Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP package marks 20th anniversary of legal same-sex marriage

showcased AP’s global reach with a package marking the 20th anniversary of the Netherlands becoming the first country with legal same-sex marriages. Far more sweeping than a routine anniversary story, the coverage coordinated by New York-based national writer Crary and Netherlands chief correspondent Corder included an interview with one of the first couples married 20 years ago in the Netherlands. And with the help of multiple AP bureaus, it also detailed the uneven progress of same-sex marriage worldwide — now legal in 28 countries.In Amsterdam, the package was 20 years in the making — since April 1, 2001, when photographer Dejong documented the historic weddings. He re-edited those photos, then tracked down one of the couples he photographed in 2001; he and freelance video journalist Furtula persuaded the couple to grant an on-camera interview at their home.Back in the U.S., Goodman, photo editor for the Top Stories Hub, spent hours searching AP photo archives for images of milestone same-sex marriages around the world, producing a striking 24-photo package that included Dejong’s then-and-now photos. And top stories artist Francois Duckett created an interactive map showing the countries that have legalized same-sex marriage. AP’s impressive body of work won plaudits on social media and extensive play.https://bit.ly/3fRHFDLhttps://bit.ly/3sSZ3fi

Best of the States

AP reveals a water crisis at the boiling point for Native Americans, farmers in Western river basin

AP Portland, Oregon, reporter Gillian Flaccus has long followed a simmering issue in the Klamath River Basin, a swath of rural agricultural land in Northern California and southern Oregon that is ground zero for the fight over an increasingly precious resource in the American West: water. Amid extreme drought in the region, the U.S. government has stopped irrigation to hundreds of farmers for the first time in history, while Native American tribes along the 257-mile Klamath River are watching fish species hover closer to extinction. The farmers face ruin and tribes worry their culture will vanish.Flaccus has developed deep sources with area farmers as well as tribal members and recently spent nearly a week in the remote area with freelance photographer Nathan Howard documenting an issue that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Working with New York photo editor and digital storyteller Alyssa Goodman, they produced a sweeping, striking all-formats package that showed the pain on both sides as people begin to realize the water may not be coming back. The package was among AP’s most-viewed stories for Friday. For immersive journalism that explores the human consequences of drought in the U.S. West, Flaccus, Howard and Goodman receive this week’s Best of the States award.

Best of the States

A photographer’s unique vision merges past and present for front-line nurses

With the U.S. slowly emerging from COVID-19, it might be easy to assume that the pandemic will soon be in the past, but for many, particularly health care workers, the trauma of what they experienced while caring for deathly sick patients will be with them for years to come.

To capture the idea that the past can be part of the present, Los Angeles photographer Jae Hong focused on intensive care nurses at a Southern California hospital who had taken care of extremely ill COVID patients and, despite all efforts, had lost many. That ward closed this spring, but the memories endure for these nurses.

Hong’s approach called for a photo technique not typically used in reporting the news: He made multiple exposure portraits of 10 of the nurses in the hospital, resulting in haunting images that show each nurse both in the photo, the present, and seemingly somewhere else in the past.

Accompanied by revealing interviews, the piece played widely in the U.S. and beyond, and attracted attention on social media.

For arresting, interpretive photography that evokes the lingering effects of the pandemic on these front-line medical workers, Hong earns this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

As COVID spikes in Africa, AP reveals low vaccine rates

combined to illustrate the severe shortages of vaccines and low levels of vaccinations in poor African countries and elsewhere, just as a worrying new rise in infection levels has emerged and as the issue became a key topic for G-7 leaders gathering for a summit.Imray, AP’s Cape Town, South Africa, sports writer, reported that vaccine shipments to Africa have ground to a “near halt” and that the continent faces a vaccine shortfall of 700 million doses. The reporting used a broad range of sources, including an interview with the head of Africa’s CDC, and strong feeds from colleagues around the world. The story was complemented by a selection of images from AP’s photographic team across Africa.Video freelancer Onen, meanwhile, obtained rare access to a COVID-19 ICU at the Mulago Hospital in Kampala. As a condition of entry, Onen shared his footage as pool with local broadcasters who were desperate for coverage amid a sharp virus spike. Given only a few minutes on the wards, Onen did a skillful job in bringing out the tension and urgency of the situation, images that no other global media organization was able to obtain.https://aplink.news/xw1https://aplink.video/ei8

Best of the Week — First Winner

Unique AP visual investigation reveals Myanmar's junta using bodies to terrorize civilians

The video was startling: As a motorcycle carrying three men speeds down a city street in Myanmar, a soldier traveling in the back of a pickup truck opens fire. A man falls to the ground, mortally wounded, while the other two run away. 

