Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: As imperiled species recover, some pose threat to others

reported exclusively and in all formats on a little-noticed ripple effect of saving endangerd wildlife: Some formerly imperiled species such as bald eagles, gray seals and merlin falcons are harming the recovery of others in dire shape by outcompeting them for food and living space.Studying scientific papers, interviewing experts and reporting from field — where researchers were using a robotic owl — the journalists found the pattern was showing up repeatedly. It didn’t mean conservation laws and programs were flawed, biologists said, but it showed that rescuing individual species wasn’t always enough — ecosystems need protection as well.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)

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

AP story resonates globally: New Hampshire hermit loses home, finds himself back on the grid

The vividly told AP story of an 81-year-old man’s quest to remain in an isolated New Hampshire cabin hooked readers around the world, led to an outpouring of support and eventually prompted the man to reconsider his hermit lifestyle.

Reporter Kathy McCormack had begun by looking into a legal fight involving David Lidstone, a spritely man known locally as “River Dave.” He’d been living peacefully in a makeshift home for 27 years when the property owner moved to evict him. Lidstone refused to leave and was jailed in July; while he was in jail, his cabin burned to the ground.

McCormack’s reporting turned Lidstone’s difficulties into a powerful story, fleshing out the details of his life and the local efforts to help him stay put. The piece was an immediate hit, ultimately capturing more than a half million pageviews on AP News, making it the site’s most popular story of the week. McCormack and colleagues followed up with subsequent developments, including the groundswell of international attention Lidstone received and his move away from the reclusive life.

For bringing this engaging story to life and her persistence in following it through, McCormack wins AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP tells stories of loss amid Haiti’s intensifying violence

have delivered a steady stream of all-formats coverage amid Haiti’s escalating violence as gangs consolidate power in the country’s capital. Despite daily kidnappings and the widespread violence, AP’s reporting continues at great personal risk. This enterprising story focuses on survivors who lost loved ones and their homes as the gangs fight each other, seizing territory in Port-au-Prince.The team on the ground reported the harrowing stories of families taking shelter in squalid conditions — many of the people initially reluctant to talk for fear of being killed — and visited one neighborhood at the center of the most recent gang war to show charred homes — some still containing the remains of people who did not escape.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Expanding Gulf Coast gas exports raise residents’ concerns

led an AP team producing a visually rich, deeply reported package examining a vast expansion of natural gas facilities in coastal Southwest Louisiana that is escalating greenhouse gas emissions, raising global temperatures, fueling extreme weather and imperiling communities.Reporting from coastal Southwest Louisiana, energy reporter Bussewitz and national multiformat journalist Irvine captured the lives of families hurt by extreme weather linked to a build-out of liquefied natural gas export terminals. But the two went further: They depicted an urgent concern: Where once it looked as if the nation might soon shift away from fossil fuel industries, a reversal has occurred. The U.S. has become the world’s largest exporter of LNG, with worrisome consequences for Gulf Coast residents and the planet’s climate.A few news organizations, mostly local or niche environmental publications, have reported previously on this issue, but none have had the depth and range of AP's package, with its data, visuals and reporting on human impact.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP Exclusive: Unserved 1955 arrest warrant discovered for woman at center of Emmett Till case

“And I do not say this lightly: Holy shit.” That, from producer and Black List founder Franklin Leonard, sums up the collective reaction to the scoop by AP’s Jay Reeves and Emily Wagster Pettus: Searchers in Mississippi had discovered the nearly 70-year-old unserved warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman whose unproven accusation against Emmett Till led to the Black teenager’s lynching, a horror that galvanized the civil rights movement.

Reeves had reported previously that relatives and activists were still seeking the long-lost warrant, and years of source work paid off with a tip: The document had been found in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse. He confirmed it and teamed up with Wagster Pettus, contacting law enforcement officials and legal experts on what the discovery means to the case, which had been considered closed.

The resulting story made waves, scoring heavy play with customers and on AP platforms.For breaking news on one of the country’s most notorious civil rights cases, Reeves and Wagster Pettus share this week’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: FBI investigating abuse by New Orleans clergy

reported exclusively that the FBI has opened a sweeping probe into sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans, marking a rare federal foray into such a case, looking specifically at whether priests took children across state lines to molest them.Mustian’s scoop, based on law enforcement authorities and others familiar with the probe, marked a major shift in strategy for federal authorities, who have rarely opened investigations into the Catholic clergy abuse scandals, particularly cases built around the Mann Act, a century-old, anti-sex trafficking law that prohibits taking anyone across state lines for illicit sex.Mustian’s detailed reporting found that many of the cases the FBI is probing in New Orleans allege abuse by clergy during out-of-state trips, including to Mississippi camps or amusement parks in Texas and Florida.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Resourceful teamwork across borders on Oslo mass shooting

