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
A scathing letter sent in early April by doctors in Italy’s Lombardy region provided the first tangible inkling that something had gone terribly wrong in its fight against the coronavirus.
With Lombardy accounting for roughly half of Italy’s 27,000 deaths, chief Rome correspondent Nicole Winfield set out to document how the virus overwhelmed a medical system long considered one of Europe’s best.
Over the next three weeks, Winfield methodically collected details, conducted interviews, pored over government reports and briefings, and referenced AP’s vast reporting on the pandemic to craft the first explanatory account of the missteps and failures that allowed the virus to become so pervasive in northern Italy.
Winfield’s story quickly became one of the most-read on the AP News and was picked up by outlets globally.
For crafting a thorough, compelling and heartbreaking account of how COVID-19 got a pervasive, deadly grip on Lombardy, Winfield wins AP’s Best of the Week honors.
teamed up to provide the first public look at large publicly traded companies getting money set aside by Congress to help small businesses. https://bit.ly/2VKZtGe
tell a very New Orleans story of loss and struggle in the coronavirus outbreak, looking through the lens of the storied Krewe of Zulu with words and images.https://bit.ly/34C4Z0Ehttps://bit.ly/3bdDgWz
On April 6 – the day when the COVID-19 death toll in New York City exceeded the toll of the Sept. 11 attacks – a team of AP journalists fanned out to tell the stories of average New Yorkers navigating the pandemic.
From the bodega owner whose remaining customers are often funeral home workers, to a paramedic worried about the way the onslaught of cases was eating away at him and other first responders, the stories provided a vivid account of a city bent, but not broken, by the virus. “The Fight for New York” was a testament to the AP at its finest: smart planning and collaboration leading to 11 impactful text and video stories, more than two dozen photos and nine social edits, all delivered to customers with remarkable speed.
The package immediately resonated with readers, viewers and customers, winning strong play on the websites of most major news organizations.
For extraordinary teamwork, planning and execution, the team of journalists behind “The Fight for New York” wins AP’s Best of the Week award.
secured exclusive access to a nationwide raid by the Drug Enforcement Administration targeting a Mexican drug cartel, resulting in top-notch video and remarkable images at the scene east of Los Angeles, and at the DEA command center in Virginia.https://bit.ly/393d4Mohttps://bit.ly/2xdMrqT
New York-based federal law enforcement reporter Jim Mustian never gives up on a story.
Sticking with a case he began covering at another news organization in another state more than two years ago, Mustian landed a jaw-dropping exclusive for the AP: That a trove of hundreds of confidential emails has surfaced allegedly showing executives of the NFL’s New Orleans Saints doing public relations damage control for the area’s Roman Catholic archdiocese amid its clergy sexual abuse crisis.
The story had an immediate, visceral impact with readers and earned praise from fellow journalists.
Mustian will continue to chip away at this story and, hopefully, reveal more about the Saints and their involvement with the church. But for now, Mustian’s sticktoitiveness and tough accountability reporting earns him this week’s Best of the States award.
for keeping AP ahead with images of the massive Dec. 28 bomb blast in Mogadishu that killed at least 79 people. The team was first with video, sourcing unmatched user-generated content of smoke rising from the area of the blast, while also filing quick staff photos and video, then following up with a touching, character-driven feature of a woman who lost one daughter and had another critically injured. https://bit.ly/36wyRvzhttps://bit.ly/2tA146ehttps://bit.ly/2QEGv1zhttps://bit.ly/303nzwo
for revealing that Detroit would be by far the toughest city to count, based on AP’s exclusive data analysis of the difficulties facing the U.S. Census Bureau in 2020. The team’s multiformat package explained why the city in transition poses such a formidable challenge. https://bit.ly/2EsNGmDhttps://bit.ly/2Z73k0D
for reporting that this year’s devastating Midwest flood losses are forcing tough decisions about the future of farming in America's bottomlands, even among farmers skeptical of climate change and humans’ role in it. https://bit.ly/2Z6iBP9
for providing AP’s customers with in-depth, multi-format coverage of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. https://apnews.com/Apollo11moonlanding
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.
Jolted out of bed by the 6.4-magnitude earthquake just before 4 a.m., correspondent Llazar Semini in Tirana knew immediately he was dealing with a major story. Communications networks were shaky, but he managed to reach colleagues in other formats by phone, triggering what would become a virtual sweep of the disaster coverage.
The quick decisions made in the early hours resulted in a compelling all-formats report and gave AP the clear advantage over competitive agencies. Nowhere was that advantage more evident than in live video – AP picked up live video within an hour of the quake, and several hours before any of the competition.
Coverage was just as impressive in text, photo and video edits. AP’s dominance continued with drone video, and all-formats coverage of dramatic rescue efforts and anguished survivors.
For resourceful work that powerfully conveyed the human toll and devastation while delivering a dominant competitive performance, the multinational all-formats team of Llazar Semini, Visar Kryeziu, Hektor Pustina, Amer Cohadzic, Erion Xhiabati, Florent Bajrami, Sylejman Klokkoqi and Petros Giannakouris shares AP’s Best of the Week.
