looked beyond the COVID-19 data to deliver a heartbreaking, intimate portrait of Detroit, one of the cities hardest hit by the pandemic. Stafford tapped into her deep knowledge of her hometown while also fulfilling APâs mission to document inequality, showing that the grief is just part of what Detroit is facing â it is also dealing with economic uncertainty. https://bit.ly/3b6z9uR
were rebuffed by New York State officials who refused to release key statistics, so the AP team conducted their own count, finding that more than 4,500 recovering coronavirus patients were released from hospitals into New York nursing homes under a controversial state order that was later scrapped amid criticism that it accelerated the nationâs deadliest outbreaks. APâs story on the count received strong play, and at his news briefing the next day, Gov. Andrew Cuomo deflected questions about the AP tally. https://bit.ly/3daLIqP
The Koreatown area of Los Angeles can be a challenging place to report — many residents are hesitant to speak to the press. That makes what Los Angeles-based photographer Jae Hong pulled off that much more impressive.
Hong, a Korean American who moved to LA as a teenager, had recently spent a year on assignment in Tokyo. When he returned to the U.S., he was astonished by the increased aggression he saw toward Asian Americans, who were being blamed by some for COVID-19.
After much outreach and many conversations with the local Korean community, he found a few families willing to let him into their lives. The end result — Hongâs somber photos and poignant text — is a compelling portrait of a community experiencing very real fear amid attacks targeting Asians.
For timely, revealing enterprise reporting in both text and photos, Jae Hong wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
The Virginia governorâs medical school yearbook page was stunning. A photo in the 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook showed two people looking at the camera â one in blackface wearing a hat, bow tie and plaid pants; the other in white Klan robes.
Hours after a conservative news outlet first reported the racist photo late on a Friday afternoon, Gov. Ralph Northam apologized and acknowledged that he appeared in the photo. The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus and several Democratic presidential candidates called for his resignation.
By the next day, however, he had a change of heart and Virginia statehouse correspondent Alan Suderman broke the news ahead of everyone else. Through a hard-won source he had cultivated during his five years at the statehouse, Suderman revealed that Northam did not believe he was in the photo and would not resign, hours before the governor made that decision public.
Then the scandal took a turn as sexual assault allegations were made against Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a Democrat who is only the second African-American to win statewide office in the state. Suderman secured a denial from Fairfax after the second womanâs accusation.
But Suderman wasnât done. Again working his sources, he revealed that Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, the potential successor to Northam and Fairfax, had admitted that he wore blackface during a party when he was a 19-year-old student at the University of Virginia.
The stories drew tremendous play with readers and customers, with more than 1,000 website matches on several days and 103,000 social media interactions in one day.
For his deft source-building and strong reporting on this highly competitive series of stories, Alan Suderman wins the APâs Best of the Week award.
As the opioid epidemic barrels into its third decade, itâs increasingly hard to find fresh ways to report on the problem. One group that has always been present, usually in the background of stories, are the parents, hundreds of thousands of them who desperately tried to save their children, then buried them anyway. Louisville, Kentucky-based national writer Claire Galofaro chose to focus on them, the survivors who have lost the most to the epidemic.
The project involved journalists across formats throughout the country â Jae Hong, Steven Senne, Pat Semansky, Jeff Roberson, Mark Humphrey, Rodrique Ngowi, Krysta Fauria, Dario Lopez, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Carla Johnson â teaming with Galofaro and enterprise editors Pauline Arrillaga, Jeannie Ohm, Raghu Vadarevu and Enric Marti to think creatively about how text, video, multimedia and photos could work together.
The result was two beautifully written narratives paired with photographs, an extensive Q&A about the epidemic, a full video story and three digital videos in which we hear three different mothers talking about the extreme lengths they went to to try and save their children.
The series struck a raw nerve â engagement was extraordinary: The main story was No. 1 on apnews.com the day it ran, and it appeared on newspaper front pages nationwide. A week later, news outlets were still using it. Hundreds of readers sent emails and tweets. More than one person said that they felt like they were sitting with these families in their living rooms.
For a cross-format effort so intimate, so devastating, it recaptured the attention of a nation that had been exhausted by stories about the opioid epidemic, the team that produced the Left Behind package wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
When smartphone video emerged more than two months after Ahmaud Arbery was killed by a white father and son while running through a Georgia neighborhood, the case burst into the national consciousness. AP race and ethnicity writer Aaron Morrison headed to Brunswick, Georgia, seeking to tell the full story of the 25-year-oldâs life.
