for masterful reporting in all formats, obtaining exclusive interviews and records from a nearly 2-decade-old doctor disciplinary case to show how the state blew a chance to stop an alleged predator pediatrician now accused of molesting at least a dozen more young patients after a medical board decided to cut him a break. https://bit.ly/2DeLVu3
To explore the pandemic’s devastating toll on children’s mental health, AP’s Paris team gained extraordinary access to the psychiatric unit at France’s busiest pediatric hospital.
Paris correspondent John Leicester worked for months to build trust with hospital authorities and workers. Once inside, Leicester, photographer Christophe Ena and video journalist Nicolas Garriga discreetly documented activity in the unit while protecting the privacy of the young patients. Told notably through the story of an 11-year-old who starved himself so severely that he required emergency care, the package showed how the mental health of children is affected under the weight of lockdowns, curfews, family upheavals and school closures.
The resulting all-formats package — including evidence of the problem in other parts of the world — was widely used by AP customers.
For a sustained effort to gain access, and sensitive, revealing coverage on this issue touching children and families globally, the trio of Leicester, Ena and Garriga earns AP’s Best of the Week award.
The approach to Vatican Correspondent Nicole Winfield came from a member of a task force that had investigated care at Italy’s foremost pediatric facility, known as “the pope’s hospital.” The contact feared that serious concerns raised by the task force hadn’t been addressed two years later.
That tip, in late 2015, set the AP on a 20-month investigation of the Bambino Gesu (Baby Jesus) Pediatric Hospital. Winfield teamed up with London-based Medical Writer Maria Cheng to reveal a dark chapter in the facility's history. They found that children sometimes paid the price as administrators tried to make the money-losing enterprise turn a profit, and Vatican officials took pains to keep the concerns quiet.
Their work earns the Beat of the Week.
AP explored the effect of new guidelines for treatment of kids with severe obesity that came out in January. Read more
