aggressive approach in dealing with homelessness as they emerge from the pandemic.Cities that for years tolerated tent encampments in public parks and public spaces are responding to fed-up business owners and residents who say the levels of street disorder are too high. But people who work with the unhoused say newly elected mayors are targeting a vulnerable population to score political points, rather than dealing with the underlying issues of addiction and housing affordability.Cline, a Portland, Oregon-based Report For America AP fellow, worked with staff photographers Ted Warren in Seattle and Rich Pedroncelli in Sacramento, California, to document the increased camp sweeps and to highlight the issues of people living on the street. Her story was one of only two non-Ukraine stories in AP’s top 10 for reader engagement over the weekend. Read more

Best of the States

Lead crisis in housing project was actually no surprise

The down-at-the-heels industrial city of East Chicago, Indiana, made headlines around the world in August after the mayor ordered 1,000 people to get out of a 40-year-old public-housing complex because of lead contamination.

Many residents and observers expressed surprise: How could such a problem go overlooked for so many decades?

The Chicago bureau’s Sara Burnett and Jason Keyser teamed up for several weeks of intensive document and street reporting. What they found was as disturbing as the original news: The hazard shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone – because the housing complex had been built on the former site of a lead-products factory.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

All-formats team exposes housing crisis for college students

exposed a growing housing crisis hitting college campuses across the U.S.: A surge in the number of new students who deferred college during the worst of the COVID crisis has strained campus housing nationwide, leaving many students homeless, sleeping in cars or living in motel rooms while attending school — or causing them to further delay their education.Working with AP’s housing coverage team, San Francisco reporter Har found that while the college housing crunch may be most acute in California, it impacts college students nationwide.With video from Terry Chea and photos by Eric Risberg, digital storyteller Samantha Shotzbarger created a strong presentation that performed well both on AP platforms and with customers, but its real impact was on Facebook, where it was viewed 2.4 million times.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reveals Alaska tribes in crisis as salmon runs disappear

documented the plight of remote Alaska Native tribes facing a lean winter because the once bountiful salmon runs on the Yukon River have all but stopped, likely due to climate change.Freelance photographer Howard traveled to Stevens Village, more than 300 miles north of Anchorage along the Yukon. He made striking images and drone video as hunters tracked moose and caribou, hoping to get enough to replace what would usually be a large bounty of salmon dried and smoked for winter months. The hunters worked nearly around the clock, even cleaning and gutting moose under the northern lights.Flaccus reported from Oregon, describing how tribal members are upset they haven’t received more help from state and federal authorities. Some feel their plight isn’t getting as much attention as farmers, ranchers and others affected by climate change in the lower 48.The pair’s vivid text and photo package led reader engagement for the weekend and was near the top in pageviews for the same period.https://aplink.news/ndm

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

US Catholic priests describe turmoil amid sex abuse crisis

for reversing the prism to report, in the most candid terms, the internal struggles of Catholic clergy who have lost faith in their leadership and suffer from PTSD. With deeply empathetic coverage, they revealed that some priests are mindful about walking through a park with their collar on, as “some are spat upon.” https://bit.ly/2teJ6pJhttps://bit.ly/2PDzUTr

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Amid drug crisis, spiritual first responders hit the streets

for an all-formats effort to tell a little-noticed story of the opioid crisis – how clergy members have become first responders, of sorts, leaving their pulpits to go directly to the streets to help get people into treatment and on a path to recovery. https://bit.ly/2BqB2E6

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP releases mini-documentary package about the US opioid crisis

How best to capture the story of recovering opioid users?

Chicago-based medical writer Lindsey Tanner and Atlanta-based photographer/videographer David Goldman teamed up to produce an intimate look at a diverse group of people – among them, a lawyer, a businessman and a trucker – who got caught up in the worst opioid epidemic in U.S. history.

Their illuminating package – combining Tanner's powerful text and Goldman's photos with a haunting mini-documentary – earns the Beat of the Week.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP photographers show the despair, and hopes, of homeless along US West Coast

For three months, Associated Press photographer Jae Hong traveled America’s West Coast to chronicle the region’s exploding homeless crisis and do what many try to avoid: look into the eyes of the people living on the streets, in tents or in their vehicles and get to know them.

His series of intimate portraits focused on the subjects’ eyes and were combined with short text stories to reveal their humanity, whether it was an aging, down-on-his-luck street performer on Los Angeles’ Skid Row or a 9-year-old boy who lives with his family in a rented RV blocks from Google’s headquarters.

