reported a strong inequality-themed story on how government agencies were failing to publicize coronavirus health alerts in Spanish. The story focused on how Arizona, with 30% of its residents Hispanic, has no information on its state health webpage in Spanish and the health department was still translating coronavirus updates. https://bit.ly/2Jk6rv6
made AP the first agency to report from across India, delivering an all-formats package that tracked individuals over the course of three weeks to reveal how the worldâs largest shutdown was affecting some of Indiaâs poorest people.https://bit.ly/3av4o24https://bit.ly/2S5fmoNhttps://bit.ly/3bA1ivk
With African American and Hispanic communities in the Houston region already suffering higher rates of asthma and other diseases than the nation at large, APâs Ellen Knickmeyer decided to focus on the area for a story on ordinary Americans living through the Trump administrationâs public health and environmental rollbacks.
The administration was cutting back on rules limiting and monitoring harmful industrial pollutants, slashing enforcement and weakening an industrial-disaster rule.
Knickmeyer, a Washington-based environmental issues reporter, spent months searching out Houston residents, telling their stories along with deep reporting on the regulatory actions and their consequences.
Former EPA Director Gina McCarthy was among many retweeting the story, calling it a âmust readâ article.
For a rich, insightful look at the consequences of the Trump administrationâs regulatory rollbacks on vulnerable communities, Knickmeyer wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
What and when did authorities in China know about the coronavirusâ initial spread and did they react fast enough? Those have become burning questions as COVID-19 tears a deadly and destructive path across the globe.
Among the toughest to answer, too.
The Associated Press cracked open Chinaâs lockdown on information with an exclusive story â based on internal documents and expert testimony â revealing that top officials in Beijing knew about a likely pandemic, but held off on warning the public for at least six days â while tens of thousands attended a banquet in Wuhan and millions more travelled for Lunar New Year festivities.
The storyâs byline â âBy The Associated Pressâ â testified to the risks run by the reporter who secured and developed the major scoop.
For breaking through Chinaâs tightly policed walls of information control about the critical first days of the pandemic, with a scoop secured in one of the worldâs toughest media environments, the unnamed but not unsung AP reporter is this weekâs Best of the Week laureate.
spent two weeks accompanying home health care workers and emergency medical personnel as they tended to isolated and elderly patients in Spain, some of whom survived the Spanish Civil War and are now enduring new coronavirus. With exquisite visual storytellling, Morenatti captured both dedicated health care professionals and a frail, vulnerable generation, not only in the patientsâ masked faces but in their artwork, religious icons, trinkets and family photographs â the artifacts of a lifetime. The unique images, unmistakably European, are at once beautifully realized, intimate and heartbeaking. https://bit.ly/2V9nvKS
As New York, Chicago, New Orleans and other cities with large black populations began to emerge as hot spots for COVID-19, reporters Aaron Morrison and Jay Reeves decided it would be relevant to examine how black Americans have historically mistrusted the medical field.
The pair connected the skepticism in the black community in part to the aftermath of the notorious âTuskegee Study,â in which roughly 600 poor black Alabama men were left untreated for syphilis to track the diseaseâs progress. The secret program was exposed in 1972 and ended, but its effects linger, well beyond Alabama.
With photography by Bebeto Matthews, the story received heavy play as the nation wrestled with the high rate of coronavirus infections among the black community.
For setting the AP apart with a timely examination of black Americansâ mistrust of the medical field, Morrison, Reeves and Matthews win this weekâs Best of the States award.
On April 6 â the day when the COVID-19 death toll in New York City exceeded the toll of the Sept. 11 attacks â 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. âThe Fight for New Yorkâ 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 âThe Fight for New Yorkâ wins APâs Best of the Week award.
âNo.â
âNever.â
âNot possible.â
âCan't be done.â
Photographer Felipe Dana and video journalist Renata Brito were told in no uncertain terms that Spanish hospitals and their intensive care units in particular would not allow access to journalists reporting on the coronavirus pandemic. And in New York, the all-formats team of John Minchillo, Robert Bumsted and Jake Seiner was given largely the same answer when they tried to get into a funeral home to document the surge of victims literally piling up.
Neither team took no for an answer. Both teams produced haunting images and text documenting the stark reality wrought by the pandemic.
The tenacity, skill and bravery on display from both teams was the difference between getting the story out to the world and revealing the human cost of the crisis â or not. Itâs the latest example of AP journalists proving that âNo. Never. Not Possible,â does not apply to them. And it is why Dana, Brito, Minchillo, Bumsted and Seiner share APâs Best of the Week award.