teamed up to provide fast and effective coverage of a June 25 mass shooting during an LGBTQ Pride festival in Oslo, Norway, that left two people dead and more than 20 wounded.When the news broke in the middle of the night that a gunman had opened fire in the Norwegian capital, quick decision-making, a rapid response and even a bit of luck enabled AP to produce a fast, comprehensive all-formats report that was widely used by clients worldwide.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Rare access to barrier islands reveals loss of pelican habitat

reported from the ground, the water and from the air to document the impact of climate change and land loss on the vanishing island breeding grounds of Louisiana’s brown pelicans, as well as the people and other wildlife that depend on this coastal ecosystem.After obtaining permission to visit the off-limits barrier islands, the all-formats trio revealed in words and striking visuals the effects of erosion and sea level rise on the coastal habitat and Louisiana’s saltwater marshes, and what remains to be lost: Louisiana’s state bird, the brown pelican, brought back over decades from the edge of extinction.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP shocks world with first word of death of ‘Black Panther’ star Chadwick Boseman

AP entertainment video manager Ryan Pearson had interviewed Chadwick Boseman eight times since 2013. He knew the actor and his work well, and he’d worked closely with the actor’s publicist and her company. 

That’s why the publicist’s first media call after Boseman’s death was to Pearson and the AP – she wanted the story reported by a responsible news organization. Another outlet, she worried, was getting close. 

Pearson immediately alerted colleagues and set out to write an obituary that shocked the world. The AP staff in turn responded with comprehensive all-formats coverage, the story quickly becoming the biggest of the month on AP News and mobile.

For source and beat development that led to a tip on perhaps the biggest entertainment story of the year, and delivered a stream of important work for AP’s customers and audience, Pearson wins AP’s Best of the Week.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Revealing look at Canada’s troubled euthanasia system

reported extensively on Canada’s euthanasia laws, which are some of the world’s most permissive and have spurred criticism from the United Nations and even the pope. AP medical writer Cheng noticed a pattern after several troubling incidents in the country; she found Canada has fewer safeguards in place than many other countries. Terminal illness is not a requirement for euthanasia, and treatment of the disabled is a particular outlier.The piece includes families’ experiences: Detroit-based video journalist Householder crossed the border to Ontario, telling the story of a woman who was shocked that her father was accorded euthanasia within days of a fall, and Cheng reported on a man whose application for euthanasia listed just one condition: hearing loss.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: US ‘red flag’ laws little-used despite gun violence surge

used exhaustive data gathering and analysis, as well as interviews with experts and authorities across the country, to produce an exclusive, first-ever count that shows U.S. states barely using the much-touted “red flag” laws that give them the power to take guns away from people who threaten to kill. The trend is traced to lack of awareness of the laws and outright resistance by some police to enforce them, even as shootings and gun deaths soar.Condon’s deeply reported story adds data and clarity to the debate over red flag laws, which are promoted as the most powerful tools available to prevent gun violence before it happens. But as the piece shows, such laws are only useful if they are actually enforced.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Heartbreaking photos give rare personal look at fentanyl's toll on homeless people

When photographer Jae C. Hong returned to Los Angeles after a year in Japan, he was struck by how the number of homeless people had vastly multiplied. It was immediately before the pandemic -- and Hong, like so many reporters in the AP, spent much of the next year chronicling the impact of coronavirus.

Earlier this year, he was able to get back to the project he’d yearned to pursue and started chronicling homeless Angelenos between other assignments. One night, he encountered two police officers standing over a dead body -- and his project, spotlighting the lives, and sometimes the deaths, of fentanyl addicts, began to take shape.

Hong spent about six months documenting the humanitarian disaster. What he produced were gut-wrenching photos that gave a rare, intensely personal and brutally honest look into the tragedy unfolding on the streets of LA, an unconscionable scene often overlooked. AP writer Brian Melley, using Hong's reporting and experiences, crafted a story of equally vivid imagery that portrayed the raw human suffering with sensitivity to complete the package. The package was widely used and kept readers’ attention. The engagement score on AP News was a perfect 100 and Facebook featured it on its news feed.

