Best of the Week — First Winner

AP analysis: At least 19,000 in Iraq detained for terrorism, thousands sentenced to death

Prisons in Iraq held thousands of Islamic State group militants, but few outside the government knew exactly how many. Baghdad-based reporter Qassim Abdul-Zahra set out to find out – and he wasn’t going to take a rough estimate for an answer.

With Baghdad correspondent Susannah George and Mideast enterprise editor Lee Keath, Abdul-Zahara analyzed documents he obtained from a Justice Ministry official, finding that the government was holding at least 19,000 people accused of ISIS connections or other terror-related offenses and that more than 3,000 of them had been sentenced to death.

For intrepid source work and analysis to establish the facts around the imprisonment of thousands of Islamic State group militants in Iraq, Abdul-Zahra, George and Keath win Beat of the Week.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

In Mississippi, ‘Looking for America’ examines Black voting rights

looked at at the circumstances faced by Mississippi’s Black voters for the third installment of AP’s “Looking For America” road trip series.The highly evocative package was framed in the context of the “Mississippi Burning” murders of three civil rights activists in 1964 – and it found that too little has changed. The AP team saw the issue through the eyes of a now-elderly activist who was close to two of the murder victims more than 50 years ago. They reported that while poll taxes and tests on the state constitution may be gone, Black voters still face obstacles such as state-mandated ID laws and the disenfranchisement tens of thousands of former prisoners.The text, photos and video, with digital presentation by multimedia journalist Samantha Shotzbarger, perfectly captured the frustration that so many decades later, Black voters are still challenged by the state.The work was highlighted in a long entry in Politico’s Playbook, and attracted attention in the U.S. and internationally.https://bit.ly/31THAI1https://bit.ly/3jzaKCphttps://bit.ly/3oCX50E

Best of the States

AP reveals chronic problems, personal stories behind a deadly period in Mississippi prisons

The Associated Press began chronicling rising violence across Mississippi’s troubled prison system in late 2019, but after four deaths in four days it became clear that something bigger was going on.

Reporters Jeff Amy and Emily Wagster Pettus explored the history of underfunding and other problems in the state’s prison system. In addition to official documents describing understaffing, the pair obtained photos and video shot by a prisoner that showed the conditions inside the infamous penitentiary at Parchman. 

AP also published all-formats interviews with grieving mothers of prisoners killed, and reported on the state’s decision to house inmates at a private prison.

For bringing much-needed insight and context to a chaotic, evolving situation and giving voice to those affected by the deadly violence, Amy and Wagster Pettus receive this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

In Afghanistan, jailed Taliban await peace, their freedom​​

for negotiating rare, exclusive access to Afghanistan’s notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison, where she was able to interview Taliban prisoners without supervision by guards or prison officials. The prisoners see a peace deal being hammered out between the United States and the Taliban as their ticket to freedom. https://bit.ly/2T3bxlo

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Migrants risk sea crossing to Yemen; disembark in hell

for bringing to light, with dramatic words and images, the largely unseen story of Ethiopians trying to reach jobs in Saudi Arabia who instead are systematically imprisoned, tortured, raped and starved by traffickers in a remote village on Yemen’s coast. The team brought the victims to life by reaching the site and finding migrants who had escaped only hours earlier, their wounds still fresh; one man died of starvation just hours after the AP saw him.https://bit.ly/2oPBTKOhttps://bit.ly/34Ma5GPhttps://bit.ly/32nYtIr

Best of the States

The one that got away: Survivor of serial killer adds emotion, depth to execution coverage

Execution coverage often focuses on the condemned inmate or the manner of death. So, faced with covering his eighth execution – a Florida serial killer – Tallahassee correspondent Brendan Farrington told the extraordinary personal story of a victim who escaped and helped police find the man after he raped her decades ago. That woman had chosen to witness the man’s execution.

Farrington doggedly tracked down the woman, now a sheriff’s deputy, who finally agreed to an interview on the eve of the execution. Her compelling story resonated with readers everywhere.

For his persistence and sensitivity in telling a personal and emotional victim’s story in what could have been a rote story on a serial killer’s execution, Farrington wins this week’s Best of the States award.

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

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP investigation reveals torture in Yemen’s Houthi rebel prisons

AP investigative reporter Maggie Michael has done landmark reporting on Yemen’s civil war throughout the past year, revealing abuses by the Saudi-led coalition that controls much of the south of the country.

