Best of the Week — First Winner

Flawless source work, preparation deliver all-formats scoop on US-Russia prisoner swap

In a textbook display of outstanding source work and planning, Eric Tucker and Matthew Lee acted on a tip to score a massive scoop on a stunning U.S.-Russia prisoner exchange that happened despite heightened tensions between the countries.

In the process, the pair showed the rewards of careful, long-term source-building, a model of how to prepare in all formats to put the AP ahead of the competition the moment the news broke, and examples of how to build on a big story with smart sidebars in-cycle and a compelling follow-up story that offered new, behind-the-scenes details.

Their efforts paid off handsomely on Wednesday when Lee got the green light that the exchange had taken place, allowing AP to push out an alert and full story accompanied by photos and video, well before any Western media competitors were even aware the swap had happened.

For their exhaustive, comprehensive work that scooped everyone on the surprising swap, Tucker and Lee share AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP delivers fast, comprehensive, all-formats coverage of Uvalde, Texas, school shooting

AP journalists were on the U.S-Mexico border for an immigration assignment May 24 when they got word of a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. They quickly gathered their gear and rushed to Robb Elementary School, where they found chaotic scenes of law enforcement surrounding the school. The staffers immediately went to work providing photos and live video.

That swift response to the unfolding tragedy made the AP the first national news organization on the scene and set the tone for the rest of the week. As more staff deployed, AP delivered dominant, all-formats coverage that explored with sensitivity not only the shooting that left 19 fourth graders and two teachers dead, but inconsistencies in the actions and statements of police — and much more.

Readers and customers responded with exceptional engagement.

For a powerful example of the AP at its finest on a major news story that has led to an outpouring of sympathy for the families, questions about police practices and the latest reckoning on guns and school safety, the AP Uvalde coverage team earns Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

‘Empty spaces, broken hearts’: Uvalde, Texas, in mourning

collaborated on an extraordinary portrait of a town grieving after the May 24 mass shooting that left gaping holes in its fabric.In a chaotic and fraught environment with countless journalists gathered around the memorials and overwhelming the family members of shooting victims, the AP trio decided to approach the story differently — they wanted to explore the connections within the Uvalde community. They split up, looking for the people in that next circle of relationships: barbers, bus drivers and others who crossed paths with the affected families.It all came together in a heart-wrenching package that appeared on numerous websites and front pages. The team received compliments from readers — and one of the individuals they profiled — for the sensitive and compassionate way they covered this traumatic story.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Governor saw Greene arrest video months before prosecutors

scored their latest in a string of exclusives on the deadly 2019 arrest of Black motorist Ronald Greene, finding that Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards watched a key video of Greene taking his final breaths — a full six months before prosecutors were aware the footage even existed.While the Democrat has distanced himself from allegations of a cover-up in the explosive case by contending evidence was promptly turned over to authorities, AP’s monthslong investigation involving dozens of interviews and hundreds of pages of documents found that wasn’t the case with the 30-minute video he privately viewed in the fall of 2020.Response to the story was swift. A bipartisan legislative committee investigating the case in response to AP’s previous reporting indicated that it would move quickly to call Edwards and key members of his staff to testify under oath.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP owns Depp-Heard verdict with planning, fast execution

teamed up for a decisive all-formats win on the ultracompetitive Johnny Depp-Amber Heard verdict with lightning-fast alerts, an insightful text story and a quickly prepared, extensively reported video package.Detailed planning across multiple formats for all the possible verdicts, and sharp, coordinated coverage as the verdict was announced ensured that AP does what it does best: owning key moments of a breaking story.The fast, sweeping coverage scored heavily: AP’s all-formats mainbar was used by nearly 1,000 outlets in the first 24 hours with high readership and social media engagement, while the video edits made AP’s top seven stories for client usage for the week.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP looks at real-world issues of viability and the earliest babies

visited Eutaw, Alabama, to better understand the issue of viability — a key word in the superheated debate over abortion — as experienced by families who know what it means to have a baby born at the edge of life.Ungar, who has covered maternal and newborn health for years, knew doctors were getting better at keeping very premature babies alive. She reviewed data and research, interviewed physicians and was connected to Michelle Butler who was in just her fifth month of pregnancy when she she gave birth to twins, including Curtis, the world’s earliest surviving premature baby.Butler let the all-formats team of Ungar, Wang and Dill into family’s life. What emerged was an emotional narrative of extreme joy and profound loss, explaining the science and ethics involved and bringing deeply reported, balanced, real-world context to one of the biggest, most provocative issues of the year.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP documents North Dakota lawmaker’s taxpayer-funded travel

scooped North Dakota media by revealing just how extensively — and expensively — a state senator had traveled on the taxpayer’s dime.MacPherson obtained documents showing that Republican Sen. Ray Holmberg, who recently announced he would end his 46-year-career following a report that he had traded scores of text messages with a man jailed on child pornography charges, had run up more than 14 times the average travel expenses for the state’s lawmakers over the past decade, on trips that included China, Puerto Rico and New Orleans.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Deep reporting tells of Black Kansas teen’s in-custody death

