Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Exceptional planning, execution of summit coverage yields big AP wins

collaborated on sweeping coverage of the Biden-Putin summit that outpaced all the competition.In advance of the summit, AP chased down all the moving parts, staying in touch with local officials and the U.S. mission, clarifying early on where the events would happen and establishing positions.Thanks to that preparation, the truly international video crew delivered outstanding live shots and features, including the summit venue at Parc de La Grange, security, arrivals and departures, reactions of residents and diplomats, protests and impressive shots of the city, among them a continuous live shot from the balcony of Geneva’s Ritz-Carlton from sunrise to sunset. AP offered more live signals and was faster than other outlets, offering more video edits and content than our main competitors.Meanwhile, text reporters from Washington and Moscow combined to put together smart enterprise and preview pieces, then quickly, deftly but firmly shifted to the main event, chronicling the day’s spot developments — a job that required throwing a few shoulders to get through the media scrum and past a Russian security guard for access to the opening photo op of the two leaders seated in a small study. AP managed to pose two questions to Putin that would dominate his post-summit news conference a few hours later: What would he do if Ukraine joined NATO? And why was he so afraid of opposition leader Alexei Navalny? At that, several members of Russian security pushed AP’s reporter from the room.The reporting team in Geneva, working closely with the Washington-based trip desk, filed a running stream of alerts and updates on spot developments, along with sidebars and takeaways on the upshot of the two leaders’ meeting.The photo team, drawing on Moscow, Washington and European staffers, was no less formidable. AP’s initial images of Putin and Biden together were the first to reach our clients, beating the opposition by almost two minutes. Remote photo editing in Washington ensured fast and seamless delivery of images, completing AP’s standout performance across all formats.https://aplink.news/89rhttps://aplink.video/vufhttps://aplink.video/u67

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP team finds first evidence of Belarus facilitating migrant wave

collaborated on an “Only on AP” package documenting Belarusian authorities’ involvement in a recent surge of immigration from Belarus into Lithuania. In the past two months more than 1,700 have crossed the border — 20 times the total for all of 2020.Lithuanian and European Union officials have accused Belarus of assisting the migration in retaliation over EU sanctions against the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko, but no evidence had been provided and no media outlets had been able to speak to the migrants themselves, who are held in heavily guarded, makeshift camps in Lithuania.The determined all-formats trio of Chernov, Dapkus and Kulbis, seeking to hear from the migrants themselves, drove from camp to camp, more than 600 kilometers (375 miles), eventually finding two smaller, remote camps where police allowed the journalists to speak with migrants. People confirmed they were paying to be taken to Europe via Belarus, and that Belarus had helped them get to Lithuania. AP was allowed inside one of the camps to briefly make photos and video of the migrants’ living conditions.With Karmanau reporting from Belarus and Isachakov in Moscow pulling all the reporting into a cohesive piece, the resulting all-formats exclusive revealed how migrants have once again been caught up in a game of political brinksmanship.https://aplink.news/fwdhttps://aplink.video/flk

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Iowa pair, first contacted by AP, deny involvement in Tibbetts’ death

was steadfast: Before publicly identifying two men suggested as suspects in the 2018 murder of Mollie Tibbetts, he needed to talk to them. The sentencing of another man convicted in the stabbing death of the University of Iowa student had been delayed after his defense attorneys offered up Gavin Jones and Dalton Hansen as possible suspects. Foley was appalled that Iowa media outlets were identifying the two men as suspects without trying to reach them for comment. Neither man had been contacted — by law enforcement, news media or anyone else — after they were named by the defense.That changed when Foley dug deep to unearth phone numbers buried in unrelated court documents. When reached, Hansen called the allegations crazy but confirmed his connection to Jones and said he knew the inmate who was implicating the pair in the case. Jones also eventually answered Foley’s call, but demanded to know how Foley got the number, started to swear at him and almost hung up. But Foley calmed the man, keeping him on the line long enough to maintain his innocence and assert he has alibis lined up to share with investigators whenever they reach out to him. “The cops haven’t talked to me. No one has talked to me. You are the first person that has called me,” he told Foley.Other outlets had stories about the judge’s expected ruling rejecting the defense arguments, but Foley was exclusive, leading with the comments of both men accused by defense lawyers.https://aplink.news/ubk

