for securing exclusive, news-breaking interviews with the head of Iran’s nuclear program and a top presidential adviser while dealing with reporting restrictions in the country.https://bit.ly/2QoHsJ9https://bit.ly/2ODvR7Whttps://bit.ly/2DirePqhttps://bit.ly/2O0rd6P
for telling the story of the largest and most diverse generation in US history in a way that went beyond the millennial stereotype often seen elsewhere.
scrambled to confirm a source’s weekend tip that President Donald Trump was extending stringent European travel restrictions to the U.K. and Ireland amid the coronavirus crisis. They had the alert and story out a full hour ahead of the president’s news conference, leaving other news organizations to widely credit AP. https://bit.ly/2xptEt4https://bit.ly/2xsbVk
broke the news: After redistricting, hundreds of early voters in Nashville, Tennessee, were sent to the wrong congressional districts, jeopardizing election integrity. The first sign of trouble came when Kruesi was given conflicting information from state and local election officials about where she was supposed to vote, after Republicans redistricted the left-leaning city in hopes of flipping a Democratic seat.Nashville writers Kruesi and Matisse started reporting on the mixup and alerted election officials, who scrambled to fix the problem while confirming that more than 430 votes were cast in error; a lawsuit prompted by AP’s reporting said the number could ultimately reach into the thousands.Read more
for his detailed look at how new, expensive voting stations heavily promoted by the voting machine industry will be used by 1 of 5 voters, despite concerns over reliability, vulnerability to hacking and political contributions by the leading manufacturer. Bajak pieced all these elements together to write a compelling story that raised questions about whether the machines were problematic for the integrity of the 2020 election. https://bit.ly/2TkE58r
looked at at the circumstances faced by Mississippi’s Black voters for the third installment of AP’s “Looking For America” road trip series.The highly evocative package was framed in the context of the “Mississippi Burning” murders of three civil rights activists in 1964 – and it found that too little has changed. The AP team saw the issue through the eyes of a now-elderly activist who was close to two of the murder victims more than 50 years ago. They reported that while poll taxes and tests on the state constitution may be gone, Black voters still face obstacles such as state-mandated ID laws and the disenfranchisement tens of thousands of former prisoners.The text, photos and video, with digital presentation by multimedia journalist Samantha Shotzbarger, perfectly captured the frustration that so many decades later, Black voters are still challenged by the state.The work was highlighted in a long entry in Politico’s Playbook, and attracted attention in the U.S. and internationally.https://bit.ly/31THAI1https://bit.ly/3jzaKCphttps://bit.ly/3oCX50E
broke the news that copies of confidential software for a widely used voting machine had been released publicly during an event held by supporters of former President Donald Trump, leading to wider concerns about election security.After a local elections clerk in Colorado leaked confidential information about her county’s voting machines, Cassidy, an Atlanta-based state government reporter, began calling her sources to get a sense of what the breach could mean for other states that used the same voting machines produced by Dominion Voting Systems. Her source reporting uncovered yet another leak, this time in a county in Michigan where Trump allies had challenged his election loss. The software copies ended up being distributed publicly at a symposium hosted by the CEO of MyPillow, Mike Lindell, a major Trump supporter who has helped spread his lies of election fraud.The software leak from Antrim County, Michigan, had not previously been reported until Cassidy learned of it. Election security experts said taken together, the leaked software could provide hackers with a “practice environment” to probe for vulnerabilities in Dominion machines, which are used in 30 states. https://aplink.news/kj8
relied on voting data available to the AP to demonstrate how some Democrats were voting in Republican primaries in an effort to block candidates backed by former President Donald Trump.National political reporter Peoples and data journalist Kessler had found that an unusually high number of people who voted in Georgia’s 2020 Democratic primary cast ballots in this year’s GOP primary. The pair learned that some Democrats were so worried an election denier backed by Trump could become secretary of state and ultimately run Georgia’s elections, they decided to cross party lines in the primary to support incumbent Brad Raffensperger, who famously resisted Trump’s pressure to overturn the 2020 election results.The result is a perfect blend of traditional political reporting and data analysis that tells a broader story about unusual decisions voters are making in an effort to protect democracy in the U.S.Read more
was the first to report on lawsuits filed against Texas by women who sought abortions because their babies would survive, or their health was endangered.Read more.