were the first to piece together video, records and interviews for an in-depth, multiformat story outlining how a Black teen in Kansas ended up in foster care and died at a juvenile intake center after being restrained on his stomach for 40 minutes.AP had written previously about the death of Cedric “C.J.” Lofton, but Kansas City reporter Hollingsworth sensed a backstory waiting to be told. Her exhaustive reporting and Sheridan’s revealing video tell the story of a troubled youth and the disturbing confluence of events and decisions leading to his death.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Unique AP visual investigation points to 600 dead in airstrike on Mariupol theater

A deeply reported, innovative and meticulous AP investigation determined that the deadliest apparent war crime so far in Ukraine — the March 16 Mariupol theater airstrike — likely killed about 600 people, twice as many as previously reported.

AP’s first full-blown visual investigation drew on survivors’ accounts, photos, video, experts and a 3D digital model of the theater to reconstruct what happened that day. The resulting package offered a vivid, detailed narrative of the events inside the theater, including elements that had not previously been reported, all delivered in an arresting presentation.

For a remarkable investigation that harnessed the power of all formats to break news, the team of Hinnant, Ritzel, Chernov, Stepanenko and Goodman is AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Algorithm screening for child neglect raises bias concerns

teamed up on an exclusive package that revealed concerns over racial disparity in an algorithm used by one child welfare agency to help decide if a family should be investigated by child protective services.Long-term source work allowed the reporters to obtain research on the impact of the tool used to support social workers in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, who make split-second decisions meant to protect children from neglect. The research showed the algorithm flagging a disproportionate number of Black children for a “mandatory” neglect investigation when compared with white children, and that social workers disagreed with the risk scores the tool produced about one-third of the time.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

All-formats reporting gives voice to abortion opponents

took readers to Columbia, South Carolina, and the front lines of the fight against abortion as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs a decision that could reverse Roe v. Wade.National reporter Sedensky and photo/video journalist Goldman spent several days with members of A Moment of Hope, a group that assembles outside a Planned Parenthood clinic every abortion day, trying to change the minds of women who show up. The resulting all-formats package weaves together the voices of both opponents and defenders of abortion and the history of the movement as it relates the gripping case of one pregnant woman and the conflict playing out at the clinic as the woman decides whether to end her pregnancy.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

All-formats team exposes housing crisis for college students

exposed a growing housing crisis hitting college campuses across the U.S.: A surge in the number of new students who deferred college during the worst of the COVID crisis has strained campus housing nationwide, leaving many students homeless, sleeping in cars or living in motel rooms while attending school — or causing them to further delay their education.Working with AP’s housing coverage team, San Francisco reporter Har found that while the college housing crunch may be most acute in California, it impacts college students nationwide.With video from Terry Chea and photos by Eric Risberg, digital storyteller Samantha Shotzbarger created a strong presentation that performed well both on AP platforms and with customers, but its real impact was on Facebook, where it was viewed 2.4 million times.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Inside a Lviv apartment building, AP team gives a glimpse of life for displaced Ukrainians

London-based news director Susie Blann wanted to tell the story of how the city of Lviv had welcomed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who fled their homes during the Russian invasion but chose to remain in their country.

Blann, joined by photographer Nariman El-Mofty, video journalist Renata Brito and text reporter Cara Anna, looked behind the doors of one Lviv apartment block, earning the trust of people from Irpin, Kyiv and Kharkiv who had found temporary housing there and were willing to tell their stories.

The result was a remarkable presentation produced in collaboration with Natalie Castañeda, giving a deeply personal glimpse into the lives of some of the millions of people displaced by war.

For their tireless, resourceful work in demanding circumstances, the team of Blann, Anna, El-Mofty, Brito and Castañeda is the AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Video shows Lyoya shot in back of head by officer

teamed up with colleagues elsewhere in the country to provide multiformat coverage of the release by Grand Rapids, Michigan, police of video showing the April 4 shooting death of motorist Patrick Lyoya. Video showed Lyoya, a Black man, facing the ground when he was fatally shot in the back of the head by a police officer after a traffic stop, a brief foot chase and struggle over a stun gun.In addition to AP’s spot coverage and video analysis, distinctive enterprise in ensuing days examined a gap in the police officer’s body camera video, an explainer on what prosecutors will use to determine any charges, and how police stops of Black people are often filled with fear and anxiety and can end in deadly use of force.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP profiles amputee running 102 marathons — in 102 days

tells the feel-good story we needed, in the person of Jacky Hunt-Broersma — an amputee athlete from South Africa who’s closing in on a new world record: running 102 marathons in as many days.New England editor Kole himself has a dozen and a half marathons under his laces, and his social media feeds buzz with compelling news from fellow runners.But Hunt-Broersma’s story was special. Kole surfaced it for a global audience, telling the incredible story of a woman who lost one of her legs to a rare cancer, only to set a grueling goal: covering the 26.2-mile marathon distance each day for 102 days, all on a carbon-fiber prothesis.The story, pegged to Monday's 126th running of the Boston Marathon, won widespread play, readership and social media interaction.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP Exclusive: Inside the 11-day search for escaped Alabama inmate and his jailer accomplice

As the search for Alabama fugitives Casey White and Vicky White captured the attention of the world, Washington-based federal law enforcement reporter Mike Balsamo reached out, working his network of sources in the Justice Department and the U.S. Marshals Service for details.

