for gaining unprecedented access to a meeting at Washington stateās troubled Western State Hospital where staff expressed safety concerns as nurses and others are assaulted by patients and inmates with severe mental issues. https://bit.ly/2CqIOjE
for obtaining an email providing the first on-the-record report on the status of closely-watched settlement talks between the states and OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma. State attorneys general said that Purdue was expected to file for bankruptcy after settlement talks with the states over the nationās deadly overdose crisis hit an impasse. https://bit.ly/2m5lkJd
collaborated with a team of AP state reporters on an analysis of federal data, finding that states passing the toughest abortion restrictions are generally the most challenging places for people to have and raise children. With the U.S. Supreme Court widely expected to roll back abortion rights later this year, the data and reporting revealed a weak network of social services in many of these states for women who become pregnant and may be unable to obtain an abortion.APās analysis, led by data journalists Fassett and Lo, looked at seven social safety net measurements collected by the federal government; visualized in an engaging interactive by the data teamās Gorman. The reporting team, led by Utah statehouse reporter Whitehurst, interviewed parents, researchers and nonprofit groups that provide support to pregnant people, new parents, infants and young children. And while the data overwhelming showed that Republican-controlled states with strict abortion laws performed the worst on these social services, the reporting also came with the important caveat that a few Democratically controlled states with more permissive abortion laws also measured poorly in some categories.Read more
fittingly beat the competition with news of the biggest impact yet from their two-year investigation of beatings and cover-ups by the Louisiana State Police: The U.S. Justice Department is launching a sweeping civil rights probe of the agency to see if there is a pattern of excessive force and racial discrimination.Based on their deep sourcing, Mustian and Bleiberg were able to exclusively report the federal āpattern-or-practiceā investigation as a news alert about an hour before the official announcement in Baton Rouge. It marked the first such action against a statewide law enforcement agency in more than two decades. All the examples cited by the assistant attorney general as justitification for the probe came from a string of AP scoops that exposed (often with video) beatings of mostly Black men and the Louisiana agencyās instinct to protect troopers rather than investigate them.Read more
National sports writer Eddie Pells was first approached in February by the mom of a player who said she had some concerns about abuses going on in the volleyball program at Oregon State.
Over the next five months, Pells conducted dozens of interviews both in and out of the program, and checked with experts to learn if volleyball coach Mark Barnard was over the line. Several athletes spoke to Pells, including a former OSU player who described how the coachās abusive practices contributed to a suicide attempt.
Pellsā exclusive led to immediate calls for the coachās firing and questions about the university officials who didnāt take action after hearing complaints.
For months of persistent and sensitive reporting despite uncertain prospects, resulting in an impressive story with impact, Pells wins this weekās Best of the States award.
for their Health and Science accountability data project that revealed how millions is being spent to fight the opioid crisis. The AP analysis of FOIA records found that states with expanded Medicaid under āObamacareā spent the funding more slowly than states that didnāt expand the health insurance program because the Medicaid already covers nearly everyone who is poor and needs treatment for addiction. https://bit.ly/2yVcqRm
AP reporter Michelle Smith was working on another project in June when she came up with the names of a dozen or so public health officials who had quit, retired or been fired. Sensing a trend, Smith and reporters at Kaiser Health News continued to track those departures as the pandemic worsened and the backlash against public health restrictions became more strident.
The journalists contacted officials in all 50 states and interviewed dozens of people, finding a public health leadership vacuum developing at a critical time in the pandemic. They told the stories of public servants who toiled through the pandemic only to be reviled by their neighbors — including the wrenching story of an official whose husband would not even follow her recommendation to require masks in the family store. The timely all-formats story included a data distribution, interactive graphics and a sidebar with portraits and quotes of public health officials.
For a deeply reported package that examines a vital component of the pandemic response, Smith, Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Hannah Recht and Lauren Weber earn this weekās Best of the States award.
In the wake of offensive and insensitive comments about victims of ex-sports doctor Larry Nassar, calls for the resignation or firing of interim Michigan State University President John Engler reached a crescendo.
As the fast-moving story developed, multiple outlets cited anonymous sources in reporting his imminent departure, but Detroit reporter Corey Williams and Lansing, Michigan, correspondent David Eggert scored significant beats on the story, all of them solidly sourced.
Williams successfully reached two MSU trustees ā one who said the board had the votes to oust Engler and another saying he was expected to resign later that day, while Eggert contacted Rachael Denhollander, the first victim of Larry Nassar to have gone public, for exclusive early reaction.
And finally, working his sources, Eggert exclusively obtained a copy of Englerās 11-page resignation letter, which the universityās board was refusing to release. The AP was alone with the letter for at least an hour, posting the document online so we could link to it from our breaking story.
The APās story and reporting were widely used, including by The Detroit News ā where Englerās offensive comments had appeared, setting the series of events in motion.
For solid on-the-record reporting that put the AP far ahead on a highly competitive story, Williams and Eggert win this weekās Best of the States.
for getting photos of prison inmates moving furniture at the New Jersey statehouse and defending press freedom. Corrections officers erroneously told Catalini such photos are illegal and ordered him to remove the images from his phone. Catalini stood his ground and saved the images in his deleted photos folder. After receiving a letter from an AP lawyer, officials conceded the officers were wrong. AP had already moved the images. https://apnews.com/348a45a1135843468642d420be093de...
Legislative debates over restricting abortion access in the U.S. have been among the most hotly contested and thoroughly covered state government topics of recent years. But what of the women affected by those laws? A distinctive, data-driven investigation by the state government and data teams provided answers: Each year thousands of women travel to get abortions in another state, and the share of non-resident women getting abortions had risen significantly in states where conservative legislatures passed measures restricting the procedure.