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: US leaves Bagram base; Afghans left in the dark

were quick to deliver an all-formats look — and an exclusive — from Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan after the U.S. departure from the base that served for nearly 20 years as the epicenter of America’s war to unseat the Taliban and hunt down al-Qaida.Media around the world were watching for the U.S. withdrawal from Bagram, but Gannon, AP’s Afghanistan/Pakistan news director with decades of hard-won experience in the region, broke news. First, she pressed for access to the base after the U.S. military's July 2 departure. Joined by Kabul-based video journalist Amin and photographer Gul, the trio were granted access on July 5 and arrived to provide a rare glimpse of what had been the largest U.S. military base in the country.But that access was only one element of the story. The new Afghan commander of Bagram was initially reluctant to share details about how he and his troops took control of the base. Gannon told him there had been rumors about looting, and with her persistent questioning, the commander finally shared the full story: U.S. troops left quietly, switched off the lights and never bothered to tell the Afghan military that they were gone. The gap of two hours between the U.S. departure and the arrival of the Afghan military at Bagram enabled looters to sneak into the once heavily guarded base.The story made a splash, with Gannon fielding interview requests from major news outlets to describe what she had seen and heard at Bagram. The Pentagon, facing criticism after Gannon’s story appeared, later said the Afghans had been informed two days in advance of the U.S. intention to leave, but that the precise hour was left secret for security reasons. The team’s all-formats reporting provided an early look at the post-U.S. era in Afghanistan, in a package that was stunning for its detail and news value.https://aplink.news/95ehttps://aplink.video/odbhttps://aplink.video/5bq

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Intimate all-formats package: Malawian women forgo prenatal care

reported in all formats over several months to tell the important story of women in Malawi going without prenatal care during the pandemic, undoing progress in improving maternal health in one of the world’s poorest nations.The freelance trio’s commitment earned them access to birthing rooms, nursing colleges, and, most challengingly, to camera-averse traditional (and officially illegal) midwives to create a visually powerful, character-driven package. The story was anchored by powerful detail — bus fare to the hospital is more expensive than medical care — and brought to life by intimate photos, including a mother and her newborn minutes after giving birth. In a country where hospitals are so bare that women are expected to bring their own razor blades for cutting their babies’ umbilical cords, the AP showed how deepening poverty brought on by the pandemic is further imperiling women’s lives.The tender, deeply reported package was initiated by photographer Chikondi, with text reporting by Gondwe and video by Jali, the team supported in all formats by AP staffers internationally.https://aplink.news/5ryhttps://aplink.video/8sh

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

15-month data collaboration yields exclusives on COVID in prisons

collaborated with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization focusing on criminal justice, for 15 months during the pandemic, tracking coronavirus in prisons in all 50 states.The reporters tracked virus sickness, death and vaccinations from every prison system and the federal government. Each week they entered the data into the system that editors refined into what became the definitive picture of COVID-19 and incarceration. They filed exclusives off the data along the way, detailing how 1 in 5 prisoners were sickened nationwide, thousands had died, how prisons and jails emptied out and then started to fill up again, and how the uniquely grueling conditions of prison — close quarters, poor health and hygiene, would make for a breeding ground like no other for the virus.The journalists reported how prisoners, despite being in an extremely high-risk environment, were often put lower on the vaccination list out of political fears over public perception. They also discovered how the prison systems were able to adapt to meet the moment in some cases, increasing transparency and letting prisoners go free without an increase in crime — only to draw the curtains closed once the virus abated. Every single story was an exclusive based on the team’s exhaustive data.https://aplink.news/vajhttps://aplink.news/404https://bit.ly/3dS34evhttps://aplink.news/pxuhttps://aplink.news/9p5https://aplink.news/7c5

