Best of the States

‘He's an inmate’: Anguish mounts over nursing home at center of virus

The Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, has emerged as the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. At least 35 coronavirus deaths have been linked to the facility, and more than half of those inside have tested positive, leaving the remaining residents in a sort of purgatory that has anguished their relatives.

Photographer Ted Warren has spent much of his time recently outside the long-term care center, documenting in heartrending photos how people have tried to communicate with mothers, fathers and loved ones through windows because visitors are no longer allowed inside. 

Warren found an ideal subject for conveying this desperation in the story of 86-year-old Chuck Sedlacek. With reporting by Gene Johnson, the pair delivered a package that detailed the isolation and anguish faced by the nursing home residents and their families – a feeling of helplessness many more are likely to experience as the disease spreads across the country.

For compelling work that conveys the frustration and despair of families coping with the coronavirus at a facility in the glare of the media spotlight, Warren and Johnson earn this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Focus on COVID-19 patients for testing treatments

spent weeks searching for patients to put faces on two clinical trials testing COVID-19 treatments: One was a coronavirus survivor who opted to donate her blood for research; the other was a doctor turned patient who decided to join a study testing an experimental biotech drug. The stories were part of AP’s ongoing effort to tell the behind-the-scenes stories of people affected by the pandemic.https://bit.ly/2JQKbcwhttps://bit.ly/2XlHOWQ

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP investigates ongoing outbreaks in US nursing homes

revealed that outbreaks of COVID-19 keep happening in nursing homes across the country despite federal lockdown orders imposed last month. The AP team found that the answer appears to lie in the insidious threat of asymptomatic staffers and other individuals who slip past screening measures, spreading the virus to entire nursing home populations. In addition, the coronavirus crisis has deepened a chronic industry staffing shortage, made protective gear scarce and led to actions by several states that force nursing homes to take recovering COVID-19 patients from overcrowded hospitals. The all-formats package included a dataset on nursing home inspection reports for members seeking to localize the story. https://bit.ly/2xWpTLQ

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Only on AP: Better that submariners ‘know nothing’ of virus

found an unconventional angle on the coronavirus, revealing that the crews aboard nuclear-armed submarines are almost certainly being kept in the dark about the extent of the coronavirus pandemic while at sea, deliberately shielded from morale-busting bad news. Leicester, reporting in text and video, tracked down and interviewed a former chief medical officer who had served aboard a French sub, as well the former commander of the French ballistic submarine fleet who told AP: “Since (a submariner) cannot do anything, better that he know nothing.” https://bit.ly/2waaXcyhttps://bit.ly/3dODoNV

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Exclusive reporting on federal prisons amid COVID-19 fears

have dominated reporting on the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the dysfunction inside. Their latest exclusive used rich sourcing to reveal how the system is struggling to manage the coronavirus in federal prisons. The pair heard from inmates who said there has been little guidance on what to do if they experience symptoms, and very little social distancing. Corrections officers described a lack of supplies inside prisons, and rules on protective gear that vary widely from prison to prison. Balsamo and Sisak highlighted scattershot policies that show zero uniformity despite growing fears over outbreaks of the virus. https://bit.ly/2R1aOiG

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Testing blunders slowed coronavirus response

created a detailed timeline and cohesive narrative to reveal just what went wrong with the coronavirus tests that led to the crippled U.S. response to the outbreak. The team traced the U.S. testing response since the first cases emerged in China, including the changing government directives about who could be tested and the daily totals for how many patients had been tested during the critical month of February. Other news organizations were days behind AP’s reporting. https://bit.ly/2UQZKWy

Best of the States

Surviving the coronavirus upheaval may depend on your paycheck – a tale of 2 families

California's Bay Area is full of extremes: poverty and wealth; homelessness and opulence; high-end industry and the service workers who support it. Those extremes matter when it comes to weathering the shutdown in response to the coronavirus.

 Jocelyn Gecker and Olga Rodriguez set out to show how that divide plays out, telling the stories of Rebecca Biernat, a San Francisco attorney, and Sonia Bautista, a hotel worker, and their families. With photographer Jeff Chiu they developed an intimate portrait of the two families – what they have in common and the differences in how they are adjusting to the shutdown.

 For doggedly seeking out the right subjects, overcoming distancing restrictions and expertly weaving together two tales to tell a deeper story about inequality amid turmoil, Gecker, Rodriguez and Chiu earn this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Telling the story of NYC’s virus-besieged emergency rooms

told the story of New York City’s besieged emergency rooms, where overwhelmed nurses, doctors and paramedics face warzone-like conditions. The reporting team mined sources developed over the years and others on social media to reveal caregivers contending with a flood of sick and dying patients, equipment shortages and the impossible task of deciding who lives and who dies. With hospitals closed to cameras, photo staffers, notably Mary Altaffer and John Minchillo, documented the story with shots of exhausted-looking health workers and paramedics coming and going from hospitals amid makeshift morgues and lines of anxious people waiting for tests.https://bit.ly/2w423guhttps://bit.ly/2R7dY4F

Best of the States

Fast, definitive work on US price gouging complaints amid coronavirus crisis

When reporters Justin Pritchard and Reese Dunklin were asked to look into price gouging and profiteering off the coronavirus crisis, they  sought to go deeper by employing a key part of their investigative reporting toolkit: a systematic reporting strategy.

