for an exclusive interview with the parents of one of the Chibok girls who were kidnapped more than two years ago by Boko Haram and was just released by her captors. http://apne.ws/2e9VptF
for a compelling exclusive about the odd, awful downfall of the one-time school librarian of the year, who ended up getting slashed to death in a New York City homeless shelter, detailing how his self-destructive behavior in the last three years of his life may actually have been due to an undiagnosed brain disorder. http://wapo.st/2otl6YO
for an inside look at how Illinois high school officials and police confronted an honor-roll student about recording and sharing sexual images in the hours before he took his own life. http://wapo.st/2hjtNm0
for her detailed, on-the-record account of bullying and a death threat faced by a 12-year-old girl inside her middle school. https://bit.ly/2IL0JQW
set out to document ways students with disabilities are excluded from the classroom â and from learning. Their reporting led to advocates who described working with families whose children were essentially kept out of school, with none of the records that come with formal suspensions. The families claimed their schools couldnât or wouldnât accommodate their studentsâ disabilities â a violation of federal law â and said the practice had gotten worse during the pandemic.Ma, race and ethnicity reporter in Washington, partnered with Kolodner, of the nonprofit Hechinger Report, who had been pursuing the same topic. Together, they interviewed 20 families in 10 states, and a top Department of Education official. Read more
reported exclusively that the worldâs three largest computer makers have told school districts nationwide that they have a shortage of nearly 5 million laptops â in some cases exacerbated by Trump administration sanctions on Chinese suppliers â just as many districts move to online learning during the pandemic. AP bureaus across the country contributed by reaching out to some of the largest school districts in 15 states to assess the scope of the problem. https://bit.ly/3lkhPJb
A true multiformat team of AP journalists produced this Only on AP piece by tracking down data on child abuse from every state to reveal a worrying trend: Reports of abuse are down while signs of severity are up. The team complemented that dogged data work and hard news with the tragic story of one girl who fell through the cracks during the pandemic.
Acting on information sourced by video journalist Manuel Valdes, Seattle reporter Sally Ho coordinated the 50-state data survey and an ambitious analysis with data journalist Camille Fassett. Ho also read through hundreds of child abuse reports to find the case of 9-year-old Ava Lerario, killed by her father in a small Pennsylvania town. Ho worked with Philadelphia photojournalists Matt Rourke and Matt Slocum, and New York video journalist David Martin, to tell the story of about how the system failed Ava.
The teamâs deeply reported package drew remarkably high reader engagement, and many news outlets localized the work using APâs data distribution.
For exposing another disturbing inequality stemming from the pandemic, Ho and colleagues Valdes, Fassett, Rourke, Slocum and Martin share this weekâs Best of the States award.
On the sparsely populated fringe of the Navajo Nation, AP Report for America journalist Cedar Attanasio saw a storytelling opportunity: the bus system used by the Cuba, New Mexico, school district to solve distance-learning challenges for some of the countryâs most isolated, vulnerable students during the pandemic.
Reporting for text, photos and video, Attanasio rode one of the school buses used to transport meals, assignments and counselors to remote students, a number of whom do not have electricity, let alone internet. When the bus driver was forced to quarantine, Attanasio took to his car, chasing buses on their routes and interviewing students and their families.
For delivering an insightful multiformat package that reveals the pandemicâs impact on education in a disadvantaged community — prompting one reader to donate $1000 to the school board — Attanasio earns this weekâs Best of the States award.
