for being first with the news from a law enforcement source that New York’s attorney general had subpoenaed all eight of the state’s Roman Catholic dioceses in a new investigation into the handling of clergy sex abuse allegations. https://bit.ly/2NFkiQmhttps://bit.ly/2x9iTr3
for her story revealing new details about the 1959 killing of black teenager William Roy Prather, including that the Justice Department has now referred the case to the state authorities for potential further prosecution. Originally one white teenager pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received a six-month sentence while others allegedly involved were given probation or walked free. https://bit.ly/2C5L9AB
for breaking the news that the state Health and Human Services director was being charged with manslaughter in a death attributed to the Flint lead-water crisis. http://trib.in/2t0F2b2
for his report showing that several of the nation’s largest for-profit college chains are seeing huge drops in enrollment amid new regulation and government pressure. http://apne.ws/2d9Uo2Q
Within hours of the news that the man charged with killing Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts was a Mexican citizen believed to be in the United States illegally, Republican leaders from President Donald Trump to Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds injected the case into the political debate, blaming lax immigration policies for allowing the man into the community.
Amid such comments, Iowa City correspondent Ryan J. Foley got a tip from two longtime Republican Party sources: The suspect lived on land partly owned by Nicole Schlinger, one of the party’s most prolific national fundraisers, the sources said.
Foley was determined to discover whether that was true. He obtained property records showing Schlinger and her husband owned the farm trailer where Rivera had lived, and her husband was president of the farm. Foley then got confirmation from Schlinger, who had avoided his questions for days.
Further, Schlinger’s fundraising client list included anti-illegal-immigration hard-liners, including Reynolds, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and even the Stop Sanctuary Cities PAC.
The story was used extensively by Iowa newspapers and was a big online hit, with hundreds of postings and 40,000 Facebook interactions.
For scooping local and national competitors on a high-interest topic even as he reported on spot developments, Ryan Foley wins this week’s Best of the States award.
At a time when the very integrity of news is under attack in some corners, it is more important than ever that The Associated Press be a key champion of accuracy. This includes not only fighting back against false claims and false reporting, but sometimes simply waiting as we push for more specificity. New York City News Editor David Caruso did exactly that over the weekend, avoiding the missteps of other news organizations by pressing for details of a federal judge's emergency order temporarily staying part of President Donald Trump's travel ban for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim nations.
Caruso demanded, and got, a copy of U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly's order so the AP could be precise about reporting on its relatively narrow effects, even as other news outlets relied on tweets from advocates who made it seem more sweeping. Caruso’s careful, painstaking work is the Beat of the Week.
for reporting the news that former presidential candidate Gary Johnson is running for the U.S. Senate even before his campaign announcement. https://bit.ly/2MtXgMs
for scoring the first national interview with Montana’s incoming congressman, Republican Greg Gianforte, who had pleaded guilty to assaulting a reporter during the campaign. He called for civility in politics. http://bit.ly/2s1i3rB
Charlie Shebes had too much anxiety to sleep the night before the first day of his junior year at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, the Parkland, Florida, school where 17 people were shot to death in February.
But Charlie was willing to share his morning routine with AP thanks to the relationship video journalist Josh Replogle had cultivated with students, starting nearly six months earlier. Replogle and his Miami colleague, photographer Wilfredo Lee, were there as Shebes rubbed his eyes, hugged his mother goodbye and brooded in the car before he skateboarded to class.
The short but poignant photo essay, along with text and an accompanying video piece, had an emotional impact, and the package received prominent play in Florida outlets, as well as nationally and even on some websites overseas.
For developing a compelling package from the unique perspective of a student returning to the scene of one the country's worst school shootings, Josh Replogle and Wilfredo Lee win this week's Best of the States award.
Indiana political reporter Brian Slodysko knew Vice President Mike Pence’s older brother Greg, who for months had been eyeing a run for Congress, would soon announce that he was jumping into the race for his brother’s old seat.
Slodysko wanted to get the news out first and had been pushing Greg Pence’s advisers. But Slodysko became increasingly concerned the campaign would seek to bypass the media with an announcement directly to their supporters.
Looking for another way to get at the story, Slodysko found an IRS form submitted just days before to establish the Greg Pence for Congress political organization. Armed with that info, Slodysko was able to pull together a story, drawing not only on the IRS filing, but also his own in-depth research of the Pence family.
