for using open records requests and data analysis to show that dubious âhigh threatâ arrests are being used to help justify spending $1 billion to secure the Texas-Mexico border, even though some involve small crimes, first-time offenders or offenses that occurred far from the border. http://bit.ly/2ebDwYT
You know your scoop has touched a nerve when it gets tweeted by both Ann Coulter and Chelsea Clinton.
Such was the case with Colleen Longâs multiplatform APNewsBreak that the U.S. approved thousands of requests by men to have their child or adolescent brides admitted to the United States. The story not only pointed to problems in immigration law, but also lax state laws that make immigration by child brides possible.
The story started with a tip from Ron Nixon, APâs new international investigations editor, who had been told by a source that data requested by the Senate Homeland Security Committee would be startling.
Nixon passed the information to Long, the Washington-based homeland security reporter, who persuaded committee staff to give her the story exclusively. She also went beyond the striking data to give readers a sense of how the issue affects womenâs lives, speaking with women who had been married as children. A compelling video accompanied the piece.
On a busy news day, the story was one of APâs most widely used, fronting many news websites and posted to Facebook by multiple news organizations. The video piece also had a strong showing, receiving thousands of YouTube streams and 27 customer downloads.
For revealing a little-known loophole in immigration policy that raises concerns over security and exploitation, and for connecting the data to women victimized by the policy, Colleen Long wins this weekâs Best of the AP.
On the news-heavy weekend between impeachment and inauguration, Lolita Baldor broke a story that became the dominant item for news organizations across platforms: Top military officials feared insider attacks from National Guardsmen activated to protect the inauguration, prompting the FBI to vet all 25,000 troops sent to the city.
And officials werenât whispering their concerns anonymously; Baldor quoted the Secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy. That was no fluke; Baldor has built trust with McCarthy and other top officials at the Pentagon. The Army granted her exclusive, off-the-record access to an inaugural planning session, then arranged on-the-record interviews with a number of leaders.
Baldorâs scoop immediately lit up social media and was picked up by some 330 news outlets, including networks and major publications.
For impressive source work that produced a major scoop in the intensive buildup to the inauguration, Baldor wins APâs Best of the Week award.
for obtaining exclusive surveillance video of an attack on Paris' Orly airport showing that soldiers were caught off guard. This was no small feat: Surveillance video is almost never available publicly in France, and Hinnant scooped all international and local French media in getting it. http://apne.ws/2nnfaA1
From the moment a caravan of Central American migrants set out from Honduras and crossed through Guatemala toward a series of standoffs with Mexican authorities, the AP was there, documenting every step.
Knowing that Mexican authorities were determined not to let the migrants pass, editors deployed cross-format teams to cover the caravan from both the Guatemalan and the Mexican sides of the border. That effort put the AP far ahead of the competition when the migrants started to cross the Suchiate River into Mexico.
In a coordinated effort, AP staffers and stringers shared information and skills to deliver dramatic coverage, including live video, as people waded across the river and scuffled with Mexicoâs National Guard. The all-formats coverage was among APâs top stories for Jan. 22.
For following the story early and then collaborating closely to produce dominant images and stories of the latest chapter in the migrant saga from Central America, the team of MoisĂ©s Castillo, MarĂa Verza, Sonia PĂ©rez D., Marco Ugarte, Peter Orsi, Diego Delgado, Marcelo Viaño and Santiago Billy share APâs Best of the Week honors.
for tracing a little-noticed surge in Brazilians crossing into the U.S. Leveraging APâs footprint from Brazil to Texas to Boston, the deeply reported story documented an astonishing number of Brazilians pouring through El Paso. Hundreds of them had ridden with a single cab driver who Attanasio found by canvassing taxi stands at border bridges, while in Boston, Marcelo found a recently-arrived mechanic, adding texture to the story. https://bit.ly/2PG3jh7
The horror tales from Niger â as reported by some of the worldâs most reputable media â were gruesome: Sgt. La David Johnson, one of four Americans who died on a mysterious U.S. Army Special Forces mission in early October, had been captured alive, tortured, killed execution-style at close range and his remains had been mutilated.
The details were all erroneous, it turned out.
It took the APâs Pentagon reporter Lita Baldor to set the record straight with a stunning scoop on an otherwise quiet Washington Sunday in December, revealing the findings of a still confidential Pentagon report.
For an unmatched story that revealed the heroism of an American soldier who died in the line of duty, Baldor wins this weekâs Beat of the Week.
for breaking the astonishing news that the U.S. was signing an agreement that would send would-be asylum-seekers to one of the world's most violent countries, El Salvador. Long was was hours ahead of the official announcement and the first to get a copy of the agreement.https://bit.ly/2mt3oZh
The disturbing stories of more than 2,000 kids caught up in the U.S. immigration system â including babies and toddlers forcibly separated from their parents â dominated headlines and led newscasts around the world.
