AP’s story illustrates how evolving state legislation on physician-assisted death impacts Americans.Read more
for using an open records request to reveal behind-the-scenes maneuvering by a Missouri lobbyist who promoted a measure that would help college students – like his son – who have been disciplined for sex-discrimination complaints. Emails obtained by Ballentine showed the lobbyist strategizing to make the ruling cover his son’s situation, and pushing the idea that the real problem on campuses is not rape but women regretting casual sex. https://bit.ly/2VlNS22
for obtaining documents while attending the World Anti-Doping Agency’s meetings in Poland that showed WADA and the IOC were spending large sums to lobby against U.S. legislation that would put criminal penalties in place for large-scale doping operations that affect American athletes. Many attendees at the WADA board meeting learned more from Pels’ story than from the board itself, and the U.S. government representative cited the AP story in a speech chastising the WADA lobbying effort against the legislation.https://bit.ly/32L423Ohttps://bit.ly/2NMFOlq
“Don’t dismiss a [story] idea just because it’s unfamiliar. Pelvic exams aren’t exactly in the wheelhouse of the State Government Team, but it turned out to be a really terrific and distinctive topic.”
That’s one editor’s takeaway from a story by Providence, Rhode Island, reporter Jennifer McDermott and Seattle medical writer Carla Johnson, both of whom, acting on a heads-up from New York photo editor Jenny Kane, found that it’s common practice for medical students to perform a pelvic exam on women under anesthesia as part of their training. Whether the patients have given consent for that exam is not clear, drawing the interest of state lawmakers.
The pair faced multiple obstacles in reporting the story, including initial reluctance by doctors and harried legislators to discuss the issue, but McDermott and Johnson succeeded in defining the conflict between medical schools and elected officials seeking to protect patient rights. Their efforts resulted in a unique story that received heavy play among major AP customers, both online and in print.
For their teamwork, execution and sensitive handling of a complex topic, McDermott, Johnson and Kane win AP’s Best of the Week award.
spent months sifting through opaque campaign finance records to learn that Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema received nearly $1 million over the past year — more than double what she had received in her previous 10 years in Congress combined — from private equity professionals, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists as she thwarted efforts to raise their taxes.A day after the legislation passed the Senate with selected tax provisions excised at SInema’s insistence, the AP story drove national political coverage and earned hundreds of thousands of views on AP News.Read more
In the weeks before New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie left office, a measure quickly advanced through the Legislature that would give PSEG, the state’s largest utility, a $300 million bailout for its nuclear power plants.
That got the curiosity of statehouse reporter Michael Catalini, who started digging.
A records request turned up more than a dozen emails showing that the company had lobbied for the bailout and wrote in a clause itself to prevent the public release of financial information proving it needed the money.
The bill introduced in the Legislature included language to shield the company’s books from the public, but failed to get to Christie’s desk during December’s lame-duck session. It re-emerged after Democrat Phil Murphy took office.
Catalini’s story revealing the lobbying effort was published a day before a committee hearing on the bill. Lawmakers rewrote the measure after the story appeared to clarify that PSEG would be required to submit “any financial information” to the state utility regulator.
For holding the utility and state lawmakers accountable, Catalani receives this week's Best of the States award.
Calls for police reforms after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis have echoed the calls to action after a wave of killings of young black men by police in 2014.
So what happened after those killings?
Ohio statehouse reporter Julie Carr Smyth, working with AP colleagues around the country, found that while nearly half the states have since enacted some type of reform, only a third passed legislation limiting use of force. The reporting revealed that contributions from politically influential police unions were a key factor in stalling legislation, while a separate analysis by the data team showed that Minneapolis police disproportionately used force against blacks when compared with other racial groups.
The day Smyth’s story moved, a number of states made proposals to limit the use of deadly force.
For quickly reporting out and leading a national look at what reforms have taken place in the last six years, Smyth wins this week’s Best of the States award.
With exceptional multiformat journalism, AP investigative reporters Martha Mendoza and Juliet Linderman exposed the collapse of the U.S. medical equipment supply chain that led to deadly shortages of crucial personal protective equipment during the pandemic.
In collaboration with public television’s “Frontline,” the Center for Global Reporting and AP reporters worldwide, “America’s Medical Supply Crisis” identified a series of missteps in the U.S. that contributed to one of the highest death rates per capita in the world.
The investigation elicited strong public engagement, praise from public health experts and response by bipartisan members of Congress.