But there had been a major gap in the coverage for all media: putting the same scrutiny on the other side in the conflict, the Houthi rebels who control the north. The Houthis impose strict controls on reporters, and sources are afraid to talk, problems that have prevented journalists from reporting in-depth on abuses carried out by the Houthis during the 4-year-old civil war.

Michael found another way. She and Cairo photographer Nariman El-Mofty travelled to the coalition-controlled city of Marib, where they could meet freely with victims of the Houthis who had fled the rebels’ rule. There, former prisoners described horrifying tortures at the hands of the Houthis. Nariman’s riveting visuals encapsulated the suffering, including photos of a man recovering from horrific acid burns, draped in red bandages.

The reporting, supported partly by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, was a breakthrough, as it has been rare to see atrocities by Houthis so prominently featured. Rather than denying the story, a top Houthi figure called for an investigation into allegations of torture in the movement’s prisons.

For their investigation that exposed in raw, excruciating detail the scope of torture committed by the Houthis, Michael and El-Mofty share AP's Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Up to 4,000 inmates serving life in California to be eligible for parole

for reporting exclusively, based on deep sources, that up to 4,000 California prisoners serving life sentences for “third-strike” offenses will be made eligible for parole as part of efforts to reduce prison populations. https://bit.ly/2PDbVlP

Best of the Week — First Winner

Trafficked Myanmar ‘bride’ escapes Chinese captivity – but loses her son

The team – Todd Pitman, Esther Htusan and Jerry Harmer – had gone to Kachin state to report on the war between Kachin rebels and Myanmar’s army. Near the end of their trip, they decided to look into a story Htusan wanted to do on bride trafficking. The lead was vague and the team wasn’t sure where it would take them.

But then, at a refugee camp, they met Marip Lu. And they knew immediately this was a story that had to be told.

With major contribution by Beijing staffers Shanshan Wang, Yanan Wang, Han Guan Ng and Dake Kang, they tell the harrowing tale of a woman who was kidnapped, held in captivity, raped and then forced to make the choice between freedom and her child. This powerful story, reported and told with great sensitivity, earns Beat of the Week.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

F1 races in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia; AP raises human rights

continues to hold Formula One accountable for racing in countries where human rights are routinely trampled. While covering the exceptionally intense and challenging kickoff to the F1 racing season in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, Pugmire, AP’s Paris-based auto racing writer, held exclusive interviews with a released torture survivor and the 12-year-old son of a man on death row, and pressured Formula One heavyweights to advocate for human rights in both countries.Pugmire’s persistence led seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton to tell him, “You sure don’t make it easy for me.” To which Pugmire replied, “That’s because you’re the only one who doesn’t duck questions.” In the private conversation that followed, the two shared experiences of meeting released prisoners, and Hamilton complimented Pugmire on his commitment to the issue. Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP team delivers exclusive all-formats coverage of Somalia’s deadliest attack

It was the deadliest single attack in Somalia’s history, and one of the world’s worst in years.

When the massive blast occurred on Saturday, Oct. 14, Associated Press video journalist Mohamed Sheikh Nor was playing with his 10-month-old daughter at their home. He immediately knew it was not an average Mogadishu bombing.

He grabbed his wife and wailing daughter and, covered in dust, escaped unharmed. “Outside, we could see the explosion was close to us. It was just 70 steps away from our home.”

Recognizing the unprecedented force of the explosion in a city long targeted by the Islamic extremist rebels of al-Shabab, Sheikh Nor insisted to editors that the casualties would be well over 100. He and his AP colleagues hurried to the scene, where buildings had been mangled and overturned cars were ablaze. The all-formats team – comprising Sheikh Nor in video, AP photographer Farah Abdi Warsameh and AP text reporter Abdi Guled – delivered the first stunning images and stories of grief from the smoking scene. Their courageous, traumatic and heart-rending effort earns this week’s Beat of the Week.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP team captures plight of Rohingya, casts doubt on Myanmar government claims

It was a tide of humanity that just kept getting larger.

Driven from their homes by mass violence after a clash between insurgents and police, Rohingya Muslims from a borderland state in Buddhist-majority Myanmar streamed into neighboring Bangladesh where they faced homelessness, more potential violence and deeply uncertain futures.

Day after excruciating day, an AP team of journalists on both sides of the border painted a portrait of human misery and the hope that always lurks within it – and cast doubt on claims by Myanmar’s government that Rohingya villagers set fire to their own homes.

