for obtaining a 2,000-plus page forensic study commissioned by Pope Francis of the legal case against Argentinaâs most notorious convicted predator priest that concluded he was innocent, that his victims were lying and that the case never should have gone to trial. https://bit.ly/2xJNGen
followed up on their initial reporting that exposed widespread labor abuse in the palm oil industry, conducting a comprehensive investigation into the brutal treatment of women in the production of the omnipresent ingredient, including rapes by plantation supervisors, serious health issues from toxic chemicals and injuries from back-breaking loads. The pair then traced the oil produced by these women to the supply chains of top Western beauty brands â including conglomerates that make billions of dollars as they market the empowerment of women.Mason and McDowell persuaded dozens of female workers to tell their searing stories, spending months getting the women to trust them and then arranging clandestine meetings in an effort to protect the workers from retaliation by plantation owners. They bypassed the stonewalling of major Western brands that refused to say whether their products contain palm oil by using company data and U.S. Customs records to link the workersâ abuse to the brandsâ palm oil supply chains.The package featured striking digital display, video and evocative photos by Indonesia-based stringer Binsar Bakkara, as well as a powerful series of closeups of workersâ hands cradling familiar products containing the fruits of their labor.The story is nearing 250,000 page views on AP News. The Clorox Company, which owns Burtâs Bees Inc., said it would raise the allegations of abuses with its suppliers, calling APâs findings âincredibly disturbing.â https://bit.ly/3liKAV3https://bit.ly/2VeVUXRhttps://bit.ly/3mlXgfd
Christopher Sherman, newsperson, Mexico City; Arnulfo Franco, photographer, Panama City, and Gerardo Carrillo, videojournalist, Mexico City, for detailing abuses by Nicaraguan security forces against protesters, including a young woman arrested without charges and beaten until she lost her pregnancy. https://bit.ly/2Mjws1s
for exclusively reporting that a 14-year-old Pennsylvania girl who was raped, tortured and killed at her adoptive mother's home had been abused or neglected over the years in at least two other homes, raising questions about whether public agencies had dropped the ball. https://yhoo.it/2jAV46i
"They kept us as slaves."
One man's tearful revelation to AP national investigative reporter Mitch Weiss helped unravel a horrible secret â 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.
for finding out that Pope Francis had trimmed sanctions against a handful of pedophile priests who had sought his mercy, and that one case backfired so badly that the Vatican had to put the priest on trial for a second time. http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20170225/news/3...
Photographer Maye-E Wong wanted to find a new way to tell the stories of those who suffered from clergy abuse, emphasizing that they were survivors, not victims.
Her plan: She would photograph them with a Polaroid camera, then soak the prints and release the thin fragile membranes that held the images. The images were imperfect â wrinkled and distressed â but they endure, a metaphor for the survivors they portrayed.
Wong and reporter Juliet Linderman traveled the country to interview and photograph survivors, spending days with them and listening to their stories. The result was a stunning presentation that set AP viewership records and earned praise from both the subjects and the public.
For an arresting package of inspired photography and sensitive, insightful reporting, Wong and Linderman receive this weekâs Best of the States award.
for revealing that Michigan State University, already reeling from the Larry Nassar gymnastics scandal, had maintained ties to a prominent volleyball coach long after he was publicly accused in 1995 of sexually abusing and raping six underage girls. https://bit.ly/2HOFgWL
deconstructed how the Louisiana State Police scandal of beatings and cover-ups could have gone on for so long, digging deeper into the institutional thinking of the agency, its history and the background of key figures. They interviewed dozens of current and former troopers and uncovered thousands of pages of documents that described an entrenched culture of impunity, nepotism and in some cases outright racism.This story, the latest in their investigative series stemming from the deadly 2019 arrest of Black motorist Ronald Greene, was built around a father who rose to second in command of the state agency despite being reprimanded for racist behavior, and his son who became one of the state policeâs most violent troopers â with the brunt of his use of force directed at Black people.Mustian and Bleiberg, federal law enforcement reporters, also had never-before-reported details of a 2019 cheating scandal in the state police academy that targeted the entire class for dismissal. In the end, nearly everyone in the class was allowed to graduate. And they conducted a revealing interview with the head of the state police in which he admitted he doesnât know how many other cases like Ronald Greeneâs could still be out there because âweâve not looked at every video.âThe story, accompanied by video and photos by multiformat journalist Allen Breed, added to calls for a federal investigation, and Louisiana lawmakers created a special committee to dig into reports of excessive force. The piece also resonated with readers, scoring strong play online and ranking as one of the most-engaged stories of the week.https://aplink.news/3zuhttps://aplink.video/ysmhttps://aplink.news/xda
for teaming up in a new investigation into the disgraced Legion of Christ religious order, revealing that the popeâs 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 victimâs 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
for being first to report that a now-deceased Ohio State team doctor accused of sexual misconduct had ties to several other schools. https://trib.in/2yWgdRr
for breaking the news of the first-ever statewide investigation by U.S. prosecutors of abuse by Pennsylvania clergy, including exclusive details of what was in federal subpoenas. https://bit.ly/2CW8jsC
While covering the Rohingya crisis, investigative reporters Robin McDowell and Margie Mason knew tens of thousands of refugees fleeing Myanmar were vulnerable to exploitation. They suspected desperate men were being tricked or sold into the massive palm oil industry that supplies some of Americaâs most iconic food and cosmetic brands.
Working with photographers Gemunu Amarasinghe and Binsar Bakkara, they vividly documented the horrors some workers in Malyasia and Indonesia face. Workers spoke of brutal conditions including child labor, outright slavery and allegations of rape.