AP reporters, working across the country, in Washington, D.C., Latin America and along the U.S.-Mexican border led the coverage of the impact of the zero tolerance immigration policy. Their work produced a series of scoops that set the agenda, alerting Capitol Hill leaders to a major White House order, leaving an MSNBC anchor in tears and generating action by politicians.
For their work, the Beat of the Week is shared by investigative reporters Garance Burke, Martha Mendoza, Michael Biesecker and Jake Pearson, and Washington reporters Jill Colvin and Colleen Long. The award also recognizes an outstanding company-wide effort that included reporting from numerous locations and across formats, putting the AP repeatedly in front of a major global story.
AP journalists have worked tirelessly across formats and locations to chronicle the stories of immigrant parents and children struggling to reunite after being separated at the border as a result of White House zero-tolerance enforcement policies.
Their work paid big dividends last week with exclusive images, videos and stories about separated families and White House policies by reporters Martha Irvine, Morgan Lee, Michael Tarm and Elliot Spagat, photographers Charlie Arbogast and Matt York and video journalist John Mone.
For compelling multiformat coverage of families affected by immigration policy, and for expanding AP's reach on this closely watched story, Irvine, Lee, Spagat, Tarm, Arbogast, York and Mone share this week's Best of the States award.
âBuild the wall!" That chant became a frequent rallying cry at rallies for Donald Trump, who vowed to stem illegal immigration by building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The candidate, now president-elect, would routinely engage in a back-and-forth with crowds. "Who's going to pay for it?" Trump would ask. "Mexico!" they'd shout back.
Not so, as it turns out. In an APNewsBreak, congressional correspondent Erica Werner and new White House reporter Jill Colvin were the first to report that Trump and congressional Republicans were exploring ways to use existing law â and U.S. taxpayer dollars â to build the border wall.
for braving security restrictions and overcoming a complete communication lockdown to report in all formats on life under siege from Indian-administered Kashmir.When New Delhi moved Aug. 5 to revoke the Himalayan region of its statehood, all lines to the outside world were severed. With a strict curfew in place the AP crew overnighted in the office, but transmission in any format was a challenge. Defying the crackdown on movement and filming, the team managed to send photos, video and text with a passenger on a flight to Delhi.Meanwhile, Saaliq, a native Kashmiri himself, spoke to people struggling to buy necessities and to those injured during sporadic protests. His story, some of which he dictated over the phone from a Srinagar hotel, was one of the first reports in the international media that allowed Kashmiri voices to be heard after the dramatic developments. Hussain followed with personal stories of how Kashmiris were coping with life surrounded by armed police and paramilitary soldiers. And with short windows of internet access and many trips to the airport, the AP team managed to move words and images of thousands of protesters, including a widely used photo of a group of women marching after Friday prayers, and security forces patrolling the city. The lockdown continues. While some local media have suggested normalcy has returned to Kashmir, AP offers a critical counter narrative grounded in dogged reporting to show the world what is happening in the disputed region.https://bit.ly/31EKii3https://bit.ly/2H8adH7https://bit.ly/3063jJV
President Donald Trump has altered the immigration system arguably more than any U.S. president, meaning this yearâs election could have major implications for future immigration policy and for those trying to enter or stay in the U.S. In the run-up to the election, APâs immigration team unraveled four key policies that have upended lives: reduced refugee numbers, restrictions on international students, a virtual shutdown of asylum and the curbing of legal immigration.
The journalists used unmatched source work, data reporting and APâs global footprint, scoring key on-the-record interviews, from would-be refugees stuck overseas to Stephen Miller, Trumpâs lead immigration adviser.
For timely, in-depth coverage of immigration issues that likely hang in the balance as the election is decided, the team of Spagat, Tareen, Snow, Watson, Bull and Akour wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
What APâs Lori Hinnant knew, from a conversation with Beirut bureau chief Zeina Karam early this year, amounted to a fascinating mystery: A series of Syrian villages had been emptied and many of their people taken hostage by the Islamic State group, but now most appeared to be free. It was clear that ransoms were paid, but no one would talk about how it happened.
The hostages were more than 200 Assyrian Christians who were rescued through a fundraising effort among the vanishing peopleâs global diaspora that brought in millions of dollars. These were the broad outlines of the story that Hinnantâs months of reporting confirmed, but even better were the exclusive details she unearthed _ including IS sending one villager with a ransom note to his bishop, the church dinners and concerts held around the world for donations, and the decision, fraught with ethical qualms and legal risks, to pay a ransom.
Hinnantâs resulting âthriller,â as one admirer called it, is the Beat of the Week.
Houston newsman Frank Bajak headed to San Antonio with an overriding goal: Get an interview with a survivor of the immigrant-smuggling nightmare that claimed the lives of 10 people in the suffocating heat of a nearly sealed tractor-trailer.
