or being first to report that Flintâs water system is no longer exceeding the federal limit for lead, more than 15 months after the cityâs water crisis exploded. http://bit.ly/2jCDuMn
for discovering that a 2018 Supreme Court case had impeded the Justice Departmentâs ability to charge minors with supporting terrorist groups. Bleiberg was curious why an FBI investigation of a teen plotting an Islamic State-inspired shooting was prosecuted by local Texas officials. He and Balsamo exposed the loophole created by a SCOTUS ruling in a non-terrorism case that could prevent minors from facing federal charges for supporting international terrorism. https://bit.ly/2JlSqiw
delivered a 20-minute beat on the news that four former officers involved in the death of George Floyd were indicted on federal civil rights charges â an unusual move for the Justice Department because three of the officers havenât faced state trial yet.Balsamo had learned that the federal charges were imminent, and Forliti worked her sources to get the full story: off-the-record details about the still-sealed indictment that allowed her to write robust, fully-formed prep. She was even tipped off that the charges would drop early Friday morning.But when that didn't happen, a source quietly tipped Forliti to phone into a federal hearing happening live. The officers were appearing in federal court, with the charges still sealed. The AP pair â possibly the only reporters listening during the hearing â put out a fast cover story that the former cops were facing federal charges. Balsamo then went to his sources, asking them to send the indictment, because, while it hadnât been made public yet, he had heard the judge order it made public. AP soon had the indictment. He and Forliti filed alerts, writethrus loaded with context and a full story within 15 minutes. Forliti also filed a video brief on the charges. Meanwhile, no one matched their story for a full 20 minutes, and major national publications were 40 minutes or more behind the AP. Even the hometown Star Tribune used APâs story on its website.https://bit.ly/3tJ9YYqhttps://bit.ly/3w2BvFF
Statehouse reporters know to follow the money, that to hold government accountable we need to know where taxpayer money goes and how it is used. Nevada temporary legislative reporter Alison Noon did just that recently and helped bring about a promised change in policy that will make the workings of the state capital more transparent.
Noon first began reporting a story that rural health clinics offering family planning services to low-income women had slashed services and were turning women away for lack of funding after federal grant money dried up.
In the course of her reporting, Noon learned the programâs federal funding had been cut after a scathing federal review that showed widespread mismanagement and poor medical practices at the rural clinics. That highly critical federal report went unmentioned when the programâs administrator sought additional state funds during the legislative session.
Noon set out to learn why. She found Nevada did not require state administrators to share the results of such federal reviews with anyone â not the governor, not department heads, not state auditors. Her reporting led to a recently proposed requirement that such reviews be shared with Nevada auditors.
For her unmatched APNewsBreak, Noon wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
AP legal affairs reporter Michael Tarm witnessed 10 of the unprecedented 13 federal executions in the final months of the Trump administration, diligently taking notes on what he saw in the chamber, from the inmatesâ last words to their last breaths.
But weeks after the last execution in mid-January, something nagged at him: The executionerâs official account did not jibe with what he had observed during the execution. Tarm went back, looking through hundreds of filings and court transcripts. His reporting resulted in a stunning exclusive on how the executioners all used euphemisms like âsnoredâ and âfell asleepâ while Tarm and other witnesses saw inmatesâ stomachs dramatically shuddering and jerking in the minutes after lethal injections.
The sanitized accounts, Tarm realized, raised serious questions about whether officials misled courts to ensure the executions would be completed before Joe Biden, a death penalty foe, took office. His story — the latest exclusive in APâs coverage of the federal executions — received prominent play and reader engagement.
For backing up his own observations with rigorous reporting to hold the federal government accountable for its official accounts of the executions, Tarm earns this weekâs Best of the States award.
Based on a tip following APâs previous reporting on the Paycheck Protection Program, AP anticipated that the Roman Catholic Church might be one of the programâs biggest winners.
Investigative reporters Reese Dunklin and Michael Rezendes started digging, first showing how the church had successfully lobbied for special treatment under the program, then, when the federal data dropped, the full extent of the churchâs windfall. An analysis on deadline revealed $1.4 billion to $3.5 billion in forgivable loans, with many millions going to dioceses that paid huge settlements or sought bankruptcy because of sexual abuse claims.
The story had an immediate impact with strong play and engagement in digital, print and broadcast outlets.