AP took advantage of deep-source work to help score a scoop on an interpretation of a state supreme court decision that made it more difficult for convicted felons to restore their voting rights.Read more
for providing consistently quick, accurate and enterprising all-formats coverage of Nigeria’s long-running elections story. https://bit.ly/2NvEW2Q
harnessed AP’s national reach to report on the fast-declining civility over mask requirements and pandemic precautions.An Alabama man drove to Missouri to serve citizen arrest papers on a hospital administrator over his insistence that people get vaccinated. Protesters beamed strobe lights into the condo building of Hawaii’s lieutenant governor and blanketed his neighborhood with anti-semitic posters to protest new restrictions amid a record surge in hospitalizations. A California parent punched a teacher in the face over mask requirements and county commissioners in Kansas were compared to the Taliban and Nazis at a mask meeting that went off the rails.With these examples rising to the surface, the reporting team assembled a smart, authoritative piece on how public discourse in America has plunged to new depths. The story led member sites, made newspaper front pages in 10 different states and was among the most-read stories on AP News over the weekend. AP Deputy Managing Editor Noreen Gillespie called it a shining example of illustrating “how a theme is rippling across the country.” https://aplink.news/bbp
found that even as more states are promoting vote-by-mail during the coronavirus pandemic, the process is viewed skeptically by Black voters, one of the Democratic Party’s most important voting groups, largely because of historical disenfranchisement and distrust of government institutions. Williams found voters in Detroit and Atlanta who said they would rather stand in line for hours – and potentially risk getting the virus – just so they can submit their ballot personally and be assured it will be counted. https://bit.ly/2DC7aYO
overcame a judge’s strict rules for journalists covering Harvey Weinstein’s trial – including a ban on electronic communication from the courtroom, limited seating and no remote access to trial proceedings – to deliver standout coverage of Harvey Weinstein’s New York trial on charges of sexual abuse. AP’s coverage got wide play and frequent citations by news organizations unable to get their own reporter into the room.https://bit.ly/36zXRBnhttps://bit.ly/2uF9f1Dhttps://bit.ly/2Uerk14https://bit.ly/2GyI3Er
Legislative debates over restricting abortion access in the U.S. have been among the most hotly contested and thoroughly covered state government topics of recent years. But what of the women affected by those laws? A distinctive, data-driven investigation by the state government and data teams provided answers: Each year thousands of women travel to get abortions in another state, and the share of non-resident women getting abortions had risen significantly in states where conservative legislatures passed measures restricting the procedure.
To arrive at that conclusion, state government team reporter Christina Cassidy went state-by-state to gather the most recent abortion data, while data team editor Meghan Hoyer oversaw the methodology and analysis. Cassidy also worked sources to find women who had left their home state for an abortion, humanizing the story behind the data. Colleagues Alina Hartounian, Susan Montoya Bryan, Gillian Flaccus and Francois Duckett produced compelling all-formats content for the package.
A unique dataset released before publication allowed AP’s member publications to produce localized graphics and stories. The project checked all the boxes for customer and reader engagement, which was extraordinarily strong.
For putting the AP out front on one of the most contentious issues roiling American politics, Cassidy, Hoyer, Flaccus, Montoya Bryan, Hartounian and Duckett share AP’s Best of the Week award.
highlighted a rare area of bipartisan cooperation related to voting laws — the move to restore rights to former felons.Read more.
Source work set AP up for a scoop on how Tennessee’s GOP plans to tie voting rights restoration to gun rights.Read more
In the current political and media environment, it’s not often that a state politics story without President Donald Trump’s name in it drives a national political conversation for almost a week.
But that’s what happened when Atlanta-based newsperson Ben Nadler published a look at Georgia’s “exact match” voter registration verification process and other policies backed by Secretary of State Brian Kemp. Kemp, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, faces Democrat Stacey Abrams, vying to become the first black female governor of any state.
According to records obtained by Nadler from Kemps office through a public records request, 53,000 registrations – 70 percent of them from black applicants – were on hold with less than a month before the Nov. 6 election. Nadler also found that Kemp’s office has cancelled more than 1.4 million inactive voter registrations since 2012 – nearly 670,000 registrations in 2017 alone.
The story got tremendous play with AP customers over multiple news cycles and lit up social media.
For his deep look at a critical issue in Georgia’s high-stakes gubernatorial election and driving a national political discussion for days, Nadler wins this week’s Best of the States award.
Few reporters were paying attention to a draft rule barring legal immigrants from getting green cards if they received benefits like Medicaid or food stamps – but AP’s Colleen Long was.
Long, AP’s Washington-based Homeland Security reporter, had spent months asking U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services when the final rules would be published, making them official. With a heads-up from sources, she was eventually able to get an advance briefing and interview, writing the story just before heading off on vacation. Then, as soon as the rule appeared, she alerted the Washington desk to move the story, giving AP a major beat over other news organizations. By the time the White House and Homeland Security held briefings, Long already had all the key details on the wire.
For her skilled source-building, persistence and meticulous reporting, Long wins this week’s Best of the States honors.
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.