overcame countless obstacles to provide on-the-ground coverage from a remote area of northwest Nigeria after the abduction of 300 students from a school in Katsina state. With perseverance, stamina and resourcefulness, the pair delivered content for a series of powerful stories in all formats, including live video coverage of the eventual release of the students.The pair had been covering Lagos Fashion Week when news of the mass abduction broke. After arranging with local stringers for APâs first images from the school in Kankara village, Oyekanmi and Alamba flew north, then drove for hours over single-lane roads, dodging trucks and potholes, and talking their way through security checkpoints to reach Kankara, a town now in shock. After making images â captured with difficulty among a populace cowed by fear â more hours of travel followed to reach a safe town where they could file photos and video, and get some sleep.That work pattern repeated over the coming days: six or more hours on the road, then filing late into the night with visuals and reporting that brought detail and color to text stories.When they learned that the release of the boys had finally been secured, Oyekanmi and Alamba rushed to the state capital, staying up all night to wait for the studentsâ arrival. When the freed boys finally did arrive the next morning, Oyekanmi was ready with LiveU gear, streaming exclusive live coverage of their return, while Alamba filed first photos via Whatsapp. Both formats scored heavy usage by AP global clients.https://bit.ly/3rkaQmxhttps://bit.ly/2WFlKozhttps://bit.ly/2KwM9CDhttps://bit.ly/38uEQTXhttps://bit.ly/3nFUpP3
The tears, grief and tension of President Donald Trumpâs listening session with shooting victims and families after the Florida high school massacre were profound. Washington photographer Carolyn Kasterâs job was to capture the compelling event in images. Thatâs no easy task at the White House, where events are tightly managed and photographersâ movements are highly restricted.
But Kaster, working with photo editor Jon Elswick, overcame these obstacles and delivered an image of a hand-written note held by the president that quickly went viral and became one of the most talked-about stories of the day. The image wins Kaster and Elswick the Beat of the Week.
put AP ahead of the competition, responding immediately to first word that a driver had plowed his vehicle into a visiting school group in a popular capital shopping district. One teacher was killed, others were seriously injured.Berlin photographer Sohn was among the first at the scene, reporting for all formats including exclusive photos and live video, while Frankfurt photographer Michael Probst jumped in to handle editing duties, quickly relaying images from Sohnâs camera onto the AP wire. The visuals were heavily used by online media and TV clients, among others.Read more
As stories with impact go, this one stands out: The lead subject of the piece, struggling to feed her family during the pandemic, was tracked down on social media and hired by a reader for a job.
The all-formats package by reporter Luis Andres Henao and visual journalist Jessie Wardarski chronicled the struggle of Sharawn Vinson and her Brooklyn family as they coped with a shortage of food and other crises, taking readers into the lives of a family that was forced to separate to keep everyone fed. The details shared by the family give readers a better understanding of the issues confronting many of the nationâs most vulnerable during the pandemic.
For a rare, intimate look at a family on the front lines of food insecurity brought on by the coronavirus, documented with riveting photos and video, Henao and Wardarski share this weekâs Best of the States award.
tell a story that resonated across the nation on the eve of Juneteenth: the curious history of a Massachusetts beach named after an enslaved African American. Legend has it that Robin Mingo was promised his freedom if the tide ever receded enough for him to walk out onto a rocky ledge offshore of what is now known as Mingo Beach on the campus of Endicott College.Boston reporter Marcelo and photographer Senne interviewed students and faculty at the school who have been researching the local tale and proposing ways to memorialize the slave at his namesake beach. They hope the efforts spark broader discussions about the role of slavery in New England.Read more
interviewed some of the virologists and epidemiologists weâre all seeing on the evening news, and produced a fascinating portrait of scientists who â for better or worse â have found themselves in the pop culture crucible. Seattle-based virus expert Dr. Angela Rasmussen told Marcelo how her Twitter following exploded after she got into a tangle with Elon Musk, who attempted to âmansplainâ the pandemic to her. Atlanta-based infectious diseases expert Laurel Bristowâs Instagram account swelled to 300,000 followers as she posted videos answering peopleâs questions and concerns about COVID-19. But Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and a frequent presence in the news media, had a darker experience: The India-born expert in pandemic preparedness told Marcelo heâs received anti-immigrant tropes and gotten death threats. https://bit.ly/38knHO1
For the third installment of their groundbreaking investigation into labor abuse in Asiaâs palm oil industry, reporters Robin McDowell and Margie Mason linked child labor to the supply chains of the makers of popular cereals, candies and ice creams, including KitKats, Oreos and Capân Crunch. They also traced the oil to that most American treat: Girl Scout cookies.
Joined by photographers Binsar Bakkara and Mark Humphrey, and video journalist Allen Breed, their reporting found that some tens of thousands of children toil in the palm fields, some kept from school and forced to work for free or for little pay. Some are trafficked.
The framing of the story — through the eyes of a young girl in the fields in Indonesia and a Tennessee Girl Scout campaigning to have palm oil removed from the cookies — resonated with readers; reaction on social media led the Girl Scouts to address the issue with their suppliers.