For being both first and authoritative on this highly competitive story, and for holding a remarkably powerful institution accountable, Dunklin and Rezendes share this weekâs Best of the States award.
The passing reference in a draft statement on an unrelated topic would have been easy miss. But Billings, Montana, correspondent Matthew Brown instantly recognized its significance â the U.S. was planning to lift protections for gray wolves, an action that would reignite the emotional debate over the predatorsâ resurgence.
Brown was reporting on sage grouse when he came across the draft Interior Department press release. It mentioned remarks that Acting Secretary David Bernhardt planned to make the next day at a wildlife conference in Denver: Gray wolves had recovered across the Lower 48 states.
Brown recognized the implication of that one sentence, and teamed up with fellow environmental beat team writer John Flesher of Traverse City, Michigan, to begin a race against the clock. Brown and Flesher scrambled to break the news before Bernhardt took the stage the next morning at the closed-press wildlife conference. Finally a source confirmed: Protections for wolves were again in the agencyâs crosshairs.
The APNewsAlert moved at 8:45 a.m., a full 15 minutes before Bernhardt was scheduled to speak. Other news outlets were forced to follow in APâs wake, posting their own stories that relied on a statement put out by Interior.
For seizing on a stray reference and reporting it out into a significant APNewsBreak on wolves, Brown and Flesher win this weekâs Best of the States.
for reporting exclusively that a failed wind energy project off the coast of New Jersey had burned through $10.6 million in federal money before the U.S. Department of Energy cut off its funding: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2f22bca05âŠ
teamed up to break the news that three white men had been convicted of federal hate crimes in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man killed two years ago as he ran through a Brunswick, Georgia, neighborhood.With extensive prep in hand for each of the defendants, APmoved news alerts in rapid succession as the verdicts were read, beating local and national competition. Read more
for using public records to discover that U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's dormant congressional campaign committee sold a used RV to a Montana lawmaker who wants an Interior Department job. http://bit.ly/2xpG3Zo
for using the arrest and deportation of a prominent Irishman in Boston as a hook for a larger story on how the Trump administration is cracking down with increasing frequency on Europeans living illegally in the U.S. http://abcn.ws/2vDdSnW
revealed how the coronavirus is taking a bite out of the global drug trafficking â everything from severing key supply chains for Chinese precursor drugs to paralyzing the economies upon which drug sales rely. With detailed, on-the-record source work, they reported why drug cartels in Mexico and Colombia are being disrupted and how that is playing out in cities across the U.S., mostly in the form of tight supplies and prices that have risen to crisis-gouging levels. https://bit.ly/355KtWz
As the search for Alabama fugitives Casey White and Vicky White captured the attention of the world, Washington-based federal law enforcement reporter Mike Balsamo reached out, working his network of sources in the Justice Department and the U.S. Marshals Service for details.
Balsamo also connected with the U.S. marshal for the Northern District of Alabama, knowing he would be the person most likely to have the inside information that would enable AP to put together a clear timeline of a messy escape saga littered with gaps and confusing accounts.
That contact turned out to be pivotal after the pursuit came to a violent end in Indiana on May 9. The marshalâs exclusive account of the 11-day search, coupled with details Balsamo picked up from other sources, gave AP a story rich with previously unreported detail and context. It also made for an exceptionally easy-to-follow narrative. The resulting story played widely, from Alabama to Australia.
For using all his resources to distinguish APâs coverage on this extremely competitive story, Mike Balsamo is APâs Best of the Week â First Winner.
An AP Best of States mention in February about the hundreds of companies avoiding President Donald Trumpâs steel tariffs raised questions about Trumpâs $12 billion aid package to farmers hurt by the tariffs. What happened next shows how states can produce sharp, data-driven journalism â simply by calling on the data team for help.
AP filed Freedom of Information Act requests for U.S. Department of Agriculture data that was analyzed by Balint Szalai, a Hungarian investigative reporter embedded with APâs data team, and Washington data team intern Riin Aljas.
Among their findings: Many big farming operations were legally collecting far more than the supposed caps on aid.
Meanwhile, Minneapolis reporter Steve Karnowski spoke to longtime USDA critics and interviewed farmers who defended taking the big checks, saying they didnât even cover their losses under Trumpâs trade war.
The Only-on-AP story ran on dozens of sites, and because the data and analysis were released to AP members in advance, many chose to localize their stories.