Investigative reporters Robin McDowell and Margie Mason found that the video was one of many seeming to show the military firing at civilians indiscriminately in the wake of February’s coup. They also noticed that security forces appear to go out of their way to mutilate and drag bodies in the street, seemingly to terrorize the populace. The pair teamed up with the Human Rights Center Investigations Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, applying cutting-edge image analysis to thousands of social media posts and images online to reveal how the junta in Myanmar was using the bodies as tools of terror, according to human rights activists. 

With important contributions by Southeast Asia news director Kiko Rosario, and video by Manuel Valdes, the piece received more than 53,000 views on AP platforms.

For finding a way to analyze visual data from one of the world’s most secretive countries and presenting it in a rich and compelling multiformat narrative, McDowell, Mason, Rosario and Valdes earn AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

French spirit elegantly rendered in reopening of Monet’s gardens

were not alone in trying to find a way to capture the essence of France after more than six months of virus lockdown — AP’s Paris bureau pulled out all the stops to cover the reopening of museums, restaurants and other sites in a country famous for its “joie de vivre,” and other news organizations were looking to do the same. But multiformat journalist Leicester and photographer Mori outmaneuvered the competition by securing exclusive access two days beforehand to Monet’s gardens in Giverny where the gardeners were furiously weeding, sewing and planting to make the site picture-perfect for visitors. Leicester’s widely used video package complemented his elegantly written text piece. And Mori, drawing inspiration from Monet, delivered a knock-out package of images that verged on art, evoking the historic setting. The all-formats package played for days around the world, from New York to South Korea to Hong Kong. The piece even netted a rare byline for Mori and Leicester in The Guardian.https://aplink.news/pg6https://aplink.video/nghhttps://bit.ly/3hYlEUP

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Renewed hope: Stunning package on women fish processors in Africa

launched AP’s grant-funded year-long series on the pandemic’s impact on women in Africa's least developed nations with this ambitious multiformat project. They tell the uplifting story of the women fish processors of Bargny, Senegal, and their tale of survival amid the economic hardships imposed by the pandemic.The package exemplified the very best in AP all-formats storytelling: stunning visual journalism complementing the reporting and driving readers and viewers deeper into the story of the women’s cooperative work to support a community through the toughest of times.The Dakar-based West Africa team of photographer Leo Correa, correspondent Carley Petesch and senior producer Yesica Fisch initially spent weeks working tirelessly to make contacts and gain the trust of the women as they waited for the fishing season to finally begin. Their reporting let the women's voices tell their story — and the visuals put you on the beach as they work laying out the catch, smoking the fish under smoldering peanut shells.Deep storytelling like this also took a team of editors and producers to make the work sing. Digital storytelling producer Nat Castañeda, deputy news director/U.S. South Janelle Cogan, Beirut-based producer Hend Kortam and chief photographer/Africa Jerome Delay collaborated across continents and were essential to the success of the package, delivering video edits, photo galleries, digital production and text tailored to meet client needs.Major European client France24's Journal d'Afrique editor wrote: “The visuals of the Senegal story are among the best I’ve seen in recent years from one of the main agencies.”https://aplink.news/h5bhttps://aplink.photos/4zohttps://aplink.video/gj1