Morrison and video journalist Sarah Blake Morgan interviewed Arberyâs mother on the road where her son was killed. That conversation became a centerpiece of the text and visual package, with further reporting by Russ Bynum and Kate Brumback completing the picture.
For a nuanced and unflinching profile of Arberyâs life that spotlights the racism experienced by many young black men and captures the pain of a grieving family, Morrison, Morgan, Bynum and Brumback share this weekâs Best of the States award.
Over the past two years, the Trump administration has relentlessly moved to relax or repeal major environmental and safety rules for the fossil fuels industry to further its energy goals. Each change was reported by news outlets, including the AP. But Billings, Montana, correspondent and environment team member Matthew Brown decided to look more deeply into the highly touted savings to industry as well as the societal costs.
Brown painstakingly examined 11 major rules targeted by Trumpâs administration, wading through many thousands of pages of government documents. Brown identified $11.6 billion in potential savings for companies that produce, use and transport fossil fuels, with billions more expected from a freeze of vehicle fuel efficiency standards that will hike fuel consumption.
But Brown also discovered that those savings will come at a steep cost, including more premature deaths and illnesses from air pollution, increased greenhouse gas emissions and additional derailments of trains carrying explosive fuels.
His Only on AP story ran on front pages of at least 16 newspapers and on numerous web sites. The Washington Post displayed both the main-bar the accompanying glance.
For in-depth reporting and comprehensive accounting of the administrationâs actions on important environmental and safety issues, Brown wins this weekâs Best of the States.
When Chicago police released the body camera video of an officer fatally shooting a 13-year-old boy in an alley, AP staffers in Chicago and across the AP sprang into action with aggressive reporting, sharp enterprise follow-ups and thoughtful standards discussions about how to responsibly portray the gruesome incident for photo and video clients.
The end result was three days of distinctive spot and enterprise coverage on a story that resonated with audiences around the world, especially with renewed focus on police violence in the midst of the Derek Chauvin murder trial.
For comprehensive coverage providing depth, detail and context on the shooting, the all-formats team of Michael Tarm, Don Babwin, Sara Burnett, Kat Stafford, Dave Bauder, Shafkat Anowar, Robert Bumsted and Derek Karikari shares this weekâs Best of the States award.
With contact tracing in the spotlight as one of the keys to stopping the spread of the coronavirus, journalists across the AP have sought access to the investigators, only to be rebuffed for privacy concerns. But Utah-based correspondent Brady McCombs convinced a county health department that he and photographer Rick Bowmer could show the world how contact tracing is conducted, while protecting private details.
Once they were in the door, the curtain rolled back. The pair spent parts of five days shadowing investigators as they talked, commiserated and cajoled people to comply with tracing â something simply unseen in other coverage or descriptions of contact tracing.
And in a major break, McCombs used social media to identify one of the subjects of tracing, getting exclusive all-formats access to tell the story of a family on the other end of a tracerâs call.
For a timely and revealing package on a vital element of the pandemic response, McCombs and Bowmer share this weekâs Best of the States award.
Knowing what information can be obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests (FOIAs) from various public agencies is critical to breaking news. And keeping a checklist of those information gold mines is key to accessing that knowledge, Columbus, Ohio-based reporter Andrew Welsh-Huggins has found.
Welsh-Huggins used those skills to great effect in the case of the man accused of pulling a cruel hoax by pretending to be a long-missing Illinois boy. The story captured the nationâs attention and set reporters in motion trying to flesh out the background of a 23-year-old ex-con who Ohio authorities say faked being Timmothy Pitzen. Pitzen was 6 years old when he disappeared in 2011.
Welsh-Hugginsâ checklist for enterprise off the news includes FOIAs to all agencies a suspect has had contact with. He filed a FOIA with the Ohio corrections department to obtain access to the disciplinary records of suspect Brian Rini, knowing from experience that the agency would release them.
A few days later the agency handed him 15 disciplinary reports showing that Rini was someone who liked to fabricate stories â including things as mundane as being short of toilet paper and as serious as being raped by a guard.
The AP was alone with the story, which got strong play in Ohio and across the country.
For using his knowledge of FOIA to break news on this highly competitive story, Welsh-Huggins wins this weekâs Best of the States.