For sophisticated data analysis and on-the-ground reporting that shed light on a key consequences of trade policy, Karnowski, Szalai and Aljas share this weekâs Best of the States award.
This weekâs 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 APâs Best of the Week award.
When Ronald Greene died in 2019, Louisiana State Police troopers initially blamed the Black manâs 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 APâs Jim Mustian took up the story. Since he began reporting nine months ago, heâs 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 APâs 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 APâs Best of the Week award.
AP reporters from three different teams broke distinctive, significant stories on the continuing drug overdose crisis in the U.S., which has been overshadowed this year by the coronavirus pandemic:
— A state-level report showing that overdose deaths are on pace to reach an all-time high this year, and that overdoses increased after the virus began spreading in the U.S.— An accountability story on President Donald Trumpâs handling of the opioid crisis, and how the issue has been overlooked in the presidential race.— A major scoop on a settlement between the federal government and Purdue Pharma, complete with details of criminal charges and the $8 billion settlement.
But the depth of coverage didnât end with the major news beats. All three stories put victims at the center of the reporting.
For revealing stories that broke news and provided a powerful reminder of an ongoing epidemic that has contributed to the deaths of more than 470,000 Americans, Mike Stobbe, Adrian Sainz, Farnoush Amiri, Geoff Mulvihill, Meghan Hoyer and Michael Balsamo win this weekâs Best of the States award.
reported exclusively on a string of racial slurs used by Louisiana State Police troopers, both in their official emails and spoken on the job, refuting the contention of the agencyâs superintendent that the use of such demeaning language was just âisolated.âMustian reviewed hundreds of police records and found at least a dozen instances over a three-year period in which employees forwarded racist emails or demeaned minority colleagues with racist nicknames. He also exclusively obtained documents of an accidental âpocket-dialâ of sorts in which a white trooper sent a voice mail to a Black trooper that blurted out his name and then a vile racist slur. The state police superintendent made an abrupt retirement announcement in the midst of Mustianâs reporting, which follows weeks of his coverage on the still-unexplained death of Ronald Greene, a Black motorist taken into custody last year following a police chase. Reeves faced criticism for his secretive handling of the case, including the refusal to release body-cam video that, according to those who have seen it, shows troopers beating, choking and dragging Greene. The case is now the subject of a federal civil rights investigation. Mustianâs story on the racial slurs received strong play, including on the front page of New Orleansâ Times-Picayune/Advocate. https://bit.ly/34VHCkp
exclusively obtained documents from a former Cambridge Analytica insider revealing what an election watchdog group claims was illegal coordination between Donald Trumpâs 2016 presidential campaign and a billionaire-funded pro-Trump super PAC. The cache of previously unreleased emails, presentations and slide decks was provided to the AP by Cambridge Analyticaâs first business development director, Brittany Kaiser. Burkeâs story detailed how Trumpâs 2016 campaign coordinated behind the scenes with the political action committee, and provided rich detail on how some key 2016 staffers are involved in the presidentâs current re-election campaign.In a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission, the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center says the now-defunct British data analytics firm violated election law by ignoring its own written policy, blurring the lines between work performed for Trumpâs 2016 campaign and the Make America Number 1 political action committee, largely funded by billionaire Robert Mercer. https://bit.ly/3dINJvqhttps://bit.ly/31tUnAy
led an effort to dig into the backgrounds of more than 120 people who were either arrested or emerged on social media after storming the U.S. Capitol, finding they were overwhelmingly made up of longtime Trump supporters, including Republican Party officials and donors and far-right militants.APâs fast-breaking team effort to review social media posts, voter registrations, court files and other public records was the most comprehensive look yet at those involved in the riot, giving lie to claims by right-wing pundits that the violence was perpetrated by left-wing antifa infiltrators. The detailed background work included calls, and in some cases even doorknocks, to nearly all whose names emerged from the Jan. 6 takeover.The AP found that many of the rioters were adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory as well as claims by Trump that the vote had been stolen. Several had openly threatened violence against Democrats and Republicans they considered insufficiently loyal to the president.The teamâs story, accompanied by AP photos taken inside the Capitol, scored huge play and was featured prominently on major websites. It stayed among the top stories on AP News for two straight days. https://bit.ly/2Kd7Tn1