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP finds college activists pushing for reparations over past injustice

broke new ground on a competitive and fast-evolving national story: Amid accelerating efforts to pay reparations to Blacks and Indigenous Americans for injustices suffered over centuries, some of the most strident arguments for amends were coming from U.S. college campuses.Boston reporter Marcelo found that nearly a year after the killing of George Floyd sparked the latest national reckoning on racism, student and community activists from New England to the Deep South are demanding institutions take more ambitious steps to atone for past sins — from colonial-era slavery to more recent campus expansion projects that have pushed out entire communities of color.Marcelo anchored the project from Providence, Rhode Island, home to Brown University. The Ivy League school released an exhaustive historical report in 2006 and dedicated a slavery memorial in 2014, among continuing efforts to promote racial equity.Marcelo’s reporting was powerfully illustrated with visuals from Boston video journalist Rodrique Ngowi, photographer Steven Senne, as well as work from photographers Jacquelyn Martin in Washington, John Bazemore in Atlanta and Steve Helber in Richmond, Virginia.https://aplink.news/bdxhttps://aplink.video/p00

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Amid pandemic crisis, AP looks at VP Kamala Harris’ ties to India

sidestepped resistance from Vice President Kamala Harris’ office to report on the vice president’s connections to India, even as the coronavirus raged in India and the U.S. came under criticism for not doing more to aid the country. Harris’ mother had immigrated to the U.S. from India in the 1950s to pursue a career as a scientist.White House reporter Jaffe lined up a Zoom interview with Harris’ uncle in New Delhi, who had spoken with the vice president on his 80th birthday this spring. And New Delhi writer Krutika Pathi contributed comments from the administrator of a temple in the hometown of Harris’ grandfather in southern Tamil Nadu state. Jaffe rounded out the story with India-related tweets from Harris’ niece in California and background on the vice president’s many comments about her ties to India over the years.The story generated strong play, particularly in Indian media, including online versions of the Indian Express and the Hindustan Times.https://bit.ly/3tFOH1Chttps://bit.ly/3vZZdT7

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Creative storytelling brings new life to spectacle of cicadas

teamed up, using creativity, tenacity and multiformat collaboration to bring a fresh perspective to a widely covered natural phenomenon happening every 17 years.Borenstein, an AP science writer, had done cicada stories before and knew the timing would be tricky. The bugs emerge only when the temperature is right, usually in mid-May. He and Ritzell, an animator and video journalist on the Health and Science team, began hours of Zoom interviews with bug scientists in mid-March.Meanwhile, Washington-based photographer Carolyn Kaster made it her mission to document the bugs she called “beautifully weird.” She had first encountered the Brood X cicadas 17 years ago in Pennsylvania and knew they would be a challenging subject — if she could find them. Kaster reached out to an EPA scientist and photographed undergraduate students who were sticking thermometers into the ground to find the places where cicadas would soon be emerging. She found some nymphs that she photographed as they matured, and for a week she went out every night looking for mature bugs and their telltale red eyes.Adding a key element, Health & Science video journalist Kathy Young and Ritzel produced an animated video explainer on the life cycle of cicadas. The animation, guest-narrated by Allen Breed, was built around the colorful soundbites of a University of Maryland entomologist describing the cicadas’ life cycle.The team’s all-formats package was timed perfectly, just as the bugs were starting to emerge in some places. Borenstein and Kaster followed up several days later with an illustrated FAQ explainer on cicadas.The package created buzz on social media and was among the week’s most-viewed stories on AP News, while the animation and the newsroom video were used globally, including South Korea and India among others.https://aplink.news/pjlhttps://aplink.video/vkphttps://aplink.news/0ab

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

French team documents the pandemic’s mental health toll

produced an extraordinarily candid all-formats package that takes AP readers and clients inside a French psychiatric hospital where psychiatrists find themselves on the front line of the pandemic’s mental health fallout, treating suicidal young adults driven to despair by the privations of the pandemic and crushing solitude of lockdowns.France has proved a challenging environment for reporting the pandemic, with public health authorities reluctant to open hospital doors to international reporters. But after the recent breakthrough of embedding AP journalists in southern France’s biggest hospital, the Paris team secured a full day of access to the 535-bed Rouvray Hospital Center in Normandy.Leicester was allowed to sit in on sessions as people poured out their anguish to psychiatrists. Garriga shot interviews in a way that protected patients’ identities but also enabled them to speak freely to the AP team, including a young student who plunged back into deep depression after COVID-19 diverted resources away from her treatment. And Camus discreetly wandered corridors with patients, capturing the sprawling establishment’s quiet and otherworldly feel in a riveting photo package. https://bit.ly/2W38UAqhttps://bit.ly/3gwWSIO