Coal-burning generating plants are closing in the U.S., and coal mines are shutting down amid worries of climate change and the new economies of renewable energy.
Against that backdrop, correspondents Felicia Fonseca and Susan Montoya Bryan traveled to Arizona’s remote Navajo Generating Station to the tell the story of workers, their families, a community and the tribal nations who have depended on coal and are feeling the profound effects of the plant’s impending closure.
In their all-formats package, the pair let workers explain what they were losing, and how the local economy is taking a massive hit with millions of dollars of revenue no longer flowing to the Hopi and Navajo tribes.
For a comprehensive, compelling look at the impact of coal’s decline on a community and a culture, Fonseca and Montoya earn this week’s Best of the States award.
How are you guaranteed to get an exclusive if and when researchers locate Japanese ships sunken during the World War II Battle of Midway?
One sure way is to be the only journalist accompanying researchers aboard a vessel in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific. That’s exactly what Hawaii correspondent Caleb Jones did, delivering two exclusive packages on the discovery of warships in northwestern Hawaii, first by convincing the search company to invite only the AP, and then singlehandedly producing the all-formats content from the research ship.
For successfully pitching AP’s reach, then following up with strong storytelling that led to worldwide exclusives, Caleb Jones wins this week’s Best of the States.
The Brexit break-up has dominated Europe for months. Audience demands are high for each development, yet it’s hard for any news organization to stand out because so many media outlets are pursuing the same stories.
But AP’s Brexit team rose to the occasion by combining exceptional planning and reporting skills to deliver extraordinary coverage in every format during a crucial week in which the European Union and the British Parliament were set to decide the UK’s future in Europe. In the process, they dominated on a very competitive story with ambitious and comprehensive coverage from the UK to Brussels and Northern Ireland.
For collaborating in all formats to deliver lively, ambitious, insightful and comprehensive coverage of the Brexit drama and its broader implications, the team of Jill Lawless, Danica Kirka, Greg Katz, David Keyton, Raf Casert, Virginia Mayo, Sylvain Plazy, Martin Cleaver and Susie Blann earn AP’s Best of the Week honors.
for using data and good storytelling to demonstrate exactly who was most at risk of a lack of protection as the Supreme Court readies to decide a landmark case about equal protection for the LGBT community.https://bit.ly/2MJBtxrhttps://bit.ly/31Ja7gz
It could have been a routine follow-up story, but Milwaukee video journalist Carrie Antlfinger found a way to tell that story and break news.
Very little was known last year when Greg Manteufel, a perfectly healthy Wisconsin man, developed a severe blood infection attributed to a bacterium commonly found in the saliva of cats and dogs.
While reporting on Manteufel’s effort to reclaim his life after more than 20 surgeries and the loss of his limbs, Antlfinger discovered an angle that had not been pursued by other outlets: Researchers had identified a genetic factor that appears to make otherwise healthy people susceptible to the disease.
Antlfinger shot video, photos and wrote the story, which received strong play in all formats.
For a compelling story of recovery that also broke medical news, Antlfinger receives this week’s Best of the States award.
“There are lucky journalists but no such thing as a lucky lazy journalist.” That industry adage was again proven true when the crack team of video journalist Mstyslav Chernov, photographer Felipe Dana and science writer Seth Borenstein captured global attention by squeezing every last drop out of being in the right place at the right time for The Associated Press and its clients.
The place was Greenland, so inhospitable and remote that it is infrequently visited by journalists despite being at the epicenter of planet-threatening climate change. And the timing couldn’t have been better: As the giant but often ignored frozen island was suddenly thrust into the news when U.S. President Donald Trump unexpectedly expressed interest in buying it, sparking a diplomatic spat with Denmark, which said the semi-autonomous Danish territory wasn’t for sale.
The stories, photos and videos were widely used by AP’s membership and resonated with the public. The Helheim Glacier story landed on 16 front pages and was downloaded 85 times on AP Newsroom.
For their shining example of how to turn a pre-arranged media trip into essential world-grabbing journalism with tireless enthusiasm, smart thinking and the sharpest of eyes, Chernov, Dana and Borenstein share AP’s Best of the Week honors.
for their investigation breaking the news of dozens of unredacted legal claims seeking more than $200 million in damages for trauma and abuse alleged by parents and their children who had been separated at the border; these included children who were sexually molested by other children in foster homes.The administrative claims shared with The Associated Press were heartbreaking: Young children pulled from their parents’ arms by government agents were sent to foster homes and residential shelters where they suffered sexual and other physical and emotional abuse. The reporters revealed the high cost of the claims: more than $200 million for 38 claims is just “the tip of the iceberg” said lawyers. And this was the first report that some separated children in foster homes – considered safer and healthier – had been sexually molested. The story ran with exclusive photographs and video of a father whose young son, whose heart was failing, was put in a foster home where he was molested by other children.https://bit.ly/2YQwnbLhttps://bit.ly/2L0R1Mv