Balsamo also connected with the U.S. marshal for the Northern District of Alabama, knowing he would be the person most likely to have the inside information that would enable AP to put together a clear timeline of a messy escape saga littered with gaps and confusing accounts.

That contact turned out to be pivotal after the pursuit came to a violent end in Indiana on May 9. The marshal’s exclusive account of the 11-day search, coupled with details Balsamo picked up from other sources, gave AP a story rich with previously unreported detail and context. It also made for an exceptionally easy-to-follow narrative. The resulting story played widely, from Alabama to Australia.

For using all his resources to distinguish AP’s coverage on this extremely competitive story, Mike Balsamo is AP’s Best of the Week – First Winner.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP explores El Salvador’s strict abortion ban through the voices of women who lived it

As the U.S. Supreme Court considers overturning the constitutional right to abortion, reporter Luis Henao and video journalist Jessie Wardarski provided a compelling account of what can happen under a total abortion ban, through the testimonials of women who were raped or suffered miscarriages in El Salvador — where the country’s harsh anti-abortion law committed them to long prison terms.

Henao and Wardarski traveled to rural El Salvador to meet women willing to share on camera their harrowing stories of being imprisoned under the law. To these Salvadoran women, their plight should serve as a cautionary tale for Americans.

The AP pair also sought the views of a Catholic cardinal and a lawmaker who defended the ban on abortion. The resulting all-formats package was used by hundreds of news outlets, was widely praised by experts on the issue and generated impassioned commentary on social media.

For engaging, insightful coverage that gives voice to women who have suffered the consequences of an abortion ban, and shedding light on an issue that sharply divides opinions in the U.S. and beyond, Henao and Wardarski earn AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP investigation of Louisiana State Police triggers federal probe

fittingly beat the competition with news of the biggest impact yet from their two-year investigation of beatings and cover-ups by the Louisiana State Police: The U.S. Justice Department is launching a sweeping civil rights probe of the agency to see if there is a pattern of excessive force and racial discrimination.Based on their deep sourcing, Mustian and Bleiberg were able to exclusively report the federal “pattern-or-practice” investigation as a news alert about an hour before the official announcement in Baton Rouge. It marked the first such action against a statewide law enforcement agency in more than two decades. All the examples cited by the assistant attorney general as justitification for the probe came from a string of AP scoops that exposed (often with video) beatings of mostly Black men and the Louisiana agency’s instinct to protect troopers rather than investigate them.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP connects therapist accused of sexual assault to a dark past

was the first and only journalist to reveal that a New Hampshire therapist accused of sexual assault previously spent 12 years in prison, where he changed his name and earned a degree in counseling after a conviction for a notorious drunk driving incident that resulted in the death of a 12-year-old girl.A tip from the client accusing Peter Stone of abuse started Ramer’s in-depth reporting on the therapist’s dark past and the ethical questions raised over whether professionals should disclose prior criminal convictions.Even major New England news outlets that reported Stone’s 2021 arrest on sexual assault charges did not link him to his previous conviction as Pete Dushame; Ramer alone made that connection. Her story played widely with news outlets in the Northeast and beyond, and ranked near AP’s top for pageviews and reader engagement over the weekend.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP ahead on disappearance, killings of British journalist and Indigenous expert in the Amazon

When a much-loved British journalist and an Indigenous expert disappeared in the remote reaches of Brazil’s western Amazon, AP excelled in all formats. The comprehensive coverage included widely used video packages, speedy, accurate reports on breaking news and insightful features — all setting AP apart.

From the announcement that Dom Phillips and Bruno Araújo Pereira were missing, AP mobilized to provide first agency photo and video coverage. AP had staff on the ground well before any other international media — and before federal police arrived to investigate.

As the story developed, regional expertise helped AP report accurately, avoiding the reporting mistakes of other media, and expand beyond the spot news with enterprising coverage, including profiles and an explainer, placing the tragedy in context.

For putting AP out front with fast, smart, best-in-class coverage, the AP team of Fabiano Maisonnave, Edmar Barros, Mauricio Savarese, Tatiana Pollastri, Rosa Ramirez, Silvia Izquierdo, Chris Gillette, David Biller and Peter Prengaman earns Best of the Week — First Winner honors.