for their diverse, visual vignettes package on President Trumpâs first 100 days featuring excerpts of letters written to the president by people the reporters had previously interviewed for stories about Trumpâs America. http://apne.ws/2qINl6f
It was supposed to be a 15-minute interview. Instead, Associated Press Chief White House Correspondent Julie Pace kept President Donald Trump talking for an hour in a wide-ranging Oval Office discussion that was exclusive, illuminating and full of news.
Pace's sit-down with the president â resulting in multiple stories that others scrambled to follow and a transcript that readers devoured despite its 8,000-word length â earns the Beat of the Week.
While there is little dispute that Black voters pushed Joe Biden into the presidential winner's column, AP wanted to know: How big of a factor were they?
Race and ethnicity writers Kat Stafford and Aaron Morrison began reporting on what Black voters said they wanted Biden to deliver once in office. Using the voices they collected as the foundation of the story, Stafford and Morrison teamed with data journalist Angeliki Kastanis and polling journalist Hannah Fingerhut, who infused the piece with data and voter survey findings that bolstered the anecdotes with hard numbers.
Their collaboration put the AP days ahead of other news organizationsâ pieces on Black votersâ support of Biden. For resourceful and insightful reporting and analysis on a major factor in the 2020 election, the team of Stafford, Morrison, Kastanis and Fingerhut wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
wanted to know more about Emily Murphy, the little-known federal official who stalled the formal presidential transition by waiting more than two weeks to âascertainâ that Joe Biden was the apparent winner of the presidential race.Madhani reached out to every recent administrator of Muphyâs agency â the General Services Administration â as well as some lawmakers Murphy had worked for, but he wasnât having any luck. His 10th call, a fortuitous cold call to Dave Barram, who ran the GSA during the Bush-Gore standoff in 2000, proved to be the jackpot. Madhani found Barramâs number in an online database.Barram revealed that heâd spoken with Murphy before the election to talk through how to handle ascertainment. He laid out his advice to her: âIf you do the right thing, then all you have to do is live with the consequences of it.ââThe call with Barram didnât occur until late in the day, but Madhani instantly knew he had a story. He worked late to turn it around for APâs most reader-engaged story of the day. https://bit.ly/32YG5ZQ
reported exclusively on Imaad Zuberi, a shadowy, elite political fundraiser whose reach included private meetings with then-Vice President Joe Biden and VIP access at Donald Trumpâs inauguration. Zuberi funded political campaigns in the U.S. and sold the resulting political influence to the highest-bidding foreign government overseas.Suderman Mustian reviewed thousands of documents and interviewed more than 100 law enforcement officials, diplomats and businessmen on three continents who dealt with Zuberi during his globe-trotting years of political fundraising. Critically, Suderman persuaded his sources to turn over a trove of private emails that painted an unprecedented picture of Zuberiâs modus operandi.The reporting revealed vulnerabilities in the U.S. campaign finance system and uncovered the names of politicians who had benefited from Zuberiâs largess, prompting calls for reform. https://bit.ly/3okr64k
Justice Department reporter Mike Balsamo has spent months cultivating sources at the Department of Justice, earning a reputation as an objective journalist who reports fairly and accurately.
His relationships paid off with an exclusive interview of U.S. Attorney General William Barr, in which Barr said the DOJ could find no evidence of widespread voting fraud, dramatically undercutting President Donald Trumpâs insistence to the contrary.
âI knew ... he had made probably the biggest news he has in his tenure as AG,â said Balsamo. His story topped the news cycle and resonated for days. No other news outlet could match it and AP was widely cited for the scoop.
For persistent, evenhanded reporting on the Justice Department beat resulting in the interview that netted one of APâs most consequential news coups of the year, Balsamo wins APâs Best of the Week honors.