California's Bay Area is full of extremes: poverty and wealth; homelessness and opulence; high-end industry and the service workers who support it. Those extremes matter when it comes to weathering the shutdown in response to the coronavirus.
Jocelyn Gecker and Olga Rodriguez set out to show how that divide plays out, telling the stories of Rebecca Biernat, a San Francisco attorney, and Sonia Bautista, a hotel worker, and their families. With photographer Jeff Chiu they developed an intimate portrait of the two families â what they have in common and the differences in how they are adjusting to the shutdown.
For doggedly seeking out the right subjects, overcoming distancing restrictions and expertly weaving together two tales to tell a deeper story about inequality amid turmoil, Gecker, Rodriguez and Chiu earn this weekâs Best of the States award.
With a powerful and evocative photo gallery, AP journalists in Italy captured the heroism of 16 Italian medical personnel on the front lines of the battle against the coronavirus pandemic.
Photo editor Alberto Pellaschiar proposed the idea, and hospitals â reassured by APâs reputation for professionalism â permitted photographers Antonio Calanni and Luca Bruno and chief photo editor Domenico Stinellis to make photos of the doctors and nurses during breaks or as they finished their shifts.
The intimate portraits conveyed the fatigue and determination of the men and women working round-the-clock to save lives. Chief correspondent Nicole Winfield studied the portraits and interviewed some of the subjects to put their struggle into words.
The impact was tremendous â the stark, understated images and accompanying story riveted audiences around the globe.
For conceiving and executing a brilliant series of images that captures in human terms the battle against the disease, Pellaschiar, Stinellis, Calanni, Bruno and Winfield win APâs Best of the Week.
On the edge of America, the U.S. Census started in a tiny Alaska town on the Bering Sea. Toksook Bay, population 661, is only reachable by plane, and isnât an easy place to live, much less report. The temperatures hover around zero, and daylight is scarce this time of year.
After months of planning, Alaska news editor Mark Thiessen and San Diego photographer Greg Bull spent four days in the remote community, getting rare access to day-to-day life and an interview with the person who would be the first counted, 90-year-old Lizzie Chimiugak.
And when the Census director finally arrived, delayed by bad weather that kept many other news organizations away, Thiessen and Bull were able to quickly file the spot news that Census 2020 had begun.
For overcoming myriad technical obstacles and very cold fingers to cover the news in a far-flung part of the country, while also providing a window into a world unlike any other place in the U.S., Thiessen and Bull win this weekâs Best of the States award.
When reporters Justin Pritchard and Reese Dunklin were asked to look into price gouging and profiteering off the coronavirus crisis, they sought to go deeper by employing a key part of their investigative reporting toolkit: a systematic reporting strategy.
The pair quickly executed a plan to question attorneys general in all 50 states, resulting in the most comprehensive look yet at the problem across the nation. In just two days of reporting, Pritchard and Dunklin uncovered more than 5,000 reports of everything from price gouging on toilet paper and masks, to scams offering tests and even cures for the illness.
Their brightly written story won strong play on a busy day of coronavirus news, hitting the wire hours before Attorney General William Barr announced new actions against such crimes.
For fast, aggressive work that tapped into a topic on the publicâs mind, AP recognizes Pritchard and Dunklin with this weekâs Best of the States award.
convinced David Nahmad, a publicity-shy billionaire art dealer who has accumulated over decades the worldâs largest private collection of works by Pablo Picasso, to throw open his luxury Monaco home for an exclusive and rare all-formats interview about why he is selling one of his paintings for charity. Nahmad had spoken briefly to a French radio station about raffling of âNature Morte,â painted by Picasso in 1921, but Leicester proposed that for international audiences, the billionaire should speak exclusively to AP, surrounded by some of his art collection, estimated to be worth $3 billion. The story managed to elbow its way into the news agenda dominated by virus coverage, rising to No. 8 on the list of most-viewed AP stories.https://bit.ly/3dcJoQihttps://bit.ly/2Uo8T8Zhttps://bit.ly/2WyX2Yp
New York-based health and science reporter Mike Stobbe and Rome video journalist Trisha Thomas delivered two very different exclusives that stood out amid the weekâs impressive range of AP coronavirus coverage.
Stobbe was the first to report that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wanted to tell a wide swath of Americans that they shouldnât get on commercial flights because of the virus. But the agency was overruled by the White House. Instead, federal officials settled on softer, less direct language. Realizing the significance, Stobbe pressed multiple sources until he had confirmation of the White House action.