The unique portraits were one part of a larger package of images that Hong and his colleagues across the West – Ted Warren, Marcio Sanchez, Chris Carlson and Greg Bull – produced for a project looking at the roots of the homeless crisis in the region and identifying potential solutions.

For their work documenting the lives of the homeless, the team wins this week’s Beat of the Week prize.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

‘It’s raining needles’: Drug crisis creates pollution threat

for illustrating the largely underreported problem of discarded needles from the opioid crisis turning up in rivers, on beaches and in public parks across the country. http://bit.ly/2v5VKqX

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

FIFA removes Qatari match official due to diplomatic crisis

for revealing that the Gulf diplomatic crisis prompted FIFA to remove a Qatari referee from a 2018 World Cup qualifier following a request from the United Arab Emirates. http://trib.in/2sc40Dr

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Lead crisis in housing project was actually no surprise

for combining an exhaustive document dive with gum-shoe work to tell the story behind the sudden order by the mayor of East Chicago, Indiana, to remove more than 1,000 residents from their housing project because of lead contamination blamed on years of neglect. http://trib.in/2d6Jpeu

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

As Obama era closes, goal to end veteran homelessness unmet

whose “Only on AP” story found that while homelessness among veterans had decreased during President Barack Obama’s tenure, the goals he and other set to end the problem were not met: http://gazette.com/as-obama-era-closes-goal-to-end...

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Analysis: ‘Obamacare’ shapes state spending on opioid crisis

for their Health and Science accountability data project that revealed how millions is being spent to fight the opioid crisis. The AP analysis of FOIA records found that states with expanded Medicaid under “Obamacare” spent the funding more slowly than states that didn’t expand the health insurance program because the Medicaid already covers nearly everyone who is poor and needs treatment for addiction. https://bit.ly/2yVcqRm

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

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP dominates all formats in hostage crisis at Manila mall

dominated coverage in all formats as a former security guard took hostages during a standoff at a Manila shopping mall. AP was first on the scene with live video and sharp, resourceful handling of text and photos. AP’s video was ahead of the competition on all the key developments, and we were the only agency still broadcasting live when authorities tackled the hostage taker as he spoke to the media.https://bit.ly/2U0rNm2https://bit.ly/2Qbby4t

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP finds homeless persons the 2020 census missed

followed a straightforward path to reveal flaws in the U.S. Census Bureau’s homeless count: They found the uncounted themselves.Price literally looked beneath the glitter of Las Vegas, in the tunnels beneath the city, to find people who hadn't been counted in a city where an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 people are without homes. And Schneider, AP's expert on all things census, leaned on his unmatched national network of sources to show that the problems were widespread. He bolstered the story with reporting on a federal report about flaws in the count — yet another government operation disrupted by the coronavirus — and spoke to an expert who said the problems could make Black and Latinos more likely to be missed in the 2020 count. https://bit.ly/35hmnJF

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP investigation reveals childhood vaccine crisis in Venezuela

produced a distinctive, exclusive investigative story using data analysis and deep reporting to reveal that many Venezuelan children lack access to essential vaccines, putting the country among the world’s worst for inoculating children against potentially fatal diseases and leaving neighboring countries vulnerable to outbreaks.Data on vaccination rates is elusive in Venezuela, where institutions are shrouded in secrecy, corruption and bureaucracy. The country hasn’t published rates since 2015. But Garcia Cano, Caracas-based Andes correspondent, obtained rare government data from a source, as well as estimates from public health agencies, showing the vaccination crisis is growing.She also visited clinics, spoke with families and interviewed public health experts for a comprehensive look at the availability of vaccines in Venezuela’s unraveling health-care system.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP sources: Ukrainian grain shipments won’t solve food crisis

combined on-the-ground reporting, key analysis from experts and their own subject expertise to shed light on the real-world impact and limitations of renewed Ukrainian grain exports on the global food crisis.The team’s reporting reveals how everyone from Lebanese farmers and Syrian refugees to African aid groups don’t expect the much-publicized initial shipments to solve food insecurity as millions go hungry. The story builds on months of AP coverage showing how the Russia-Ukraine war has worsened the effects of drought, inflation, conflict and other factors in countries gripped by hunger.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

APNewsBreaks detail Pennsylvania budget crisis on successive days

for giving readers the first word on two key decisions by Pennsylvania’s governor as he combats a budget crisis: a prison closing and the consolidation of four government agencies. http://bit.ly/2jKDTyQ

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Health chief charged with manslaughter in Flint lead-water crisis

for breaking the news that the state Health and Human Services director was being charged with manslaughter in a death attributed to the Flint lead-water crisis. http://trib.in/2t0F2b2