For finding a way to break a competitive story, Slodysko wins this week’s Best of the States prize.
Last November, more than 200 counties across America, scores of them in the upper Midwest, turned from blue to red on the electoral map. Why did voters in once-Democratic strongholds support Donald Trump?
An all-formats AP team of Claire Galofaro, Martha Irvine, David Goldman and Angeliki Kastanis set out to find the answer by focusing on one rural Wisconsin county and getting into the lives and mindset of its people. The result was a revealing package that earns the Beat of the Week.
for her APNewsBreak detailing how money intended to make sure fish was safe to eat following the BP oil spill instead went to things like iPads, cameras and now-missing fishing equipment. http://apne.ws/2dlSaAR
Des Moines News Editor Scott McFetridge was out on his daily run one morning when he discovered that a pedestrian bridge he often crossed was blocked off for reconstruction. He was mystified. Why did a fancy bridge that had been rehabilitated only recently need another overhaul?
The answer put him onto a fascinating story.
This Iowa bridge, and countless others far from the coasts, had to be raised because higher river levels expected from more rain caused by climate change might inundate them. New bridges and old bridges, major multi-lane spans and small rural ones, were in danger. And in not a few cases, this was happening in states where many in government question the validity of climate change.
For discovering something that was in plain sight but no one had noticed, McFetridge wins this week’s $300 Best of the States prize.
It’s a subject that has been largely ignored by the public and mainstream press in the U.S.: the plight of thousands of missing and murdered Native American women across the country.
Albuquerque reporter Mary Hudetz and national enterprise journalists Sharon Cohen and David Goldman teamed up to deliver an impressive all-formats package that illuminated these tragedies, engaging readers on one of the busiest news days in recent memory and earning praise from the industry.
For their efforts, Hudetz, Goldman and Cohen win this week’s Best of the States award.
for obtaining the most comprehensive state data so far to report that California marijuana and marijuana products are failing safety tests at a nearly 20 percent clip.https://bit.ly/2QPJYZ0https://bit.ly/2xDipcZ
Houston-based reporter Nomaan Merchant broke important news about the role of an influential American cardinal in an abuse scandal in his home diocese, just as the cardinal was meeting with Pope Francis to discuss reforms to address clergy abuse.
Merchant exclusively tracked down two accusers who allege a priest in the Houston archdiocese had abused them – and that church leaders, including Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, subsequently did little to nothing to keep him out of the ministry and away from children.
The allegations were significant on their own given the current abuse crisis roiling the Catholic church. But they were made even more newsworthy in that they implicated DiNardo just as he met with the pope to discuss the church’s handling of sex abuse cases. The accusers said they personally complained to DiNardo about the priest and believed they were brushed off.
Merchant's reporting made an immediate splash in Houston-area media and religion news sources. It was also the talk of the Vatican gathering in Rome.
For his efforts, Merchant wins this week's Best of States.
for an enterprise project that accurately anticipated a major change in the nation's school choice movement; two weeks later, it happened after President Donald Trump released his federal budget proposal. http://apne.ws/2rRCEzH http://bit.ly/2qyGYmi
for being the first to publish the entire text of the U.S.-Russian ceasefire deal for Syria. http://bit.ly/2cCcY66
Combine the capabilities of The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity, and this is what you can get: A two-part blockbuster that exposed the efforts of the opioid industry and allied groups to stymie limits on the use of its powerful drugs, and detailed how they spent more than $880 million on lobbying and political contributions over the past decade.
The genesis of the project was a conversation between Tom Verdin, editor of AP’s state government team, and Geoff Mulvihill, a member of that team. Mulvihill, based in Mount Laurel, N.J., has covered the opioid crisis sweeping the nation, and the two hit upon the idea of trying to determine the extent of the pharmaceutical industry’s exerting influence in state legislatures across the country.
for a joint investigation by the AP and USA TODAY Network that found accidental shootings involving young children often go unpunished, even when adults recklessly store loaded guns within easy reach. http://apne.ws/2rAJ9JO http://apne.ws/2qWZiGV http://apne.ws/2qX4ydz http://apne.ws/2qhlBpw