The pair quickly executed a plan to question attorneys general in all 50 states, resulting in the most comprehensive look yet at the problem across the nation. In just two days of reporting, Pritchard and Dunklin uncovered more than 5,000 reports of everything from price gouging on toilet paper and masks, to scams offering tests and even cures for the illness. 

Their brightly written story won strong play on a busy day of coronavirus news, hitting the wire hours before Attorney General William Barr announced new actions against such crimes.

For fast, aggressive work that tapped into a topic on the public’s mind, AP recognizes Pritchard and Dunklin with this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP exclusive interview with world’s foremost collector of Picasso

convinced David Nahmad, a publicity-shy billionaire art dealer who has accumulated over decades the world’s largest private collection of works by Pablo Picasso, to throw open his luxury Monaco home for an exclusive and rare all-formats interview about why he is selling one of his paintings for charity. Nahmad had spoken briefly to a French radio station about raffling of “Nature Morte,” painted by Picasso in 1921, but Leicester proposed that for international audiences, the billionaire should speak exclusively to AP, surrounded by some of his art collection, estimated to be worth $3 billion. The story managed to elbow its way into the news agenda dominated by virus coverage, rising to No. 8 on the list of most-viewed AP stories.https://bit.ly/3dcJoQihttps://bit.ly/2Uo8T8Zhttps://bit.ly/2WyX2Yp

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Vatican envoy knew of offer to bribe abuse victim

for teaming up in a new investigation into the disgraced Legion of Christ religious order, revealing that the pope’s own envoy knew about a sex abuse settlement offer that is the subject of an obstruction of justice and extortion trial in Italy. AP scored the first-ever interview with the victim’s mother and obtained her wiretapped conversation with the Vatican cardinal running the Legion who was utterly unfazed that the order wanted to pay her son to lie to prosecutors and deny he had been abused.https://bit.ly/2TftYlihttps://bit.ly/2VpMJVI

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP exclusives stand out in COVID-19 coverage

New York-based health and science reporter Mike Stobbe and Rome video journalist Trisha Thomas delivered two very different exclusives that stood out amid the week’s impressive range of AP coronavirus coverage.

Stobbe was the first to report that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wanted to tell a wide swath of Americans that they shouldn’t get on commercial flights because of the virus. But the agency was overruled by the White House. Instead, federal officials settled on softer, less direct language. Realizing the significance, Stobbe pressed multiple sources until he had confirmation of the White House action.

Meanwhile, continents away, Rome visual journalist Trisha Thomas was visiting Padua when she learned the Italian city was about to be locked down. After making frantic arrangements to leave by train, she turned her personal odyssey into a cross-format package, producing a first-person essay and video story that gave a human face to Italy’s virus emergency.https://bit.ly/2TUgQCohttps://bit.ly/2W6dxL8

Best of the States

Tennessee team does double duty when tornadoes strike on Super Tuesday

When tornadoes tore through Middle Tennessee in the early-morning hours of Super Tuesday, AP’s staff deftly pivoted from preparing for the state’s primary to covering a natural disaster. 

From first light on Tuesday and throughout the day, Nashville and Memphis staffers delivered compelling all-formats coverage of the devastation that left at least 24 dead statewide. The team also connected the disaster to the primary, monitoring the impact on voting.

Strong aftermath coverage followed, including a presidential visit on Friday and well-received pieces on recovery efforts and a worship service at a damaged church. With out-of-state staffers and the entire South Desk contributing to the coverage, the sustained effort showed the AP at its best.

For proving nimble, responsive and collaborative coverage on a major breaking news story under chaotic conditions, the multiformat Tennessee team of Travis Loller, Kristin Hall, Kimberlee Kruesi, Mark Humphrey, Jonathan Mattise, Adrian Sainz and Teresa Walker shares this week’s Best of the States award. 

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP Decision Desk caps stellar Super Tuesday with instant call: California for Sanders

On Super Tuesday afternoon, AP’s Stephen Ohlemacher and Emily Swanson were locked away in a conference room – isolated from their colleagues in the Washington bureau – reviewing incoming results from AP VoteCast. AP’s survey – developed to be more accurate than traditional exit polling – was already revealing what was about to happen on the biggest night of the Democratic presidential primary campaign.