Best of the States

All-formats reporting from a Michigan potato farm reveals how climate change threatens crop storage

After reporting for years on life-or-death results of global warming such as floods and wildfires, Traverse City, Michigan, correspondent John Flesher uncovered another serious but little-recognized consequence: Climate change poses an increasingly troublesome and costly threat to food crop storage in the United States and much of the world. 

To illustrate the problem, Flesher teamed with Detroit-based video journalist Mike Householder and photographer Carlos Osorio on the farm of a Michigan family now using refrigerators to cool their harvested potatoes. Michigan has been the top U.S. producer of potatoes used for chips, thanks to a mild climate that has — until now at least — let farmers store their crops for months using only outdoor air to cool them. Scientists say those conditions are likely become scarcer as the planet gets hotter.

The team’s exclusive, all-formats package drew strong play nationally. 

For relatable coverage that calls attention to an underreported consequence of climate change — one with widespread implications — the team of Flesher, Householder and Osorio wins this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

All-formats team first to examine Gibraltar’s vaccine success

were the first international journalists to travel to Gibraltar to find out how this British overseas territory on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula managed to get so far ahead of everyone else in vaccinating its population.The AP trio Interviewed the local health minister, residents and workers commuting from neighboring Spain, showing how this quirky outpost of Britain — which just weeks earlier had been dealing with a major outbreak — is now on the verge of being fully vaccinated and is loosening COVID-19 restrictions as it prepares to regain a sense of normalcy ahead of much of the continent.The story atttracted strong attention in Europe, with particular interest in Spain, where less than 4% of the population is fully vaccinated.https://bit.ly/3rZG6XChttps://bit.ly/3eRh3lZ

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Documents expose misconduct by elite federal prosecutors

started digging after federal prosecutors in New York took the unusual step last spring of abruptly dismissing all charges against a banker convicted of evading U.S. sanctions by funneling $115 million to his family’s business in Iran. Goodman’s curiosity was rewarded with an exclusive.Goodman worked with AP assistant general counsel Brian Barrett to convince a court to release internal communications within the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York detailing how the elite unit tried to conceal their mishandling of evidence in the botched prosecution. A plethora of private correspondence between prosecutors showed a coordinated effort to mislead the court. In one exchange of text messages, supervising prosecutors admitted “we lied” to the defense during the trial. “This is going to be a bloodbath,” one wrote, anticipating the judge’s reaction to the disclosure. https://bit.ly/30bwLzEhttps://bit.ly/30aQmAf

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP’s Texas staff steps up for coverage of historic storm

pushed through last week’s winter storm coverage with top-notch storytelling even as many suffered hardship of their own.When deadly subfreezing temperatures, snow and ice smacked much of the southern U.S., it knocked out the power grid in Texas, the nation’s energy capital — and that was only the beginning. The bursting pipes, boil water advisories and accusations of price gouging that followed would only exacerbate the suffering for millions left shivering while nearly 80 people died.AP reporters showed in spot and enterprise stories that everything came down to a failure of government, particularly in Texas and neighboring Deep South states where infrastructure breakdowns revealed how unprepared much of the nation is for extreme weather.All this happened as many Texas staffers suffered along with their neighbors, with no power, heat or water. But they got creative and kept up the effort for a fully multiformat report, writing stories on phones when WiFi didn’t work, calling in feeds or charging electronics at colleagues’ homes. One Dallas reporter relocated to the home of an AP retiree when her own power was knocked out.https://bit.ly/2ZMQANFhttps://bit.ly/3dIKS7Dhttps://bit.ly/3r4YEWhhttps://bit.ly/3bAFQHBhttps://bit.ly/3bFHasKhttps://bit.ly/3uuAarl