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Resourceful reporting, legal challenge reveal FBI going for the gold

has been breaking news about buried treasure since 2018, when the FBI conducted a secretive dig in a remote area of Pennsylvania, aimed at recovering a legendary cache of stolen Civil War-era gold. The FBI has long refused to confirm it was searching for the fabled gold — while also insisting it didn’t find whatever it was hoping to dig up.Rubinkam knew the FBI needed a federal search warrant to gain access to the site, but every document in the case was sealed ... as if the case didn’t exist. With help from AP attorney Brian Barrett and a Philadelphia-based media lawyer, a judge lifted the sealing order, revealing a veritable gold mine of news and confirming Rubinkam’s previous reporting: that the feds were, indeed, looking for gold. Among the details in the FBI’s unsealed affidavit: A contractor’s sensitive instruments had detected a huge underground mass with the density of gold.What the unsealed case didn’t include was a document describing what the FBI actually found. Federal prosecutors assert no such document exists because the dig came up empty. But the treasure hunters who led the FBI to the site in the first place believe the evidence says otherwise. They are seeking FBI records of the dig.Rubinkam’s story was among the top 10 most-viewed stories on apnews.com last week. It appeared on newspapers' front pages and spurred follow-ups, including by The Washington Post.https://aplink.news/gcohttps://aplink.news/jyq

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Powerful photos anchor all-formats coverage of Florida condo collapse

delivered standout photo coverage of the Surfside, Florida, condo collapse, anchoring an impressive AP response in all formats.Lee was at home a few blocks away when the tragic, catastrophic story broke early Thursday morning. He quickly made his way to the scene to make some of the first images the world would see of the pancaked Champlain Towers South. His fast work on the ground also earned him a text byline, with customers and readers across the country waking up to a comprehensive AP story with his images. More AP journalists were soon on the scene digging into spot developments as well as the history of the building, churning out urgent series after urgent series and sensitively reporting the human toll, finding names and details of the missing to round out a well-received vignettes package. Early video also scored heavily with AP customers. Throughout the coverage, the photo team, led by Lavandier and South regional photo editor Mike Stewart, fought restricted access and had to innovate visually. Herbert first chartered a plane, then a helicopter, making handheld aerial photos with an 800mm lens from as much as two miles offshore as flight restrictions tightened. Then the team hit on the idea of using a boat. That allowed closer access but still required long lenses from a moving craft, with the photographers effectively timing their shots to coincide with the peaks and troughs of the waves to minimize movement. Competitors scrambled to emulate AP's strategy with their own vessels. AP wins on visuals included powerful photos by Sladky and Lavandier of people comforting each other, and three different AP photos rotating as the lead photo on Saturday’s New York Times home page — images showing the destruction, the rescue operation and the emotional toll. The Miami Herald praised AP’s visuals and has used much of the work, even as its own photographers produced strong content. The Herald and other members have shared some of their best images in AP’s photo report. In addition to AP’s photography, members have praised the all-formats coverage, including the “microstories” AP published practically in real time, showcasing good nuggets of information throughout the news cycles. Coverage of the collapse topped AP’s measures of readership and reader engagement for the month. https://apnews.com/hub/buildin...

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Overdose deaths for Black American soar during pandemic

teamed up to make AP first to report on how the pandemic exacerbated the spread of opioid addiction among Black Americans. Their story focused on St. Louis, bringing to light a new consequence of the coronavirus and racial injustice, major themes of the past year, showing that the pandemic accelerated a trend that was already in the works: The spread of opioid addiction from mostly rural, white communities to more urban, Black neighborhoods. The reporting placed this trend squarely in a history of drug addiction in America that has long discriminated against Black people, and described how even today, the best drug abuse treatment is more accessible to white people than to Black people. As one doctor put it, the soaring death rate from drug addiction has become a pressing civil rights issue. The story was sensitively told in text, photos and video, with poignant details, including one mother fearing her son’s overdose death for so long that she paid for his funeral in monthly installments. The care taken in telling this story was rewarded with AP’s second-highest reader engagement metrics of the day.https://aplink.news/ak7https://aplink.video/ce5https://aplink.photos/kgr

Best of the Week — First Winner

Years in the making, AP’s ‘AWOL Weapons’ investigation prompts immediate Pentagon reaction

Ten years ago, Kristin M. Hall noticed several cases in which U.S. troops stole military guns and sold them to the public. Hall, a military beat reporter at the time, then fired off the first of many Freedom of Information Act requests. The Army, however, refused to release any records and the story could easily have ended there, with Hall moving on to become a Nashville-based entertainment video journalist focused on country music. Yet, she kept at it.