Meanwhile, continents away, Rome visual journalist Trisha Thomas was visiting Padua when she learned the Italian city was about to be locked down. After making frantic arrangements to leave by train, she turned her personal odyssey into a cross-format package, producing a first-person essay and video story that gave a human face to Italyâs virus emergency.https://bit.ly/2TUgQCohttps://bit.ly/2W6dxL8
On Super Tuesday afternoon, APâs Stephen Ohlemacher and Emily Swanson were locked away in a conference room â isolated from their colleagues in the Washington bureau â reviewing incoming results from AP VoteCast. APâs survey â developed to be more accurate than traditional exit polling â was already revealing what was about to happen on the biggest night of the Democratic presidential primary campaign.
The VoteCast data revealed trends in absentee voting and shifting preferences as Democratic candidates dropped out of the race, giving AP the evidence it needed to call California for Bernie Sanders as the stateâs polls closed at 11:00 Eastern. News outlets relying on exit polls would not make that call for more than a week.
Meanwhile, Seth Borenstein was crunching the numbers on the all-important delegate count, a task that required days of painstaking analysis of incomplete data to reach this conclusion: Joe Biden won more delegates on Super Tuesday than did Sanders.
Like the Caliofornia race call, news of Bidenâs delegate victory rocketed around the world.
For completing in-depth, accurate analysis of election data on deadline, enabling AP to tell the complete story of Super Tuesday before all others, Swanson, Ohlemacher and Borenstein win APâs Best of the Week award.
Sometimes accountability stories are hiding in plain sight, but getting to them requires first recognizing the potential and then doing a whole lot of digging. Virginia reporter Sarah Rankin did both of those things.
After seeing a one-sentence mention in a legal trade publication, Rankin began the hunt for a deeper story about a continuance privilege granted to lawyer-legislators, and how one Virginia lawmaker used the privilege to consistently delay court hearings.
Rankin plowed through records of cases that involved Virginia lawmaker Jeff Campbell, the defense attorney for a one-time NASCAR race driver accused of domestic violence. She found that Campbell had employed the continuance privilege at least 30 times over three years, more than double any other lawyer-legislator.
For seizing on the brief mention, then following up with determined reporting that revealed a potential for abuse by lawyer-lawmakers in Virginia and elsewhere, Rankin wins the weekâs Best of the States award.
After its shocking Jan. 25 report on the locust swarms devastating agriculture in Kenya, APâs Nairobi team came through with another truly striking package on the worst locust outbreak that parts of East Africa have seen in 70 years. This time, Nairobi staffers Ben Curtis and Josphat Kasire obtained exclusive coverage of the next wave of young locusts now bulking up in Somaliaâs desert.
The story posed multiple challenges, not the least of which was the very real threat of al-Shabab extremists in the area. And the young insects were relentless. âIf you put anything down on the ground for a minute, youâd find a bunch of bugs crawling over it,â Curtis recounted.
Despite the obstacles, the team produced stunning images and vivid reporting from the source of the widespread outbreak, proof that the regionâs infestation was far from over.
For resourceful and determined work that resulted in an only-on-AP direct look at the ravages of a veritable Biblical plague of locusts, Kasire and Curtis win APâs Best of the Week award.
for advancing the story he broke a week earlier, now reporting exclusively on court filings claiming that work done for the areaâs Roman Catholic archdiocese by the NFLâs New Orleans Saints went beyond âminimalâ public relations work on sex abuse by clergy, and allegedly included helping to shape a list of credibly accused clergy that appears to be undercounted. Mustain also reported on a judgeâs ruling that the AP can move forward with its case to have documents between the Saints and the archdiocese made public. https://bit.ly/3718pK7
overcame a judgeâs strict rules for journalists covering Harvey Weinsteinâs trial â including a ban on electronic communication from the courtroom, limited seating and no remote access to trial proceedings â to deliver standout coverage of Harvey Weinsteinâs New York trial on charges of sexual abuse. APâs coverage got wide play and frequent citations by news organizations unable to get their own reporter into the room.https://bit.ly/36zXRBnhttps://bit.ly/2uF9f1Dhttps://bit.ly/2Uerk14https://bit.ly/2GyI3Er
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 NFLâs New Orleans Saints doing public relations damage control for the areaâs 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, Mustianâs sticktoitiveness and tough accountability reporting earns him this weekâs Best of the States award.