delivered a widely read scoop after working their sources to confirm a curious rumor: An official serving as President Donald Trumpâs eyes and ears at the Department of Justice was banned from the building after pressuring Justice Department staffers to reveal insider information about ongoing cases and the departmentâs work on election fraud.Heidi Stirrup, an ally of top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, had also extended job offers to political allies for positions at some of the highest levels of the DOJ without consulting senior department officials or the White House counselâs office, and also attempted to interfere in the hiring process for career staffers, a violation of the governmentâs human resources policies, a source told the AP. https://bit.ly/374EDaH
delivered two jarring scoops as President Donald Trump shifted to a new tactic in his effort to upend the results of the 2020 presidential election.When the two Republicans on the Wayne County, Michigan, canvass board tried to rescind their vote to certify local results, White House Reporter Zeke Miller wondered if Trump was behind their move and started connecting the dots. Working with Washington colleague Colleen Long and others on the law enforcement team, Miller called around to sources he had developed around the country and uncovered major news: The president had made personal calls to the two canvass board members before they tried to rescind their votes. It showed that Trumpâs game had shifted from the courtrooms, where his team was constantly losing, to personally trying to intervene. Millerâs scoop went viral â used by hundreds of websites and tweeted by every major election watcher in the country as a shocking example of the lengths Trump would go to in order to subvert the election. Lansing correspondent David Eggert, working with Miller and Long, followed up with a scoop of his own, reporting that state lawmakers had been summoned to Washington to meet with Trump. The trioâs stories on the drama in Michigan were stocked with news but also wove in critical context on the baseless and extraordinary claims that Trump was making and the damage he was doing to confidence in democratic traditions. Their stories were clear, authoritative, and comprehensive, including important fact check material. https://bit.ly/3lc8IJ6https://bit.ly/36huruX
delivered an all-formats package based on the first joint interview with #MeToo founder Tarana Burke and the organizationâs new CEO Dani Ayers. They told Stafford that the movementâs original intent was to focus on marginalized voices and experiences, and that people have failed to acknowledge that the #MeToo movement was started and led by Black women and people of color.The multiformat project included Ruarkâs portraits of Burke in Baltimore, and Bazemoreâs images of Ayers in Atlanta. New York video producer Vanessa Alvarez created a video piece from the interview and file footage of some key #MeToo moments.https://bit.ly/35drj1ihttps://bit.ly/2FQQyhu
was first to report that C-SPANâs Steve Scully had been indefinitely suspended for lying about a tweet in which he consulted with a former Trump administration official about how to deal with social media criticism from the president. Bauder reported that Scully falsely blamed a hacker for the controversial tweet to former White House press secretary Anthony Scaramucci ahead of the second presidential debate, which Scully was to moderate.
The scoop was an instant success online, viewed by more than 125,000 people on APNews in the first hour, and it became a trending topic on Twitter after Trump tweeted about it. https://bit.ly/35oh5eV
Through 78 days at Walt Disney World, basketball writer Tim Reynolds proved himself virtually unstoppable, turning out game stories on deadline while also spinning insightful pieces that examined the major topics of 2020, from coronavirus concerns to racial injustice issues and the presidential election â not to mention the leagueâs work stoppage. The so-called bubble may have confined him to an arena in central Florida, but Reynoldsâ relentless NBA coverage reminded readers that sports illuminate our lives in ways big and small.
In all, Reynolds wrote an eye-popping 200-plus stories, collecting exclusives along the way. He capped his efforts with his insightful analysis of LeBron Jamesâ legacy after James led the Lakers to their record-tying 17th NBA title.
For his exhaustive, and exhausting, work that went well beyond the games in the NBA bubble, Reynolds wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
used years of data on U.S. attorneys to reveal how any diversity gains made under previous administrations have faltered under President Donald Trump. APâs analysis found the 85% of Trumpâs Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys are white men, significantly more than the three previous administrations going back to 1993. But the numbers were just part of the story. The AP team reported on why it mattered in this moment of national reckoning over racial inequality and the fairness of the criminal justice system. The story articulated how Black and brown people are disproportionately imprisoned but underrepresented in the system that puts them there. The piece included an impressive photo combo of all the attorneys, showing row after row â predominantly of white men â and video interviews on the value of diversity in the U.S. attorney ranks.https://bit.ly/3drn6e6https://bit.ly/318gc8J
leveraged longstanding professional relationships to reveal fear and anger rampant among household workers and Secret Service agents working in the coronavirus hot zone of the White House.The story was challenging to report because personnel knew their jobs could be in jeopardy, but the AP team reached out to a broad range of sources and contacts to piece together a compelling story about the anxiety and antagonism pulsing through the White House. While competitors took smaller bites of the apple, the AP story wove together rich details about the workersâ worries and the lack of guidance from White House officials, as well as historical context stretching back to the flu pandemic of 1918.The morning after the story ran, former first lady Michelle Obama posted a tweet seemingly tailored to APâs piece, voicing support for those working in the White House. And days later the story still had sky-high reader engagement. https://bit.ly/314XRt6
When President Donald Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Barrett and her supporters clearly did not want to discuss the nomineeâs reported ties to a religious group called People of Praise.
Enter reporters Michelle Smith and Michael Biesecker. Using on-the-record interviews and an archive of deleted web pages, the pair documented Barrett's deep ties to the charismatic Christian group and painted a detailed picture of the organizationâs beliefs and practices from its early days to the present. And the reporters went on to reveal how the organization had systematically deleted all mentions of Barrett and her family from its website.
For deep, resourceful reporting that sheds new light on the current Supreme Court nominee on the cusp of her confirmation hearings, Smith and Biesecker share this weekâs Best of the States award.
worked sources and turned a tip into an exclusive story detailing how Vice President Mike Pence ordered the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to use the pandemic as justification to halt immigration into the U.S., over the objections of the agency's scientists who twice refused to take the action.