With the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre months away, text and visual journalists from APâs Race and Ethnicity, Central Region and Enterprise teams embarked on a plan to dig deeper into the story of the atrocity, well beyond just covering the centennial events.
The team started arriving in Tulsa weeks ahead of the anniversary to explore the city and meet descendants of massacre survivors, who opened up about the horrific event and how it continues to impact their families and the community. Among those they met was the family of Ernestine Alpha Gibbs, who survived the massacre and died 18 years ago at age 100.
Their efforts resulted in a comprehensive package of enterprise stories, from the lost wealth and racial inequality that Black Tulsans have endured, to the descendants of Black victims preparing to resume a search for mass graves, to an examination of how history books and law enforcement have depicted the massacre, and much more.
The coverage was not without breaking news. In addition to a visit by President Joe Biden, AP learned that the weekendâs headline event was canceled because of a disagreement over payments to three survivors for their appearance at the event.
For sweeping enterprise and spot coverage that raises awareness of this grim milestone in American race relations, this multiformat team earns APâs Best of the States award.
Twenty years have passed since the Columbine high school massacre, which was, to many people, the beginning of school shootings as we know them. In those years, life has changed: Mass shootings happen again and again, schoolchildren participate in lockdowns instead of fire drills, and many reflect on the moment in time when two young men took 13 lives with them on their suicidal quest.
AP was uniquely positioned to cover the two decades since the massacre, with journalists who were there, those who cover the Colorado community every day, and experts in polling, education and guns. Stories by Denver reporter Kathleen Foody and videojournalist Peter Banda led a deep all-formats package by dozens of journalists across the AP telling not just of the carnage but of those who survived it, their struggle, and the future.
But all the planning couldn't prepare anyone for this spot development: Early in the week, Sol Pais, a young Florida woman, prompted panic over a possible attack at Columbine, later taking her own life near the Colorado school. Miami reporter Kelli Kennedy tracked down a good friend of Pais who not only filled in personal details about her in an exclusive interview, but supplied photos of Pais and cast doubt on the official narrative about her friend.
The overarching theme of the spot and enterprise coverage focused on the short and long-term mental health issues from school shootings. The result was a unique, meaningful package that received impressive play nationally â online and in print. The video was among the top-used AP videos of the week.
For their work spearheading the package, and breaking news, Foody, Banda and Kennedy win this weekâs Best of the States.
examined how the nationâs nursing home industry is pushing states for protection from lawsuits tied to coronavirus outbreaks that have killed 20,000. The team looked at both sides of the argument for legal immunity and revealed how one well-connected lobbying group even wrote the measure in New York, the nationâs leader in care home deaths. https://bit.ly/2zhWv3a
relied on meticulous planning, their in-depth knowledge of the subject, and APâs national footprint to lead comprehensive coverage of just-released 2020 U.S. Census numbers. The first batch of numbers were deceptively simple â on the surface, a single population number from each state and bare-bones information on congressional seats and presidential electors. But with robust preparation and background on the headcountâs implications, the pair pushed AP's coverage to the forefront nationally on an announcement that turned out to contain plenty of surprises.While leveraging APâs reach with a big assist from colleagues who helped prepare state stories all over the country, as well as advance coverage of millennial migration, a likely Latino undercount in the Sunbelt and Californiaâs loss of a seat for the first time in its history, Schneider and Riccardi deftly adapted the APâs spot story to the news that 13 states would either gain or lose congressional seats. The spot coverage included an informative glance box of winners and losers, an interactive map and independent analysis by the AP data team.Taken as a whole, the weeklong tour de force showcased the APâs range and depth, with Schneider and Riccardi leading the effort.https://bit.ly/3toZFZghttps://bit.ly/3elizMlhttps://bit.ly/2PRIz8Ohttps://bit.ly/2Suq5fDhttps://bit.ly/3b3eIBE
teamed up to reveal how the roots of racism still run deep in all branches of the U.S. military, and how the Defense Department has done little to determine the scope of extremism in the ranks and take steps to address it.Although military members are often reluctant to speak out, fearful of damage to their careers or other forms of retaliation, this joint effort by AP race and ethnicity and investigative journalists landed searing interviews with active and former troops in nearly every branch of the armed services. They told of being taunted by racial slurs, disrespected by colleagues and discouraged by superiors from openly embracing their cultures.Among their other findings: The militaryâs judicial system has no explicit category for hate crimes, and the Defense Department still has no way to track the number of troops ousted for extremist views. The Defense Department had three weeks to respond to detailed questions, but failed to do so by the deadline. Once the piece was published and officials saw the depth and breadth of the APâs reporting the DOD came forward with a 3,000-word statement that was incorporated in the live story.https://bit.ly/3gcO9fdhttps://bit.ly/3gcRXx1
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 Partyâs 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 â and potentially risk getting the virus â just so they can submit their ballot personally and be assured it will be counted. https://bit.ly/2DC7aYO
A groundbreaking collaboration among California newspapers and The Associated Press started with a tweet.