For focusing on a problem that is too often unseen and producing a raw, compelling visual package, this week’s first Best of the Week is awarded to Los Angeles photojournalist Jae C. Hong.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP captures a dramatic Eurovision — and an emotional sendoff

capped AP’s spotless coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest in Turin with an exclusive the morning after the contest as the winning band, Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra, bid a tearful goodbye to Italy, returning to Ukraine to fight for their homeland.With contributions by reporters in Ukraine, the AP team delivered outstanding Eurovision coverage from Day One, but it was the exclusive day-after coverage that truly set AP apart from the competition, capturing images of the emotional scene outside the band’s hotel, the band members saying goodbyes to loved ones staying in Italy as the men return to war-ravaged Ukraine.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Stories of lives lost, told with photos: 2 remarkable projects share Best of the Week

As the COVID-19 pandemic raged across the world last week, and the confirmed U.S. death toll approached 100,000, AP photographers on two continents found unusual and meaningful ways to bring home the tragedy of lives lost. They were:

– Photographer David Goldman, who met with the families of COVID-19 victims at a Massachusetts soldiers’ home, literally projecting veterans’ images onto the exterior of the families’ homes for a series of arresting, ghostly and emotion-laden scenes.

– And Rodrigo Abd, who spent weeks with Venezuelan migrants collecting bodies in a poor area of Lima, Peru, showing the abject desperation of that city’s victims. Also honored is Lima reporter Franklin Briceño who accompanied Abd, documenting for text and video the funeral home workers on their grueling rounds.

Both projects had immense impact online and in print, drawing praise from readers and editors. For intrepid and creative multiformat storytelling emphasized by unforgettable images, Goldman, Abd and Briceño share AP’s Best of the Week honors. 

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Through the eyes of children: The pandemic and beyond

collaborated on a multinational project, talking to kids about living with the coronavirus and asking them to use art to show what they believe the future might hold. Some sketched or painted, while others sang, danced ballet or built with LEGOs. A few just wanted to talk. The video interviews, story and photos, along with the kids’ art and a masterful presentation on AP News – brought their stories to the world in an intimate, engaging package.https://bit.ly/3cBzRAMhttps://bit.ly/2A4kOCr

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP Exclusive: Portland protests – the view from both sides of the fence

This week’s Best of the Week celebrates the team of AP journalists whose extensive coverage of the Portland protests culminated in an exclusive all-formats look at the conflict from the perspective of both demonstrators and federal officers.

With reporting and visuals from inside the federal courthouse that no other news organization could match, and consistently strong coverage from the crowd massed outside the building, the AP team documented the drama and chaos, as well as the human stories amid the nightly volley of fireworks and tear gas canisters.

The defining feature that moved Sunday night was the most clicked/engaged AP story for much of Monday, sparking discussion and widely cited for its comprehensive, fair reporting.

For balanced and insightful coverage from both sides of the Portland divide, setting AP apart on a highly charged story, the team of Gillian Flaccus, Mike Balsamo, Aron Ranen, Marcio Sanchez, Noah Berger, Sara Cline and Krysta Fauria wins AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Pandemic threatens decades of progress against poverty

tells with sensitivity the story of struggling Ethiopians, including an impoverished single mother, illustrating how decades of global progress against extreme poverty are in danger of slipping away because of the COVID-19 pandemic. With photographer Mulugeta Ayene, Meseret reports on a mother and daughter in Ethiopia – the mother’s hopes for her daughter representing the slow emergence of country’s middle class – and how those hopes are crumbling amid the pandemic.Meseret and colleague Cara Anna weave in World Bank data, putting the story into global context. The world could see its first increase in extreme poverty in 22 years, with up to 100 million more people worldwide falling into the bitter existence of living on just $1.90 a day, further sharpening social inequities. https://bit.ly/2Q29afI

Best of the Week — First Winner

Dual honorees: Stunning coverage of Belarus protests, and a Ganges River odyssey

This week two distinctly different bodies of work share AP’s weekly honors for their outstanding coverage:

An all-formats team in Minsk, Belarus, facing constant police intimidation, continued to provide extensive coverage of mass protests over the nation’s disputed presidential election. That work included exclusive video of a bloody protester falling to the ground dead in front of heavily armed police, footage that forced the government to reverse its narrative of the incident.

And in work of a different dimension entirely, New Delhi photographer Altaf Qadri spent many months documenting life along the 1,700-mile River Ganges, considered sacred by almost 1 billion Hindus in India. 

Starting with a treacherous two-day hike to the foot of the Himalayas – the remote source of the Ganges – and ending in the fast disappearing mangrove forests of the Sundarbans, Qadri captured a breathtaking range along his odyssey: celebration and death, solitude and fellowship, daily life and holy rites. 

For extraordinary work in enterprise and spot news journalism, Altaf Qadri and the Belarus team of Mstyslav Chernov, Sergei Grits, Yuras Karmanau, Dimitri Kozlov and Dmitri Lovetsky share AP’s Best of the Week award.