Last week, Hall’s decade-long journey — and the work of a host of others on the global investigations, data and immersive storytelling teams — paid off in “AWOL Weapons,” a multilayered, visually rich project revealing that at least 1,900 military weapons — from handguns to rocket launchers — had been either lost or stolen during the 2010s, with some used in street violence in America.

Two days after publication, the Pentagon’s top general and the Army each said they would seek systematic fixes for the missing weapon problem, and through a spokesman, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called AP’s investigation “another example of the free press shining a light on the important subjects we need to get right.”

With deep reporting and a riveting digital presentation, the multistory package saw outstanding customer use and reader engagement.

For remarkable persistence that revealed a problem the military wanted to keep quiet, generating immediate prospects for reform, Hall receives special distinction alongside colleagues Justin Pritchard, James LaPorta, Justin Myers and Jeannie Ohm as winners of AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: WHO knew of sex misconduct by personnel in Congo

revealed that, contrary to World Health Organization claims, WHO senior management did know about at least two cases of doctors accused of sex abuse and misconduct during the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but did not fire or even apparently discipline them.Health and science reporter Cheng advanced the story by putting names, for the first time, to the implicated doctors and a senior manager. She discovered that WHO managers even witnessed an agreement in which a WHO doctor agreed to pay a young woman he had allegedly impregnated.While Cheng worked with her sources, Congo stringer Kudra Maliro tracked down several alleged victims of both doctors, adding text and images. The investigation was based on interviews with dozens of WHO staffers, Ebola officials in Congo, private emails, legal documents and recordings of internal meetings obtained by the AP.The story drew strong and immediate international response. Paula Donovan, co-director of a group that tracks sex abuse, wrote: “Never ... have I seen such a detailed exposé containing so many unanswerable indictments against so many UN personnel. You’ve broken real ground here.”https://aplink.news/f39https://aplink.video/pk5

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Longtime beat work lands all-formats interview with Tavis Smiley

scored the first multiformat interview with Travis Smiley since the firing of the former PBS host in a #MeToo scandal.Elber had reached out periodically in the three years since Smiley was fired. Her persistence — and beat work — finally paid off. A week before Juneteenth, Smiley contacted Elber, who had interviewed the host earlier in his career as he broke ground as an African American host. Smiley told the AP television writer he opted to speak to her first because of her fair treatment of him in the past, including after PBS fired him. Elber asked Smiley directly about the allegations of inappropriate relationships with female subordinates; he offered no apology, maintaining they were consensual relationships. Elber had pushed for the interview to be on camera, with still portraits shot by Chris Pizzello, which resulted in an all-formats scoop that landed on the wire less than 24 hours after the interview, because Smiley intended to also speak to the Los Angeles Times. The Times ended up quoting from the AP story in a column on whether Smiley and other men accused of misconduct should be allowed to return to public platforms.https://aplink.news/wkihttps://aplink.video/mtihttps://aplink.video/c96

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

As COVID spikes in Africa, AP reveals low vaccine rates

combined to illustrate the severe shortages of vaccines and low levels of vaccinations in poor African countries and elsewhere, just as a worrying new rise in infection levels has emerged and as the issue became a key topic for G-7 leaders gathering for a summit.Imray, AP’s Cape Town, South Africa, sports writer, reported that vaccine shipments to Africa have ground to a “near halt” and that the continent faces a vaccine shortfall of 700 million doses. The reporting used a broad range of sources, including an interview with the head of Africa’s CDC, and strong feeds from colleagues around the world. The story was complemented by a selection of images from AP’s photographic team across Africa.Video freelancer Onen, meanwhile, obtained rare access to a COVID-19 ICU at the Mulago Hospital in Kampala. As a condition of entry, Onen shared his footage as pool with local broadcasters who were desperate for coverage amid a sharp virus spike. Given only a few minutes on the wards, Onen did a skillful job in bringing out the tension and urgency of the situation, images that no other global media organization was able to obtain.https://aplink.news/xw1https://aplink.video/ei8