For breaking down a complex topic to show the critical importance of medical supply chains and the human cost when those supply chains fail, Linderman and Mendoza share AP’s Best of the Week award.
get AP access to thousands of pages of documents that gave a glimpse of the federal government’s haphazard handling of nuclear waste in the St. Louis area.Read more.
told the tale of an unlikely friend of China in Utah, pointing out how Beijing’s global influence campaign reaches to the state and local level in the United States despite strained relations at the national level.Read more.
set AP up to not just document the first state to enact drag restrictions this year but to deliver a comprehensive look at the effects.Read more.
teamed up on a timely package examining racial gerrymandering and how it disenfranchises thousands of Black voters in Alabama.With the U.S. Supreme Court hearing arguments in a case challenging the state’s Republican-drawn maps, and redistricting likely to factor into the 2022 midterm elections, AP journalists used on-the ground reporting, data analysis and experience at the high court to shine a light on the consequences of Alabama’s highly gerrymandered districts.The result was a timely all-formats package on how the cynical practice has largely robbed Black residents in Alabama of their political voice.Read more
With extensive preparation ahead of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the AP moved at lightning speed, covering the historic ruling comprehensively in all formats. Months of meticulous planning and prep work paid off when the court’s opinion came down Friday morning, enabling AP to get the word out ahead of the competition and then deploy teams of journalists to capture reaction and the broader ramifications of the ruling.
Countless AP journalists in Washington and around the country delivered spot and enterprise coverage in all formats, including live and edited video, insightful analysis, striking photos, state-by-state updates and the stories of people on both sides of the abortion issue.
For exemplifying the news cooperative at its best, covering a pivotal moment with far-reaching consequences for American society, AP recognizes journalists Mark Sherman, Jessica Gresko, Jacquelyn Martin, Steve Helber, Gemunu Amarasinghe, J. Scott Applewhite, Andrew Harnik, Rick Gentilo, Dan Huff, Nathan Ellgren, Mike Pesoli, Kimberlee Kruesi, Lindsay Whitehurst, John Hanna, Matt Sedensky, David Goldman, Rogelio Solis, Rick Bowmer, Eric Gay, Alex Connor, Kevin Vineys and colleagues throughout the organization with Best of the Week — First Winner honors.
With the continued weakening of state laws protecting women’s rights to abortion in the U.S., the AP’s strong coverage of abortion continues with two stories earning Best of the Week for impressive state accountability reporting and analysis.
A story that surfaced in Tennessee, finding federal dollars being spent on nonprofits aligned with the anti-abortion movement, revealed that legislatures in about a dozen U.S. states were funneling millions of taxpayer dollars to so-called crisis pregnancy centers that are typically unlicensed and have been accused of engaging in misinformation campaigns targeting pregnant women.
A second story focused on racial inequities in access to abortion, an idea sparked by an observation during a visit to the Shreveport, La., abortion clinic where almost every woman in the waiting room was Black. The all-formats package showed how minority women in states where abortion is under attack have the most to lose if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
Both stories drew strong play on AP News and customer platforms.
For revelatory state stories on two elements in the pitched national debate over abortion rights, Kruesi, Willingham, Wagster Pettus, Nasir, Solis and Lo earn AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.
landed an exclusive all-formats interview with U.S. climate envoy John Kerry just weeks before a critical global climate conference, breaking news on the administration’s limited expectations for the meeting and Kerry’s concerns about the stalled infrastructure bill. The piece showcased ”The AP Interview,” a series of sit-downs with key newsmakers.Knickmeyer had long sought a Kerry interview and the timing was ideal in the run-up to the Glasgow, Scotland, conference, but the Washington reporter was promised only 15 minutes with the former secretary of state. Knowing Kerry’s decades of experience in fielding reporters’ questions and managing interviews, Knickmeyer prepared extensively to ensure a revealing interview. She honed a handful of concise, targeted, hard-to-deflect questions after consulting with outside climate experts and AP colleagues.
When the time came, Knickmeyer pressed Kerry for specific answers, politely but repeatedly interrupting when he sought to move the conversation to more upbeat topics. In the short interview she asked variations of the question on Biden’s climate legislation four times. Kerry’s comments represented a swing to a more realistic assessment of the trouble facing Biden’s signature climate initiatives, and the global impact.The resulting all-formats package — including video shot by Huff and edited by Brown — had impact, with many news outlets using AP’s content directly, and others citing AP’s work in their own reporting. Washington reporters pressed administration officials on Kerry’s comments to AP for days.https://aplink.news/t4ahttps://aplink.video/63u
joined forces to document anti-vaccine activism among a vocal group of chiropractors.Rhode Island-based reporter Smith has been closely tracking anti-vaccine activists. That diligence paid off with a story on a group of influential chiropractors who are becoming leading voices against vaccines and coronavirus safety measures. They’re making money by peddling alternatives as they work to weaken vaccine-related state laws and policies across the U.S., undermining one of the key tools in fighting the pandemic.
