Scott Bauer, correspondent, Madison, Wisconsin, and Eric Tucker, law enforcement reporter, Washington, D.C., for being first to report the details of how a former U.S. attorney for Wisconsin misused a government credit card for personal expenses.
Allegations that a lawmaker had been trysting with a prostitute while the Utah Legislature was in session rocked the stateâs politics. The former lawmaker who had previously pushed for stricter laws cracking down on prostitution went into hiding. His attorney refused comment. The House speaker washed his hands of the scandal, and the prostitute was no longer talking, having sold the story to the tabloid site dailymail.com.
Political reporter Michelle Price needed another way into the story, so she started asking questions around the capitol.
She made a key discovery while looking at the screen grabs of the texts in the tabloid story: The dates lined up with the legislative session. She knew the lawmaker from southern Utah didnât commute to the Legislature and would be staying in hotels while in Salt Lake City.
She started asking tougher questions. Was taxpayer money used to reimburse the lawmaker for hotel rooms where he met the prostitute? Now she had the attention of officials in state government.
Finally came the APNewsBreak: Price exclusively reported that the lawmaker used taxpayer money to book at least two hotel rooms he is accused of using to meet with the prostitute.
For determination and a commitment to exploring all angles even when the main characters werenât talking, Price wins this weekâs Best of the States.
for using reporting and data-gathering skills to produce an exclusive story about the increase of violent or disruptive threats to schools across the U.S. http://apne.ws/2bbEItj
scored a timely and exclusive interview with the first Asian American muppet on âSesame Street.âPhoenix-based Tang had been watching for race-related news tied to the classic childrenâs television show, when Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind the show, reached out about giving AP the exclusive on their first ever Asian American muppet â a 7-year-old Korean American named Ji-Young.Tang knew the story would resonate after a wave of attacks against Asian Americans and calls for greater Asian American and Pacific Islander representation, and she looked forward to writing âJi-Young told The Associated Press.â She teamed up with New York-based video journalist Noreen Nasir, who also saw the cultural importance of the story as well as the potential to have fun telling it.Nasir interviewed both Ji-Young and longtime âSesame Streetâ favorite Ernie, being careful not to show the puppeteers, and snapped photos of the muppets. Then she and Tang interviewed Kathleen Kim, the Korean American puppeteer behind Ji-Young, about the impact of portraying a groundbreaking character.Tang arranged for AP to release the text story and photos exclusively at an hour when both audiences in the U.S. and Asia could wake up to the story, followed shortly by the video, generating strong interest from customers and readers.https://aplink.news/fi2https://aplink.video/blr
produced an authoritative look at President Joe Bidenâs border policy, drawing on interviews with administration officials, internal documents and intelligence reports, and on-the-ground reporting. The story was APâs first collaboration in partnership with AIM Media Texas, a consortium of newspapers in the Rio Grande Valley, including The (McAllen, Texas) Monitor.Well before the arrival of some 15,000 Haitian migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in September, Spagat, APâs lead immigration reporter, had been looking closely at the Biden administrationâs border policy. The uneven and often chaotic response to that September surge underscored that Biden, despite campaign promises to overhaul immigration and now with nearly a year in office, lacked a coherent plan for the border.To uncover how Biden's policy, or lack thereof, had come to this point, Spagat teamed up with Monitor investigative reporter Gonzalez, obtaining memos that detailed early conversations about border policy, conducted interviews with high-ranking current and former U.S. officials and Mexican authorities. Exclusive internal documents, obtained through sources and Freedom of Information Act requests, included email traffic between Border Patrol officials during the surge and a tally of the thousands of migrants released into the U.S. despite the administrationâs tough talk of expelling migrants.Editors Katie Oyan, Jerry Schwartz and Peter Prengaman worked closely on the text and photo editor Alyssa Goodman built a striking presentation. Video journalist Manuel Valdes produced a strong piece that elegantly broke down the weak points in Biden's border policy.The end result was arguably the most comprehensive look to date at how Biden's border went from hopeful to chaotic. The piece appeared widely in news outlets across the U.S.https://aplink.news/8ojhttps://aplink.video/8wv
for reporting exclusively how a staunch Congressional opponent of government spending has spent more than $3 million to promote himself â at times outside of his district â as he runs for U.S Senate. http://bit.ly/2odQqMV
for turning a tidbit from one university into a national story about the sharp increase in the number of people in the U.S. donating their bodies to science. http://abcn.ws/2aZyQCO
The killing of black teenager Emmett Till remains one of the most notorious crimes in American history, unresolved more than 60 years later. The 14-year-old boy was lynched after being accused of whistling at a white woman in Mississippi in 1955, a case that shocked the nation and helped inspire the civil rights movement. Alabama correspondent Jay Reeves has doggedly pursued any developments in the case over the years, and last week came away with a bombshell: the investigation was being reopened.