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Deep preparation and experience put AP ahead on Mladic verdict

teamed up to provide exceptional coverage in all formats of the final verdict for Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, in which U.N. judges rejected his appeals on charges of orchestrating genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, affirming his life sentence.Chief correspondent Corder worked closely with AP colleagues in the Balkans in the days leading up to the verdict to prepare for all the possible outcomes, preparing alerts and urgents for each, as well as for the possibility that victims’ groups could leak the verdict early. Knowing that the victims’ representatives are not always accurate, Corder held off on the alert until AP had the full verdict from the judges, and other major world media followed his lead.Photographer Dejong, who had covered Mladic’s appearances at the court over several years, patiently waited for the one moment during the long verdict when the ex-commander made a hand gesture — holding up his fingers as if clicking a shutter to mimic the photographers fixed on him. The image circled the world.AP had four different live shots up for a good part of the day on AP Direct and Live Choice, compared with a single courtroom feed that a major competitor accessed at the last minute. AP put out a video edit of the verdict 44 minutes ahead of the competition, and was much faster with reaction from the victims and their families in Sarajevo and Srebrenica, and from Serb veterans, comrades of Mladic and people in Belgrade.https://aplink.news/h1rhttps://aplink.video/ub0https://aplink.video/rz4https://aplink.video/gmx

Best of the Week — First Winner

Mother and child reunion is only a photo away; determined AP team is there to record it

On a midnight assignment at the U.S.-Mexico border in mid-May, the all-formats team of Greg Bull, Eugene Garcia and Adriana Gómez Licón reported on an 8-year-old Honduran migrant named Emely. Bull made a striking image as Emely stood alone and barefoot after crossing into Texas with strangers and turning herself into border agents.

Thanks to Bull’s photograph, just more than three weeks later another AP team — reporter Acacia Coronado, photographer Eric Gay and video journalist Angie Wang — were on hand when Emely hugged her mother for the first time in six years. The girl’s mother had seen Bull’s photo on television, setting her on a desperate mission to find Emely and setting in motion a determined AP effort to report on the reunion. 

The result was a vivid and emotional package with remarkably high reader engagement and outstanding customer use in all formats.

For spotlighting the stories that persist even when a nation’s attention to the U.S-Mexico border does not — and commitment and compassion in seeing it through — Coronado, Gay, Wang, Bull, Garcia and Gómez Licón earn AP’s Best of the Week award.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Daring AP team crosses front lines to report on Ethiopia’s Tigray rebels and war’s civilian victims

Since the conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia broke out seven months ago, news coverage has necessarily focused on those who fled the region. And AP journalists have delivered that coverage since November. But few journalists could reach areas under the control of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the party of Tigray’s now-fugitive leaders. Access was refused by the Ethiopian military. Until now.

AP’s Kampala, Uganda, correspondent Rodney Muhumuza and the Nairobi, Kenya-based team of Khaled Kazziha, Ben Curtis and Desmond Tiro made it through to the town of Hawzen with determination, teamwork and skill. 

Once there, and knowing the risks, the all-formats team limited themselves to less than an hour in the town, during which they reported exclusively on the TPLF fighters then occupying it. Hours after the journalists left, government troops shelled the town and recaptured it. The team later interviewed displaced victims of the conflict, including child amputees. The resulting multiformat story used the Hawzen as an example of the challenges facing Ethiopian authorities in the region. 

For smart, careful and courageous reporting to become the first outside journalists since the conflict started to interview fighters loyal to the TPLF, Muhumuza, Curtis, Kazziha and Tiro earn AP’s Best of the Week award.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Unique AP visual investigation reveals Myanmar's junta using bodies to terrorize civilians

The video was startling: As a motorcycle carrying three men speeds down a city street in Myanmar, a soldier traveling in the back of a pickup truck opens fire. A man falls to the ground, mortally wounded, while the other two run away. 