The VoteCast data revealed trends in absentee voting and shifting preferences as Democratic candidates dropped out of the race, giving AP the evidence it needed to call California for Bernie Sanders as the state’s polls closed at 11:00 Eastern. News outlets relying on exit polls would not make that call for more than a week. 

Meanwhile, Seth Borenstein was crunching the numbers on the all-important delegate count, a task that required days of painstaking analysis of incomplete data to reach this conclusion: Joe Biden won more delegates on Super Tuesday than did Sanders.

Like the Caliofornia race call, news of Biden’s delegate victory rocketed around the world. 

For completing in-depth, accurate analysis of election data on deadline, enabling AP to tell the complete story of Super Tuesday before all others, Swanson, Ohlemacher and Borenstein win AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Exploring hoop dreams and faith at Yeshiva University

spent hundreds of hours with the Yeshiva University basketball team as AP’s religion team looked at how Yeshiva navigates the world of college athletics while facing misperceptions of who they are as Jews – and even outright anti-Semitism, sometimes on the court. The New York-based trio delivered a deeply reported all-formats package as the Maccabees went on a historic run and won their conference championship. AP was there for the games, but also for classes, meals, family time, dorm time and a wedding. The relationship and trust built with the team became even more valuable as the team endures a new challenge: A Yeshiva student, not on the team, tested positive for the coronavirus, causing the team to be banned from a Baltimore hotel.https://bit.ly/2TMEulBhttps://bit.ly/3aOhckThttps://bit.ly/2U1DcSzhttps://bit.ly/3cVdIio

Best of the States

AP looks at race in Baltimore through the lens of ‘squeegee kids’

Reporter Regina Garcia Cano took what could have been a dense, pro forma story on complaints about Baltimore’s “squeegee kids” and turned it into a layered piece about inequality in post-Freddie Gray Baltimore. The timing was perfect, as a way for AP to mark the end of 2020’s Black History Month. 

She reviewed figures related to reports on the practice and found one squeegee kid in particular who was willing to open up about the daily grind of dashing into intersections to wash windshields, and how it helped him support his family. 

For her keen eye, and a deft hand, on a complicated topic that would have most likely gone overlooked, Garcia Cano wins this week’s Best of the States award.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP’s tour de force coverage of Weinstein verdict sweeps all formats

Coverage by an Associated Press team dominated the closely watched Harvey Weinstein verdict, delivering wins in all formats with speed, depth and exclusivity. Superior planning and preparation, and outstanding coordination on the day of the verdict, gave AP the edge.

Highlights included the breaking news story moving on the wire within a minute of the verdict, exclusive video of Weinstein leaving the courthouse by ambulance, and an enterprising behind-the-scenes photo essay on the women journalists covering the trial that earned remarkable play.

For quick, comprehensive and distinctive coverage that kept the AP ahead on one of the biggest trials of the year so far, Mary Altaffer, Michael R. Sisak, Tom Hays, David Martin, Ted Shaffrey, Robert Bumsted, John Minchillo, Craig Ruttle and Sophie Rosenbaum win AP’s Best of the Week award.

 

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: How Bloomberg’s largesse built his campaign

revealed how Michael Bloomberg built a foundation of political goodwill across the U.S. for his 2020 campaign with years of political and charitable giving. The AP team compiled data on Bloomberg’s contributions over the last six years, then cross-referenced that with the names of politicians and activists who had endorsed him to create a comprehensive look, including a localizable data distribution and graphic elements. https://bit.ly/2PR1ZHF

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: IOC member says 3 months to decide on Tokyo Olympics

landed an exclusive interview with Dick Pound, the senior member of the International Olympic Committee, changed the conversation around the Tokyo Olympics. After organizers had been saying for months that the Games would not be affected by the coronavirus, Pound spoke frankly about the risks facing the Olympics, estimating there is a three-month window to decide the fate of the Tokyo Games, which open July 24. The comments were picked up and analyzed by thousands of outlets, all of whom had to credit AP. https://bit.ly/2wwaQrs

Best of the States

Be Prepared: Source work, planning deliver top coverage of Scouts’ bankruptcy

David Crary heard from his legal sources that something big was coming for the Boy Scouts of America, which has been besieged by sexual abuse lawsuits: a bankruptcy filing.

Weeks before the paperwork was filed, Crary, who has been covering the organization for 20 years, set into motion plans to ensure the AP was well-covered. When the Scouts’ filing finally came out late on a holiday, his sharply written prep had the story on the wire within minutes, explaining the gravity of the filing and the reasons behind it.

AP journalists around the country pitched in, including Brady McCombs who gathered reaction from Scouts and local councils, spinning it into an engaging follow-up, and correspondent Randall Chase who attended the Scouts’ first bankruptcy hearing in a Delaware court. Their efforts were rewarded with outstanding play.

For their careful planning and flawless execution of coverage of the Scouts’ bankruptcy filing, Crary, McCombs and Chase win this week’s Best of the States award.