Burke notified Dearen, who started working CDC sources. After a couple of fruitless weeks, he succeeded in identifying a person close to the events who agreed to talk, and a former Pence aide who confirmed the story on the record.
Meanwhile Burke moved the story beyond politics to bring home the orderâs human toll. She gathered data that showed nearly 150,000 people, including 8,800 migrant children, already had been expelled under the order, and she interviewed the father of a 16-year-old Honduran boy who had been held in government custody under the order.
Even on a weekend dominated by news of Trumpâs hospitalization, the piece was the top story on AP News and was widely used and cited by local and national news outlets. https://bit.ly/2SvTB14
leveraged preparation, source reporting and probing questions to set the standard for coverage of President Donald Trumpâs COVID-19 diagnosis.APâs White House crew was already juggling news about a new Supreme Court nominee, revelations about Trumpâs tax records, a chaotic presidential debate and controversy over the presidentâs stand on white supremacy, when word came Thursday night that top adviser Hope Hicks had tested positive for the coronavirus. The reporting team sprang into action to develop the story and explore the implications for Trump and those around him. By 12:30 a.m., theyâd pushed the story as far as they could, and the White House gave no guidance on when test results for the president and first lady would be known.Colvin was still up, though, when Trump tweeted just before 1 a.m. that he and Melania had tested positive. The APNewsAlert moved at 1:02 a.m., and a full writethru packed with context â drawing heavily on APâs preparedness for just this scenario â was out a minute later, giving newspaper editors around the country time to frantically remake the next dayâs front pages. Over the next three days, through two dozen news alerts and more than 100 writethrus, the three reporters collaborated on sharp reporting and probing questions to tell the remarkable story of a president in both a health crisis and a credibility crisis of his own making. The teamâs work broke news and dominated play throughout the weekend. https://bit.ly/3d6bJIqhttps://bit.ly/36GP04thttps://bit.ly/3ntDyiEhttps://bit.ly/2SyroGX
revealed in evocative text and photos the challenges of a severe COVID case and a long rehabilitation. Their compelling work was made possible by building trust and access with one Indiana man and his family. Murphy heard about Larry Brown, an Indianapolis man who finally came home after nearly 80 days in the hospital â some 50 of those days on a ventilator â and realized even local outlets had not done justice to the story.With expertise as a health writer, Murphy learned about the case and safely navigated spending time with Brown to see what his life is like now. Photojournalist Darron Cummings spent several days with the family, vividly capturing how Brown interacts with the kids, and how his hand therapy and neurology appointments work.Brown sometimes became apprehensive over the story; the AP pair earned his trust by explaining their plan and the importance of sharing his story of recovery and the long-term effects of COVID. https://bit.ly/3d6v1gOhttps://bit.ly/2FgorrM
Assignments donât come much more challenging or ambitious: Take a road trip across the nation to see how Americans in different regions and are facing the confluence of COVID-19, economic meltdown, racial protests and a tumultuous presidential election. The first installment of the project had to both launch the series and hold its own as a story, and this AP all-formats team came through beautifully.
The story focuses on Ohio communities in the much-maligned Appalachian region, thoughtfully acknowledging both the truths and the enduring stereotypes so often associated with it. The resulting package resonated for days with readers.
For compelling journalism that speaks to core issues affecting Americans in a turbulent year, the team of enterprise reporter Tim Sullivan, enterprise photographer Maye-E Wong and video journalist Noreen Nasir earns APâs Best of the Week honors.
used her deep expertise on voting procedures, along with strong source work, to report that poorly marked ovals or boxes on mail-in ballots could become this yearâs version of the hanging chads from the disputed 2000 presidential election.With tens of millions of Americans filling out their ballots at home and voting by mail for the first time this year, experts anticipate that many of those voters will make mistakes marking ballots, forcing election workers to try to discern their intent. As Cassidy noted, states with a long history of voting by mail have detailed guidelines for processing and interpreting such ballots. But states that ramped up their vote-by-mail efforts this year in response to the coronavirus pandemic do not have that experience, potentially leading to confusion and disputed vote counts. https://bit.ly/3jii45V
Supreme Court nominees are scrutinized for signs of how they may vote on important issues, but Amy Coney Barrettâs jurisprudence told little about her views on gay rights.
Reporters Michelle R. Smith and Michael Biesecker knew that Barrettâs ties to People of Praise, a religious group with anti-gay views, could be an important part of her confirmation process. Through dogged reporting and source work they were able to show that Barrett was a trustee at People of Praise-run schools that had anti-gay teachings.
Their story had an immediate impact in the run-up to her Oct. 26 Senate confirmation. For thorough and groundbreaking reporting on the tightly held views of a justice likely to sit in judgment of high-profile gay rights cases, Smith and Biesecker win APâs Best of the Week award.