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Investigation: China, others spread theory that US created COVID

collaborated on a nine-month investigation of the AP’s investigative and fact-checking teams, in a joint effort with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Lab. They found that China, Russia, and Iran — drawing on one another’s online disinformation — amplified false theories that the COVID-19 virus was a U.S. bioweapon created in a military lab or was designed by Washington to infect their countries. The resulting in-depth investigation, bolstered by an immersive digital presentation and an explanatory video, provided a comprehensive look at the online battle between Washington, Moscow, Tehran and Beijing to control the narrative about the origins of the pandemic.The package of stories was widely used by news organizations around the world, including by the South China Morning News and Germany’s DW News.https://bit.ly/37L711shttps://bit.ly/2O2N1Awhttps://bit.ly/2MpNQ5S

Best of the States

AP analysis: In the US, a centuries-old race war continues to rage against people of color

As AP race and ethnicity writer Aaron Morrison covered the protests that grew out of the 2020 killings of George Floyd and others, he also saw President Donald Trump on TV, trying to undermine the racial reckoning at every turn.

Fast forward to Jan. 6, when a mob of mostly white rioters, upset that Trump wasn't reelected, violently breached the U.S. Capitol. Morrison connected the dots of what he described as a war of white aggression. “A war rages on in America,” Morrison wrote in this analysis piece, “It started with slavery and never ended ...” 

With powerful video by Noreen Nasir, portraits by Chris Carlson and presentation by Alyssa Goodman, the package received prominent play and sparked discussion both online and within the AP.

For a timely, compelling package that looks at the state of race relations with historical context and thoughtful analysis, the team of Morrison, Nasir, Carlson and Goodman earns this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Highlighting the work of unsung ICU cleaning crews

highlighted the critical and underappreciated work of cleaning crews maintaining COVID-19 intensive care units. The idea for the story came to Becatoros AP’s Southeast Europe bureau chief based in Athens, Greece, as she watched workers in full protective gear making beds in the hospital across the street from her home. She and chief photographer Stavrakis then spent months navigating the health care and governmental bureaucracy to get access to a hospital where AP had shot photos early in the pandemic. Stavrakis was eventually granted access to photograph cleaners in five of the hospital’s ICUs, and Becatoros was allowed up to the door from where the ICU was clearly visible. All the cleaners they spoke to were eager to tell their story, giving voice to a group of laborers who have remained out of the public eye despite taking similar risks as doctors and nurses while preventing the spread of the virus inside hospitals. https://bit.ly/3cIm6Eehttps://bit.ly/3rtb3Db

Best of the States

AP team finds exhausted chaplains comforting families, COVID patients in their final moments

Eugene Garcia, just two weeks into his job as the AP’s newest full-time video journalist, and photographer Jae Hong joined forces to tell the deeply touching and heartbreaking story of often unseen and unsung heroes of the pandemic — the clergy.

The pair approached the story with sensitivity and care, maintaining distance to give the families, patients and chaplains space, but close enough to bring the story to life even as their subjects drew their last breaths. The package, complemented by John Rogers’ moving text, shed light on exhausted and emotionally drained chaplains working in situations they had never experienced before. As one put it, “We weren’t trained for this.”

For an arresting package that explores the compassionate yet crushing work of front-line chaplains, Garcia, Hong and Rogers earn this week’s Best of the States award.

Best of the States

All-formats team tells the shared story of rural Missouri churches, immigrants, adversity and faith

It’s a story of two churches in rural Missouri, only 30 miles apart — and worlds apart. 

One congregation is mostly white, while the other offers services in five languages with members from around the world. The pandemic has united them, with pastors meeting to support each other, share ideas and figure out how to continue ministering to this region hit disproportionately by the coronavirus.

The team of national writer David Crary, youth and religion reporter Luis Andres Henao and video journalist Jessie Wardarski earned the trust of residents to produce an intimate all-formats story, revealing diverse Midwestern communities that aren't famous but are integral to the nation’s identity.

For compelling coverage of communities united in adversity and navigating with faith, the team of Crary, Henao and Wardarski wins this week’s Best of the States award.