Reaction was swift, with the U.S. government saying it would block shipments from a major Malaysian producer mentioned in the story.
For exposing abuses affecting tens of thousands of workers in a global industry that manufactures a vast array of products we buy and use daily, McDowell, Mason, Amarasinghe and Bakkara win APâs Best of the Week award.
for their investigation breaking the news of dozens of unredacted legal claims seeking more than $200 million in damages for trauma and abuse alleged by parents and their children who had been separated at the border; these included children who were sexually molested by other children in foster homes.The administrative claims shared with The Associated Press were heartbreaking: Young children pulled from their parentsâ arms by government agents were sent to foster homes and residential shelters where they suffered sexual and other physical and emotional abuse. The reporters revealed the high cost of the claims: more than $200 million for 38 claims is just âthe tip of the icebergâ said lawyers. And this was the first report that some separated children in foster homes â considered safer and healthier â had been sexually molested. The story ran with exclusive photographs and video of a father whose young son, whose heart was failing, was put in a foster home where he was molested by other children.https://bit.ly/2YQwnbLhttps://bit.ly/2L0R1Mv
London-based medical writer Maria Cheng, drawing on leaked emails, interviews, recordings and her deep understanding of the World Health Organization, revealed that dozens of staffers have accused Dr. Takeshi Kasai, the U.N. agencyâs regional director for much of Asia, of racism and abuse, and that his actions allegedly hampered WHOâs efforts to curb the COVID pandemic in the region.
Cheng obtained internal complaints and talked to current and former staffers who said Kasai had engaged in racist, unethical and abusive behavior. Staffers said the departure of more than 55 WHO personnel from this critical region, most not replaced, significantly contributing to a surge in cases in many countries. Kasai was also accused of sharing COVID information improperly with his home country, Japan, for its political gain.
In an email to the AP, Kasai denied charges of racism and unethical behavior and said he had taken steps to communicate with all his staff.
Chengâs story was explosive. At Saturdayâs closing session of WHOâs board meeting, several countries pressured the organization to investigate the allegations reported by the AP. By Monday, the WHO director-general said an investigation had started.
For deeply reported, groundbreaking work that has had an impact, Cheng is APâs Best of the Week â First Winner.
After a prominent Philadelphia neurologist was charged with groping several patients at his clinic, Pennsylvania reporter Michael Rubinkam began digging into the neurologist's past to see if he had been accused of wrongdoing elsewhere.
Reviewing documents in three states, and checking with medical centers and law enforcement, he was able to determine that at least 17 women in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey have stepped forward to accuse Cruciani of sexual misconduct that goes back at least a dozen years. Two days after Rubinkamâs story ran, Cruciani pleaded guilty to groping seven patients.
For reporting exclusively that Cruciani has left behind a trail of sex abuse claims in at least three states, and obtaining powerful accounts of how he was able to prey on vulnerable patients, Rubinkam wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
New York-based federal law enforcement reporter Jim Mustian never gives up on a story.
Sticking with a case he began covering at another news organization in another state more than two years ago, Mustian landed a jaw-dropping exclusive for the AP: That a trove of hundreds of confidential emails has surfaced allegedly showing executives of the NFLâs New Orleans Saints doing public relations damage control for the areaâs Roman Catholic archdiocese amid its clergy sexual abuse crisis.
The story had an immediate, visceral impact with readers and earned praise from fellow journalists.
Mustian will continue to chip away at this story and, hopefully, reveal more about the Saints and their involvement with the church. But for now, Mustianâs sticktoitiveness and tough accountability reporting earns him this weekâs Best of the States award.
As the ranks of dioceses promising to release lists of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse began to mushroom at the beginning of this year, Philadelphia reporter Claudia Lauer and Washington-based data editor Meghan Hoyer started to strategize: How could they leverage the information on a scale never before accomplished?
After months of systematic, dogged work, the result was âWhere Are They Now,â a blockbuster investigation that found almost 1,700 priests and other clergy members living with little to no oversight, many with positions giving them access to children. Dozens have committed crimes, including sexual assault.
The story received exceptional play online and in print, and AP Managing Editor Brian Carovillano called it, âOne of the most monumental pieces of AP journalism in my memory.â
For a stunning investigation that breaks new ground in the already impressive body of work that is âThe Reckoningâ series, Lauer and Hoyer win this weekâs Best of the States award.
Vatican correspondent Nicole Winfieldâs five-month investigation revealed the stunning allegations: A high-ranking Catholic priest had a sexual relationship with a Houston woman for more than a year, counseled her husband on their marital problems, pressed for hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from the couple and continued to hear her confession.
But the cardinal overseeing the churchâs handling of sexual abuse allegations in the United States approved the priestâs transfer to a church two hours away.
The fallout from Winfieldâs revelations was swift: The priest was suspended and church officials reopened their inquiry into the handling of parishioner Laura Pontikesâ accusations.
To tell the sensitive story, Winfield â and a team that included Raleigh-based national writer/video journalist Allen Breed, New York global enterprise photographer Wong Maye-E and Houston correspondent Nomaan Merchant â meticulously planned coverage in each format, including on-camera interviews with Pontikes and her husband, and photos and video of the cardinal and the accused priest.
For an investigation that cast doubt on a top church officialâs handling of a case involving startling allegations of abuse, Winfield, Breed, Wong and Merchant wins APâs Best of the Week award.
for scoring a cross-format scoop by being first to report that a conservative Italian journalist helped rewrite and edit the bombshell accusation of sex abuse cover-up against Pope Francis. https://abcn.ws/2Cty83F