For shedding unprecedented light on the children toiling in Southeast Asiaâs palm oil fields, and connecting the abusive practice to major consumer brands, McDowell, Mason, Bakkara, Breed and Humphrey share APâs Best of the Week honors for the week of Dec. 28.
teamed up to obtain exclusive video of police confronting a beheading suspect outside Paris.
Macpherson, senior field producer, Paris, was coordinating video coverage Saturday after the horrific news that a teacher had been beheaded the previous day. She was working with AP freelance video journalist Patrick Hermansen, who had been sending live video all morning outside the school where teacher Samuel Paty had held a class discussion about the Charlie Hebdo-published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
Juggling live and edited coverage, Macpherson saw that phone video had surfaced in local French media, shot from a home, on which police can be heard screaming at the beheading suspect to throw down his weapon and get down. A short time later, you can hear, but not see, police shooting the man and killing him.
Macpherson knew instinctively that our best chance to get this video was through old-fashioned shoe leather reporting. She had Hermansen stop everything he was doing to try to pinpoint the the house from which the amateur video was shot. Going house-to-house, Hermansen eventually found the the right one and put the owner of the video on the phone with Macpherson, where they negotiated an agency exclusive for AP.
Dozens of customers used the exclusive video, including some key clients such as EuroNews, Sky News, Al Jazeera and Russia Today. https://bit.ly/3jiJAzghttps://bit.ly/2ITiz9r
Many white Americans have likely never heard of âsundown towns,â where Black people were once forbidden after dark. So Tim Sullivan, Noreen Nasir and Maye-E Wong visited one such town, Vienna, Illinois, on the second stop in APâs âLooking for Americaâ series, to see how it is faring in a year marked by racial protests.
While there is no longer a rule against Black people in Vienna after sunset, the habit persists for many out of fear and tradition. With deep reporting and compelling visuals, the AP team captured a lingering racial divide that is obvious to some people but virtually invisible to others.
For a probing but nuanced package that speaks to a thread of systemic racism, the all-formats team of Sullivan, Nasir and Wong earns this weekâs Best of the States award.
When Mexico announced in August that its 30 million students would start the school year using a combination of internet and television-based distance learning, many poor families chose to send their children to work to help survive the pandemicâs economic toll.
With tens of millions of out-of-school children worldwide, AP decided to look at this sad phenomenon on a broad level, from Latin America, where children hammered away inside amber mines or labored in brick kilns, to Kenya where girls had been forced into prostitution while others broke rocks in a quarry.
For their important and compelling work, the team of Maria Verza, Eduardo Verdugo, Alexis Triboulard, Carlos Valdez, Juan Karita, Carlos Guerrero, William Costa, Jorge Saenz, Tom Odula, Brian Inganga, Sheikh Saaliq and Dario Lopez wins APâs Best of the Week award.
collaborated on a comprehensive all-formats package marking the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the groundbreaking law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools or education programs.Journalists in multiple disciplines â sports, education, race and ethnicity, and others â teamed up to develop story ideas and execution, coordinating resources to address the most important topics regarding Title IX: how the law was born, the impact it has had on athletes and women in general, the challenges it faces, the progress made and where the law falls short.The package included exclusive interviews with sports legends Billie Jean King and Ann Meyers, stories on transgender athletes, campus sexual assault, inequalities in opportunities for women of color, a scoop on an NCAA report examining the current status of Title IX, an AP Poll of Americans' perception of the progress made by Title IX, and more. All delivered over the course of 10 days in a curated presentation incorporating text, video, photos and graphics.Read more
used APâs exclusive access to the first district-by-district breakdown of pandemic test scores to report on massive learning setbacks during the pandemic.The pair, both members of APâs Education team, previewed their analysis for AP members who could tailor their stories for local and statewide audiences â it was precisely that reach into local newsrooms around the U.S. that led researchers to share their data exclusively with AP.Luryeâs analysis required tremendous speed and accuracy, as data was delayed or updated on deadline. And Toness incisively summarized the national implications of the data: the scope of the pandemicâs disruption in kidsâ lives, from the shortcomings of online learning to the trauma many American kids lived through, especially poor children.Read more