The report by Smith and statehouse reporters Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, spotlighted an industry that has had little scrutiny during the pandemic. It started out as a tip: Chiropractors attending an anti-vaccine conference in Wisconsin had earned continuing education credits valid toward their licenses. It reminded Smith that a group lobbying against vaccines, Stand for Health Freedom, had been co-founded with chiropractors.The trio scoured public databases to find states allowing CE credits for the anti-vaccine conference, dug up chiropractic board meeting minutes, tracked down statehouse testimony and public comment by chiropractors in numerous states, reviewed news reports and mined digital tools along with interviews of chiropractors, lawmakers and public health advocates to establish that:
— 10 states gave CE credits for the anti-vaccine conference, and that it brought in tens of thousands of dollars in revenue to the chiropractic group and college that sponsored it— Chiropractors have worked to influence vaccine-related legislation and policy in at least 24 states since 2019; a chiropractor-backed group running several lobbying campaigns has never registered as a lobbyist— Dozens of chiropractors use their websites to discourage patients from getting vaccines— Chiropractors are advertising on Facebook and Instagram to sell anti-vaccine products— A California chiropractic group raised $545,000 for anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.— Chiropractic professional groups have taken anti-vaccine stands, including one now run by a longtime anti-vaccine activisthttps://aplink.news/z1m
When a 19-year-old legislative intern reported that a state lawmaker in Idaho raped her, she almost immediately faced a campaign of harassment from right-wing groups in the state, and even from other state representatives, who publicized her identity against her will. A legislative panel then forced her to testify from behind a screen at an ethics hearing, after which she was followed and subjected to still further abuse by the accused lawmaker’s supporters.
The sordid story of the young woman’s ordeal was covered with sensitivity by Boise correspondent Rebecca Boone in a series of pieces that included an exclusive interview with the alleged victim, and it prompted a wider look by AP’s State Government Team at allegations of sexual misconduct in statehouses around the country. That story, led by correspondent David Lieb and Report for America data journalist Camille Fassett, provided state-by-state details to AP customers and revealed public allegations against at least 109 state lawmakers in 40 states.
For aggressive yet respectful coverage that put one woman’s voice at the center of the story while providing distinctive national context, Boone, Lieb and Fassett share this week’s Best of the States award.
AP reporter Michelle Smith was working on another project in June when she came up with the names of a dozen or so public health officials who had quit, retired or been fired. Sensing a trend, Smith and reporters at Kaiser Health News continued to track those departures as the pandemic worsened and the backlash against public health restrictions became more strident.
The journalists contacted officials in all 50 states and interviewed dozens of people, finding a public health leadership vacuum developing at a critical time in the pandemic. They told the stories of public servants who toiled through the pandemic only to be reviled by their neighbors — including the wrenching story of an official whose husband would not even follow her recommendation to require masks in the family store. The timely all-formats story included a data distribution, interactive graphics and a sidebar with portraits and quotes of public health officials.
For a deeply reported package that examines a vital component of the pandemic response, Smith, Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Hannah Recht and Lauren Weber earn this week’s Best of the States award.
for exclusive reporting and photo/video dominance around a massive pro-gun rally in Richmond, Virginia, including breaking the news that Gov. Ralph Northam temporarily banned all weapons on the Capital grounds and a story that four Democrats opposed legislation that would have sought to ban assault weapons in the state, effectively killing the measure. https://bit.ly/3aDMYlhhttps://bit.ly/37njd6lhttps://bit.ly/2sTFrhl
While there is little dispute that Black voters pushed Joe Biden into the presidential winner's column, AP wanted to know: How big of a factor were they?
Race and ethnicity writers Kat Stafford and Aaron Morrison began reporting on what Black voters said they wanted Biden to deliver once in office. Using the voices they collected as the foundation of the story, Stafford and Morrison teamed with data journalist Angeliki Kastanis and polling journalist Hannah Fingerhut, who infused the piece with data and voter survey findings that bolstered the anecdotes with hard numbers.
Their collaboration put the AP days ahead of other news organizations’ pieces on Black voters’ support of Biden. For resourceful and insightful reporting and analysis on a major factor in the 2020 election, the team of Stafford, Morrison, Kastanis and Fingerhut wins this week’s Best of the States award.