For that exclusive, Reeves wins the Beat of the Week.
teamed up on a revealing story about the influence of conspiracy theories on countless Republicans across the country. Election administration reporter Cassidy researched the âNebraska Election Integrity Forum,â determining the event was indeed part of the election conspiracy movement. Omaha reporter Beck and freelance photographer covered the event, engaging with attendees even as one prominent speaker complained about journalists who are âelection fraud deniers.âThe result was a comprehensive look at those who are continuing to peddle lies about the nationâs elections and the people who fervently believe those lies. The story also described how violence is woven into the conspiracies â from statements about civil war to calls for putting certain election officials before firing squads. The piece engaged readers online and landed on more than a dozen front pages.Read more
delivered smart stories about Venezuela, including an interview with the leader of independent experts working with the United Nationsâ top human rights body that gave insight into cases of torture allegedly ordered by President Nicolas Maduro of government opponents and critics. Another story ran down details of the arrest of a fugitive defense contractor nicknamed âFat Leonardâ who orchestrated one of the U.S. Navyâs largest bribery scandals.Andes correspondent Regina Garcia Cano was able to find out that Leonard Francis was arrested at the international airport that serves Caracas before he boarded a plane to the Island of Margarita, a Venezuelan Caribbean Island that the government is trying to turn into a hotspot for Russian tourists. A source told AP that Leonardâs intention was to flee to Russia.Read more
The U.S. surpassed a solemn milestone on Feb. 22 with 500,000 COVID-19 deaths — a moment in the pandemic that required thoughtful planning and storytelling, and precise execution across the AP for the coverage to stand out.
Editors began planning weeks in advance. They wanted impactful photo and video packages, lightning-fast spot coverage of the milestone being reached, and a text story to anchor the report that was different from APâs previous recognition of 100,000, 250,000 and 400,000 deaths.
The result was a package that resonated in all formats.
For meeting the grim milestone with compelling, comprehensive coverage, the team of Adam Geller, Jocelyn Gecker, Alyssa Goodman, Pete Brown, Eugene Garcia, Manuel Valdes and Krysta Fauria wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
Supreme Court nominees are scrutinized for signs of how they may vote on important issues, but Amy Coney Barrettâs jurisprudence told little about her views on gay rights.
Reporters Michelle R. Smith and Michael Biesecker knew that Barrettâs ties to People of Praise, a religious group with anti-gay views, could be an important part of her confirmation process. Through dogged reporting and source work they were able to show that Barrett was a trustee at People of Praise-run schools that had anti-gay teachings.
Their story had an immediate impact in the run-up to her Oct. 26 Senate confirmation. For thorough and groundbreaking reporting on the tightly held views of a justice likely to sit in judgment of high-profile gay rights cases, Smith and Biesecker win APâs Best of the Week award.
followed up on their initial reporting that exposed widespread labor abuse in the palm oil industry, conducting a comprehensive investigation into the brutal treatment of women in the production of the omnipresent ingredient, including rapes by plantation supervisors, serious health issues from toxic chemicals and injuries from back-breaking loads. The pair then traced the oil produced by these women to the supply chains of top Western beauty brands â including conglomerates that make billions of dollars as they market the empowerment of women.Mason and McDowell persuaded dozens of female workers to tell their searing stories, spending months getting the women to trust them and then arranging clandestine meetings in an effort to protect the workers from retaliation by plantation owners. They bypassed the stonewalling of major Western brands that refused to say whether their products contain palm oil by using company data and U.S. Customs records to link the workersâ abuse to the brandsâ palm oil supply chains.The package featured striking digital display, video and evocative photos by Indonesia-based stringer Binsar Bakkara, as well as a powerful series of closeups of workersâ hands cradling familiar products containing the fruits of their labor.The story is nearing 250,000 page views on AP News. The Clorox Company, which owns Burtâs Bees Inc., said it would raise the allegations of abuses with its suppliers, calling APâs findings âincredibly disturbing.â https://bit.ly/3liKAV3https://bit.ly/2VeVUXRhttps://bit.ly/3mlXgfd
followed up on their exceptional initial work and continued their record-breaking coverage in the week leading up to the queenâs funeral, delivering outstanding all-formats journalism and giving clients an array of offerings from virtually every event and every perspective.APâs stories and visuals captured the pomp and ceremony, and the emotions of mourners lined up for many for hours to pay their respects as the queen lay in state. APâs stories ranged from a first-person account of waiting in that queue to how the queen set the stage for the transition to Charles to an evocative account inside Westminster Abbey during Mondayâs funeral â and much more.Coverage of the funeral itself saw stunning usage of APâs content, while the collective 12-day round-the-clock effort won near-unanimous praise from AP customers.Read more
An exclusive analysis conducted for AP showed that in the shadow of the pandemic, a quiet surge in non-COVID âexcess deathsâ in U.S. nursing homes could top 40,000 above and beyond what is normal.