To arrive at that conclusion, state government team reporter Christina Cassidy went state-by-state to gather the most recent abortion data, while data team editor Meghan Hoyer oversaw the methodology and analysis. Cassidy also worked sources to find women who had left their home state for an abortion, humanizing the story behind the data. Colleagues Alina Hartounian, Susan Montoya Bryan, Gillian Flaccus and Francois Duckett produced compelling all-formats content for the package.
A unique dataset released before publication allowed APās member publications to produce localized graphics and stories. The project checked all the boxes for customer and reader engagement, which was extraordinarily strong.
For putting the AP out front on one of the most contentious issues roiling American politics, Cassidy, Hoyer, Flaccus, Montoya Bryan, Hartounian and Duckett share APās Best of the Week 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 agencyās superintendent that the use of such demeaning language was just āisolated.āMustian 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 āpocket-dialā 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 Mustianās 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. Mustianās story on the racial slurs received strong play, including on the front page of New Orleansā Times-Picayune/Advocate. https://bit.ly/34VHCkp
used the power of the AP to highlight an almost unfathomable fact ā the federal government and many states have not publicly tracked coronavirus infections and deaths in individual nursing homes ā and their story was followed very quickly by policy changes. A day after their story appeared, New York announced it would indeed release a list of individual nursing homes and how many deaths each one had. And less than a week later, the federal government announced it would begin the same process.https://bit.ly/2VRcP2Khttps://bit.ly/2yAhgaf
scored yet another exclusive in his groundbreaking coverage of the death of Black motorist Ronald Greene in the custody of Louisiana state troopers, obtaining internal documents showing police brass still trying to blame Greeneās death on a car crash, more than a year and a half after they were aware of body camera footage showing troopers brutalizing the unarmed man.The agency sought to reduce its liability in Greeneās 2019 death despite footage showing troopers stunning, punching and dragging the unarmed man ā and one trooperās startling admission that he bashed him in the head with a flashlight, a use of deadly force not previously reported.Mustian's deeply reported story ā which had APās second-highest reader engagement for the week ā showed in startling detail how everyone from top brass to troopers on the scene were involved in trying to cover up or downplay their roles in Greeneās death. https://aplink.news/s7j
When a 19-year-old legislative intern reported that a state lawmaker in Idaho raped her, she almost immediately faced a campaign of harassment from right-wing groups in the state, and even from other state representatives, who publicized her identity against her will. A legislative panel then forced her to testify from behind a screen at an ethics hearing, after which she was followed and subjected to still further abuse by the accused lawmakerās supporters.
The sordid story of the young womanās ordeal was covered with sensitivity by Boise correspondent Rebecca Boone in a series of pieces that included an exclusive interview with the alleged victim, and it prompted a wider look by APās State Government Team at allegations of sexual misconduct in statehouses around the country. That story, led by correspondent David Lieb and Report for America data journalist Camille Fassett, provided state-by-state details to AP customers and revealed public allegations against at least 109 state lawmakers in 40 states.
For aggressive yet respectful coverage that put one womanās voice at the center of the story while providing distinctive national context, Boone, Lieb and Fassett share this weekās Best of the States award.
for patiently working with a source to provide an exclusive look at how Dominion Energy, Virginiaās biggest corporate campaign contributor, exerted its influence over members of both parties. http://bit.ly/2nT1MF7
collaborated with Surgo Ventures, a health care information organization, to tell the story of how U.S, states that opened up vaccines to more people actually fared worse in the rollout than those that took a more methodical approach. The first-of-its-kind data analysis by AP gauged the success of all states in the vaccine rollout ā comparing states by their varying degrees of aggressiveness. Forster, a New York health and science data journalist, and Johnson, Seattle health and science reporter, found states that were most aggressive actually vaccinated a smaller share of their population than those that took a go-it-slow approach. The story also quoted real people about their struggles in getting shots. The result was a hit among customers, including front page play in the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and Orlando Sentinel. https://bit.ly/3cha9F4
analyzed available data to show that New Yorkās coronavirus death toll in nursing homes, already among the nationās highest, is likely undercounted by thousands. New York is the only state among those with major outbreaks that only counts residents who died on nursing home property, not in hospitals, leading to speculation the administration of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo is manipulating its figures to make it appear it is doing better on nursing homes than other states. https://bit.ly/2DUz6Yz
Itās no secret that the repeal and replacement of Obamacare could have a significant impact both on those holding insurance and on the finances of states that have embraced the health care law. But over the last few months, few details had emerged on what that precise impact might be.
In an āOnly on APā story, St. Paul, Minnesota, statehouse reporter Kyle Potter revealed that Minnesota officials were bracing for additional costs that could reach $6 billion by 2029 to maintain a low-income health care program that covers more than 900,000 state residents. For providing one of the first concrete glimpses into the possible ramifications states envision, Potter wins this week's Best of States recognition.
found that as states begin to reopen, local health departments charged with tracking down everyone who has been in close contact with a person who tests positive for the new coronavirus are still scrambling to hire the number of people they need to do the job. APās review showed that states are often hundreds ā even thousands ā of people short of the targets for contact tracing. https://bit.ly/2XgDcQn
delivered a distinctive accountability story, finding that U.S. governorsā promises to produce personal protective gear domestically remain unfulfilled, despite tens of millions in taxpayer money to support the proposals.Missouri-based state government reporter Lieb identified at least $125 million in PPE production grants to more than 300 business in 10 states but found that most of the companies were leaving the business because they couldnāt find buyers. Company executives told Lieb that production was again going overseas, potentially putting U.S. supplies of protective gear at risk in a future pandemic.Read more
