for breaking the result of the Trump administration's two-month review on North Korea, which established the new U.S. policy of "maximum pressure and engagement." http://apne.ws/2oxebNm
With a dedication to continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine, the AP teams in and around Kyiv landed an interview with the Ukrainian president and offered a definitive all-formats chronicle of the mass killings in Bucha.
In the capital, AP journalists relentlessly pursued an interview with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Asia-Pacific news director Adam Schreck, video journalist Mstyslav Chernov and photographer Evgeniy Maloletka eventually sat down with the president in a bunker-like government building, the dramatic setting adding to the power of the all-formats interview.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Kyiv, reporter Cara Anna and a team of visual journalists brought the horror of life and death in Bucha to readers around the world, walking the streets and talking with witnesses to the murders and other abuses under Russian occupation of the town. The team saw at least a dozen uncollected bodies and talked with two dozen survivors and witnesses, each telling horrific stories.
The teamsâ coverage received strong play and reader engagement, a sign that APâs customers and audience are still keenly interested in accurate, definitive accounts of the war.
For shedding light on an increasingly dark era for Ukraine, we honor Adam Schreck, Mstyslav Chernov, Evgeniy Maloletka, Cara Anna, Oleksandr Stashevskyi, Rodrigo Abd, Vadim Ghirda and Felipe Dana as APâs Best of the Week â First Winners.
landed a scoop on a Justice Department investigation into higher education. Balsamo got word through sources that the two-year investigation was completed and had found something attention-grabbing: Yale University was illegally discriminating against Asian American and white applicants, in violation of federal civil rights law. Working with education reporter Collin Binkley, the pair scrambled to move a story that crushed other major news outlets by nearly an hour. Thanks to Binkleyâs reporting, the AP was also first to get Yaleâs statement on the probe, which it said was âhastyâ and unfair. https://bit.ly/34cw1gT
For more than a month, video journalist Mstyslav Chernov and photographer Dmitri Lovetsky tirelessly documented fierce fighting over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Then, as they were wrapping up their assignment, Armenia signed an agreement ceding the territory to Azerbaijan, triggering protests in Armenia and an exodus of ethnic Armenians from the region now falling into enemy hands. When Chernov and Lovetsky learned that Armenians were burning their own homes as they fled the region, the AP pair repeatedly made risky and arduous trips into the territory, producing powerful, emotionally charged reporting and images, including the moving story of a family abandoning its home.
For displaying exceptional commitment and courage in their coverage of last weekâs dramatic developments — as they have throughout this weekslong story — Chernov and Lovetsky earn APâs Best of the Week award.
The team of data journalist Nicky Forster, science writer Drew Costley and storytelling producer Peter Hamlin, joined by AP colleagues, worked for months on an immersive interactive that takes readers across the globe, visualizing how and where exposure to extreme heat is escalating and its impact on population centers.
After securing early access to historical data tracking both population growth and a specific metric that gauges the impact of extreme temperatures on human health, APâs analysis found that between 1983 and 2016, exposure to dangerous heat tripled, and now affects about a quarter of the worldâs population.
The team spent weeks building an engaging presentation with 3D graphics and illustrations that brought the piece to life, drawing in readers. The interactive marked the latest example of APâs new storytelling formats and stood out from the deluge of coverage during the United Nations climate summit in Scotland.
For their resourcefulness, creativity and dedication in helping APâs audience understand the far-ranging impact of global warming in a new way, the team of Forster, Costley and Hamlin is this weekâs Best of the Week â First Winner.
The idea was bold from its inception: Attempting to count dead and missing migrants worldwide.
After covering the outflow of refugees in the wake of the Islamic State's takeover in parts of Iraq last year, Paris enterprise writer Lori Hinnant noticed a lack of data on the migration. She set off on a mission to count the uncountable.
The yearlong effort to document lives that would otherwise go unnoticed proved extremely challenging, precisely because it was plowing such new ground. An AP team of more than a dozen people painstakingly compiled information that had never been put together before from international groups, forensic records, missing persons reports and death records, and went through data from thousands of interviews with migrants. The data came alive with individual stories of migrants, a challenge in itself.
The AP project found 56,800 dead and missing migrants since 2014, almost double the number currently put out by the United Nations, which focuses heavily on Europe and nearly excludes several other areas of the world. The report drew significant interest, despite the fact that it ran six days before the U.S. midterm elections.
For their ambitious project that established AP as a global authority on this issue, Hinnant, Istanbul visual journalist Bram Janssen and Cairo photographer Nariman El-Mofty share the Best of the Week award.
for a report that the Trump administration is considering using military bases as other federal properties on the West Coast to export coal and natural gas to Asia after several major port proposals have been blocked by coastal states. https://bit.ly/2J2Xzca
expanded APâs international coverage of vaccination campaigns beyond the big cities. The Istanbul-based freelancer delivered strong photos and video of medical teams giving shots to elderly villagers in remote settlements in the mountainous Sivas province of central Turkey.With AP adding text and editing resources, Gurelâs striking package got wide play, and the video was picked up by clients in Asia, the Middle East and Europe. https://bit.ly/3c7wL9Mhttps://bit.ly/2MSqlmghttps://bit.ly/3c3ACEy
A video beat of 15 minutes on a terrorism story in the heart of a European capital? Footage showing militants in Asia actually plotting an attack? On two continents in the same week, Associated Press journalists obtained these exclusives through remarkable ingenuity and persistence.