Investigative reporters Robin McDowell and Margie Mason found that the video was one of many seeming to show the military firing at civilians indiscriminately in the wake of February’s coup. They also noticed that security forces appear to go out of their way to mutilate and drag bodies in the street, seemingly to terrorize the populace. The pair teamed up with the Human Rights Center Investigations Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, applying cutting-edge image analysis to thousands of social media posts and images online to reveal how the junta in Myanmar was using the bodies as tools of terror, according to human rights activists. 

With important contributions by Southeast Asia news director Kiko Rosario, and video by Manuel Valdes, the piece received more than 53,000 views on AP platforms.

For finding a way to analyze visual data from one of the world’s most secretive countries and presenting it in a rich and compelling multiformat narrative, McDowell, Mason, Rosario and Valdes earn AP’s Best of the Week award.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP Exclusive: Investigative reporter obtains bodycam video of Ronald Greene’s deadly arrest

When Ronald Greene died in 2019, Louisiana State Police troopers initially blamed the Black man’s death on injuries from a crash at the end of a high-speed chase, then later said Greene became unresponsive in a struggle with troopers and died on his way to the hospital.

For the most part, that was all the public would know about the case, until AP’s Jim Mustian took up the story. Since he began reporting nine months ago, he’s broken a string of stories revealing there was more to the story. But Mustian always knew he needed to get his hands on one crucial piece of evidence: video.

This past week, Mustian did just that. In the most explosive break yet in the case, Mustian obtained body camera footage that showed Greene repeatedly apologizing and pleading for mercy as troopers jolted him with stun guns, put him in a choke hold, punched him and dragged him by his ankle shackles. The story led national newscasts and websites, and fronted newspapers across the country, with credit to AP’s reporting and the video, again and again.

This scoop was the work of one dogged investigative reporter who never stopped believing that the world should know what really happened to Ronald Greene. For that we honor Jim Mustian with AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

French spirit elegantly rendered in reopening of Monet’s gardens

were not alone in trying to find a way to capture the essence of France after more than six months of virus lockdown — AP’s Paris bureau pulled out all the stops to cover the reopening of museums, restaurants and other sites in a country famous for its “joie de vivre,” and other news organizations were looking to do the same. But multiformat journalist Leicester and photographer Mori outmaneuvered the competition by securing exclusive access two days beforehand to Monet’s gardens in Giverny where the gardeners were furiously weeding, sewing and planting to make the site picture-perfect for visitors. Leicester’s widely used video package complemented his elegantly written text piece. And Mori, drawing inspiration from Monet, delivered a knock-out package of images that verged on art, evoking the historic setting. The all-formats package played for days around the world, from New York to South Korea to Hong Kong. The piece even netted a rare byline for Mori and Leicester in The Guardian.https://aplink.news/pg6https://aplink.video/nghhttps://bit.ly/3hYlEUP

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reveals congressman chasing profits during pandemic

investigated the stock trading of U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski, adding the New Jersey Democrat to the members of Congress who have come under scrutiny for their trades during the COVID-19 era. Detailing an extensive trading history that one former ethics official described as mind-boggling, Washington reporter Slodysko peeled back the curtain on the congressman’s trading activity and his failure to disclose it to the public.Getting the story wasn’t easy. To report it, Slodysko used software to harvest data from a list of trades released by Malinowski’s office. That enabled him to analyze just how active Malinowski had been in the stock market since the pandemic hit. Combining that with other stock price data, Slodysko was able to state that Malinowski — who early in the pandemic had admonished those looking to capitalize on the health crisis — bought or sold as much as $1 million of stock in medical and tech companies that had a stake in the virus response.AP’s story broke new ground in an important area of accountability reporting in Washington, and was quickly picked up by other outlets, including The Washington Post, Politico and The Hill, among others. https://aplink.news/yq7