To find out why, the AP team of reporters Matt Sedensky and Bernard Condon, with video journalist Allen Breed and colleagues, interviewed nursing home authorities and family members, documenting severe cases of neglect and prolonged isolation for residents not infected with the virus, much of it due to chronic understaffing. The text story and video piece received prominent play and were among the most widely viewed on the AP News app on the day of publication.
For exposing a grim consequence of the pandemic affecting an already vulnerable population, the team of Sedensky, Condon and Breed earns this weekâs Best of the States award.
set out to determine who had actually been arrested in the protests that have rocked the U.S. since the killing of George Floyd in May. They scrutinized the arrest records of every person charged in federal court with protest-related crimes, delivering an important accountability story that showed the Trump administrationâs claims of leftist-incited violence during racial unrest were overblown. The trio read through thousands of pages of court documents and sifted through 286 federal cases where people were charged with federal crimes of violence. They found only one mention of antifa and very few cases of organized extremism.They also called dozens of lawyers, activists and sources to determine what was going on behind the numbers, finding an effort by the Department of Justice to pursue cases that normally would be handled in the state systems, and exaggeration by the president of the danger posed to the public. The teamâs reporting undercut claims that left-wing extremists were running rampant in American cities. On a busy news day, the story received outstanding play online and in print. https://bit.ly/2HMltwl
investigated a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agentâs deadly shooting of a mentally ill neighbor in Mississippi, revealing new details that raise questions about why the agent never faced trial on a murder charge â and the role played by DEA brass to quickly insert themselves into the case, blocking local authorities from talking to the agent.Mustian exclusively obtained hundreds of pages of investigative documents and transcripts, and spent days on the ground interviewing people with knowledge of the case for a story that questions the justification for the shooting, how Agent Harold Duane Poole avoided trial and whether the DEA overreached to protect one of its own amid a flurry of misconduct cases in the agency.Read more
"The drug war is a game,â JosĂ© Irizarry told two AP reporters during his final moments of freedom. âIt was a very fun game that we were playing.â
Irizarryâs decision to spend some of his last few hours before beginning a 12-year federal prison sentence with two AP reporters in early 2022 was a moment years in the making that yielded a bombshell bacchanal of a story -- itself months in the making.
Four years ago, just before starting at The Associated Press, New York-based investigative reporter Jim Mustian received a tip about a DEA investigation into one of the agencyâs own agents in Colombia. That spiraled into a string of AP scoops by Mustian and Miami-based Latin America correspondent Joshua Goodman on DEA corruption in Latin America, including an exclusive on the arrest of that agent. Irizarry had been accused of conspiring with Colombian drug cartels to divert millions from DEA money laundering stings in what prosecutors called one of the worst betrayals in DEA history.
For a deeply reported and compelling investigation, telling the tale of a former war-on-drugs warrior who crossed multiple boundaries, Mustian and Goodman earn APâs Best of the Week â First Winner honors.
When investigating politicians, the adage goes, âfollow the money.â But it is equally important to follow the meetings.
used the APâs emerging partnership with satellite imaging company Planet Labs Inc. and his experience covering nuclear programs to obtain high-resolution photographs of Israelâs secretive Dimona nuclear site. The images show the site, which is at the center of the nationâs undeclared atomic weapons program, undergoing its biggest construction project in decades.Dubai-based news director Gambrell also accessed a declassified 1971 U.S. satellite image of Dimona showing how the facility largely hadnât changed in the last 50 years. The story drew immediate attention in Israel and the wider Middle East, with all outlets directly crediting the AP in print, online and in broadcasts for the newsbreak. https://bit.ly/3bgnFs3