For their work to focus the world’s attention on the Rohingya’s exodus, Delhi staffers – photographer Bernat Armangue, correspondent Muneeza Naqvi and video journalist Al-emrun Garjon – and Myanmar correspondent Esther Htusan win this week’s Beat of the Week award.

Best of the Week — First Winner

'They kept us as slaves': AP Exclusive reveals abuse claims against church

"They kept us as slaves."

One man's tearful revelation to AP national investigative reporter Mitch Weiss helped unravel a horrible secret – the former congregant of the World of Faith Fellowship sect was among hundreds who'd been dispatched from the church's two Brazilian branches to the U.S., where many say they were forced to work for little or no pay and physically or verbally assaulted.

Dozens of former congregants told similar stories of abuse and exploitation in an exclusive AP multi-format story that earns Weiss, national investigative reporter Holbrook Mohr, and Peter Prengaman, news director in Rio de Janeiro, the Beat of the Week.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Interview yields a chilling exclusive on inmate deaths at a South Carolina prison

for landing an exclusive telephone interview with a South Carolina prison inmate who calmly confesses his role in the deaths of four fellow prisoners. https://apnews.com/f939c602fe9f40e3a33ebe78331a08e...

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: Video reveals brutality of knife attack in Ohio prison

for video obtained exclusively by the AP that revealed for the first time the extent of the injuries suffered by inmates in a 2017 stabbing attack by another prisoner and raised questions about how the bloody attack happened inside the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, one of Ohio’s most secure prisons. https://bit.ly/2ShlcVs

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Exclusive coverage of Haitian migrants ashore in Cuba

delivered exclusive all-formats coverage as a single dilapidated vessel that set out for the United States carrying 842 Haitians landed instead on the coast of central Cuba. The migrants, who had been abandoned at sea, appeared to be the largest group yet in a swelling exodus of people fleeing widespread gang violence and instability in Haiti.Video journalist Gonzalez and photographer Espinosa captured images that showed the distress and fatigue in the faces of the migrants, some of them women with small children and even a newborn baby. Producer Duran was instrumental in working with the Cuban authorities and medical team to get unrestricted access to the migrants while feeding information and interviews to Rodriguez, who crafted the text story in Havana.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Ukrainian medic gives AP exclusive bodycam video revealing the tragedy of Mariupol

A celebrated Ukrainian medic recorded her front-line work in Mariupol on a data card no bigger than a thumbnail, then arranged to get it to AP journalists in the besieged city before she was captured by Russian forces. AP then smuggled it out to the world inside a tampon.

The result was a remarkable all-formats package showing firsthand the horror of the war in the devastated Ukrainian port city, while drawing attention to the Russian treatment of prisoners as well as the number of prominent Ukrainians, like medic Yuliia Paievska, who have disappeared.

The piece was AP’s most-engaged and most-viewed story of the week on apnews.com, and drew enormous media attention.

For a riveting look at the tragedy in Mariupol, and shining a needed and compassionate light on the fate of a courageous medic, the team of Vasilisa Stepanenko, Lori Hinnant, Mstyslav Chernov, Alyssa Goodman and Serginho Roosblad shares AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Thorough checking of a claim pays off in coverage of Denver killing

for accepting an inmate’s call and reporting his remarkable claim with essential context: The prisoner, charged with killing a transit guard, claimed to be a supporter of the Islamic State group, but AP’s story, with reporting also by Jim Anderson, noted investigators had found no evidence the terror group had anything to do with the killing. http://apne.ws/2m56r4e

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP’s on-the-ground investigation in Ukraine uncovers Russia’s torture sites — and survivors

A trio of AP journalists had no idea exactly what they would find when they were directed to a monastery in recently liberated Izium, Ukraine.

There, correspondent Lori Hinnant, photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and video journalist Vasilisa Stepanenko found a former Ukrainian soldier in hiding, tortured three times by occupying Russian forces. His disturbing tale would supply the narrative for an exclusive investigation that uncovered 10 torture sites. The journalists gained access to five of them and spoke to more than a dozen torture survivors, and to two families whose loved ones had disappeared

The all-formats package, revealing arbitrary, widespread, routine torture of civilians and soldiers alike in Izium, immediately resonated, earning wide play and high readership.

For a gritty, deeply reported all-formats investigation that made an impact, exposing evidence of Russian war crimes and the human consequences, Hinnant, Stepanenko and Maloletka earn AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.