Northern California News Editor Juliet Williams saw on Twitter that the editor of The Sacramento Bee, a McClatchy paper, was driving to meet with the editor of the Chico Enterprise-Record, a MediaNews paper, to talk about wildfire coverage. Williams reached out, offered the APâs help, and a partnership was born, with the goal of illuminating problems and pointing to potential solutions to Californiaâs increasingly deadly wildfires.
The results: nearly a dozen stories, including an analysis of data by McClatchy and AP Los Angeles-based data journalist Angeliki Kastanis revealing that more than 350,000 Californians live in towns and cities almost entirely within zones of very high wildfire risk. An analysis also found that a 2008 building code for Californiaâs fire-prone regions can make the difference in whether homes burn or not, but thereâs little retrofitting of older homes.
The partnershipâs next installment was focused on evacuation planning, revealing that many communities wouldnât share the information or didnât have an adequate plan, or any plan at all. Data analysis by USA TODAY Network-California showed many communities had too few roads to get everyone out.
We heavily publicized the package and play was impressive, with hundreds of downloads of the first two installments. Many outlets used the data to report their own stories about local fire risks. And this isnât the end of the partnership: The next phase will focus on legislative action on wildfire coverage.
When AP engages in collaborations like these we become more than just a content provider to our customers; weâre helping them produce high-impact local coverage that wouldnât exist otherwise. In this case, the âDestined to Burnâ partnership was managed at every level by West Deputy Director of Newsgathering Anna Jo Bratton, who worked for six months with people throughout the AP and the collaborators to make the partnership a success.
For putting the AP at the center of an important collaboration, driving important journalism in a state ravaged by wildfires, and forging a stronger relationship with members, Williams, Kastanis and Bratton win this APâs Best of the States.
With coronavirus infection and death rates mounting, hospitals in the New York City area imposed strict guidelines allowing only a small handful of media outlets limited access. After weeks of reaching out to hospitals, St. Josephâs in Yonkers agreed to give the AP access to its emergency room and screening tent.
But only one journalist would be allowed into the hospital. Versatile New York staff photographer John Minchillo was an easy choice.
Once inside in full protective gear, Minchillo connected with the hospital staff, who also granted access to the intensive care unit. He made the most of the next four hours, working in all formats to capture the mundane and the extreme, including the dramatic moments when a COVID-19 patient in cardiac arrest was saved. Turned around virtually overnight, Minchilloâs all-formats package was heavily played by major media outlets.
For his powerful, comprehensive all-formats storytelling that takes us inside medical workersâ daily fight save lives against the coronavirus, John Minchillo wins APâs Best of States Award.
for two accountability scoops in his native Louisiana. Mustian tapped sources to get the state police there to reveal an embarrassing security breach at the governorâs mansion â a man accused of breaking in, damaging property and then falling asleep on a couch. That APNewsBreak was published just hours after he revealed the full body-camera footage of the police-involved shooting of Juston Landry in Lake Charles. A grand jury cleared the officer of the shooting, but Landryâs attorney characterized the footage as âmurder on camera.âhttps://bit.ly/2GQx9tvhttps://bit.ly/2LfQv0B
After a gunman opened fire in a Southern California synagogue on Passover, killing a woman and wounding a man, his 8-year-old niece and the rabbi leading the service, the inevitable question was asked: Could anything have been done to stop the violence?
Reporters Don Thompson and Adam Beam in Sacramento and Julie Watson in San Diego combined to report exclusively that the synagogue itself had recognized security deficiencies and even received a state grant to address them.
But it hadnât spent the money, the AP team revealed.
For their exclusive follow-up to a crime that generated global attention, Thompson, Watson and Beam win this weekâs Best of the States.