Their efforts are rare co-winners of the Beat of the Week.
reported one of the first major forensic assessments of the coronavirusâs impact on Europeâs multibillion-dollar fashion industry, hit hard by the pandemic. Adamsonâs years-long source work in Paris and beyond put him in touch with economists, insiders, fashion editors and top designers, including Stella McCartney, who told AP that the virus has accelerated reform in the industry.Adamsonâs reporting, complemented by Moriâs engaging photography, showed how Asiaâs early containment of the virus could give the worldâs largest continent and its powerful consumers great leverage over Europeâs luxury industry and could lead to European designers pandering more to Asian consumers. https://bit.ly/3dwFMuP
On the campaign trail, presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar has often cited a case â a life sentence given to black teen for killing a young girl â as proof of her tough-on-crime bona fides as a former prosecutor.
Over the course of a year, Minnesota-based investigative reporter Robin McDowell examined the case against Myon Burrell, who was 16 when he was sentenced to life in prison for the 2002 death of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards.
McDowell found major irregularities, including inconsistent evidence and questionable police tactics. The resulting package had impact, forcing new scrutiny of the case and Klobucharâs handling of it.
For dogged reported that shed new light and focused attention on the case against a man who has long said he was wrongfully convicted, McDowell wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
traced the Watts neighborhood of South Los Angeles from the 1965 riots to the Watts of today. While Watts did not experience the violent protests that shook parts of LA and other cities in the wake of George Floydâs killing, the AP team found a neighborhood still bearing scars 55 years after a traffic stop of a Black motorist by a white police officer led to a mass uprising and widespread violence. Through words, photos, video and archival images, the trio takes an intimate look at the challenges facing Watts at a time when racial justice and police violence are central issues in America.https://bit.ly/2E90pxThttps://bit.ly/2Ei193Whttps://bit.ly/34b1wbo
reported from the Philippines and Australia for this engaging package that introduced readers and viewers to the growing subculture of mermaiding, and how it has come to represent diversity.The piece, as enlightening as it is entertaining, celebrates the range and spirit of the merfolk community with writing both amusing and sensitive, complemented by distinctive photos and video including striking underwater and drone images. The piece was the second-most-read on the AP News platform, elicting compliments from no less than the actress who voiced Disneyâs mermaid Ariel.Read more
combined on-the-ground reporting, key analysis from experts and their own subject expertise to shed light on the real-world impact and limitations of renewed Ukrainian grain exports on the global food crisis.The teamâs reporting reveals how everyone from Lebanese farmers and Syrian refugees to African aid groups donât expect the much-publicized initial shipments to solve food insecurity as millions go hungry. The story builds on months of AP coverage showing how the Russia-Ukraine war has worsened the effects of drought, inflation, conflict and other factors in countries gripped by hunger.Read more
delivered an exclusive on the Royal Foundation, revealing that the conservation charity founded by Prince William, an outspoken environmental advocate, keeps its investments in a bank that is a major backer of fossil fuels. And more than half its investments are in a âgreenâ fund that owns shares in multinational food companies that buy palm oil from companies linked to deforestation.Based on a tip, Davey spent months poring over the charityâs public filings. The London-based climate accountability reporter also interviewed experts on environmentally responsible investing, connected the foundationâs investments to cases of deforestation and sought comment from all the principals, ensuring that any critique of the Royal Foundationâs investment practices would be fair and accurate.No news organization came close on the widely played story â others either used the AP piece or cited AP in their own reporting.Read more
for pursuing the story that an Iranian airline backed by the Revolutionary Guard was flying into Europe and Asia in violation of US terror sanctions. http://apne.ws/2eE79SG
for an all-formats story showing how an influx of educated Asian immigrants is transforming the nation in ways largely ignored by todayâs heated political rhetoric. The story, part of the Divided America series, punctured myths about U.S. immigration. Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed a sidebar explaining a crucial but often overlooked fact in the immigration debate: An estimated 40 percent of the 11 million people in the U.S. illegally overstayed visas. http://apne.ws/2e1Hx3K
delivered competitive all-formats coverage of Russian attacks on at least 10 Ukrainian cities, two days after an explosion on the Kerch Bridge between Crimea and Russia disrupted an important Russian supply line.From Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro, AP responded with strong reporting and striking visuals supplemented by user-generated content. APâs photos and videos led major news websites.Read more
APâs Martha Mendoza, an investigative reporter based in Bangkok, and Margie Mason, medical writer in Jakarta, found that hundreds of undocumented men, many from impoverished Southeast Asian and Pacific nations, work in this U.S. fishing fleet. They have no visas and aren't protected by basic labor laws because of a loophole passed by Congress.
A story detailing the menâs plight, by Mendoza and Mason, resulted from a tip following their award-winning Seafood from Slaves investigation last year. It earns the Beat of the Week.
definitively examined, from six continents and in all formats, the impact of climate change, merging the science behind a major â and sobering â United Nations report with the voices of people who are living it.Weeks before the Feb. 28 release, climate news director Peter Prengaman, reporters Seth Borenstein and Frank Jordans, both veterans of climate coverage, and Stockholm-based video journalist David Keyton brainstormed the plan, putting APâs global footprint to use: Instead of just one big, all-formats story â the norm for previous reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change â AP would use the report as a jumping-off point to explore the state of climate change from each continent. Read more