The challenge was daunting. Survivors had been distributed among seven hospitals in the pre-dawn hours on the Sunday they were discovered in the truck outside a Walmart, with immigration and border patrol guards standing vigil outside their rooms.
Bajak's persistent, resourceful and ultimately successful effort to a secure that exclusive interview is recognized with this week's Best of the States prize.
Homeland Security reporter Colleen Long and White House reporter Jill Colvin have repeatedly put the AP ahead on immigration coverage, but they outdid themselves during an intensely competitive week on the topic.
With President Donald Trump stepping up his threats to shut down the border amid a record surge of migrant families coming to the country, the pair dove into their source reporting, scoring three major scoops by the end of the week:
â Long and Colvin were first to report that Trump was contemplating naming a âborder czarâ to oversee immigration issues at the border. â They broke the news that the White House had withdrawn the nomination of its pick to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one day before he was scheduled to travel to the border with Trump. The scoop was so far ahead, and the news so perplexing, some in the Trump administration assumed it was a mistake. â A few days later, they delivered a smart piece pulling together the various actions surrounding Trumpâs border troubles, suggesting that more personnel shakeups were expected. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned the next day.
The stories all received wide play by major outlets, and the weekender on Trumpâs growing problem on the border scored in newspapers around the country, landing on the front page of Sunday papers in 20 states.
For their outstanding work to break multiple stories on a subject that dominated the news cycle, Long and Colvin win APâs Best of the Week.
When news first broke in early August about mysterious incidents involving U.S. diplomats in Cuba, the AP was all over the story, beating the competition to several key early details. These included talk among officials about a possible âsonic attackâ and suspicions that ranged from Cuban culpability to possible intervention by an outside culprit like Russia.
But so many questions were left unanswered. And with the FBI deep into one of the most perplexing investigations in modern diplomatic history, U.S. officials in the State Department, White House and elsewhere were saying as little as possible about what they were learning.
Thatâs when the Washington bureau put together a multi-beat team of reporters to try to put the pieces together. Their comprehensive work wins Beat of the Week.
On a midnight assignment at the U.S.-Mexico border in mid-May, the all-formats team of Greg Bull, Eugene Garcia and Adriana GĂłmez LicĂłn reported on an 8-year-old Honduran migrant named Emely. Bull made a striking image as Emely stood alone and barefoot after crossing into Texas with strangers and turning herself into border agents.
Thanks to Bullâs photograph, just more than three weeks later another AP team — reporter Acacia Coronado, photographer Eric Gay and video journalist Angie Wang — were on hand when Emely hugged her mother for the first time in six years. The girlâs mother had seen Bullâs photo on television, setting her on a desperate mission to find Emely and setting in motion a determined AP effort to report on the reunion.
The result was a vivid and emotional package with remarkably high reader engagement and outstanding customer use in all formats.
For spotlighting the stories that persist even when a nationâs attention to the U.S-Mexico border does not — and commitment and compassion in seeing it through — Coronado, Gay, Wang, Bull, Garcia and GĂłmez LicĂłn earn APâs Best of the Week award.
landed key interviews in quick succession to drive the South Asia news agenda.Persistence by Kathmanduâs Gurubacharya paid off when Nepalâs newly appointed health minister, Sher Bahadur Tamang, revealed on camera that Nepal was in desperate need of vaccines and would allow any vaccine producer to run trials and produce vaccines with all fees waived.Meanwhile, across the border in India, Bhatia conducted a timely Zoom interview with the new president of the Tibetan government-in-exile, Penpa Tsering, in the northern city of Dharmsala, where the Dalai Lama has been living since fleeing Chinese forces in 1959. Tsering said a visit by the Dalai Lama to Tibet could be the best way to resume talks with China. Tseringâs extensive comments contrasted with a recent Chinese-led media tour of Tibet.And a day later, Delhiâs Pathi arranged an on-camera interview with Dr. Vinod K. Paul, head of Indiaâs COVID-19 response team. He defended the Indiaâs move to restrict vaccine exports, saying India wants to resume exports but canât do so until its domestic needs are met. Paul also denied that the government was deliberately undercounting deaths or cases.The exclusive interviews elevated APâs news report across formats, making headlines with regional and international customers.https://aplink.news/9u8https://aplink.news/5c9https://aplink.news/cddhttps://aplink.video/dfchttps://aplink.video/2vz
broke the news that a former Iran detainee, Amir Hekmati, a U.S. citizen, Marine and Iraq war veteran whose 2016 release had been widely lauded during the Obama administration, had been denied compensation as a result of suspicions he had gone to Iran to sell secrets, not to visit his grandmother.The exclusive solved the mystery of why the Justice Department had refused to pay Hekmati $20 million in compensation for years of imprisonment that included brutal torture. National security writer Tucker read through hundreds of pages of documents filed in the obscure Court of Federal Claims to piece together the narrative, accompanied by photos and a video from Washington video journalist Nathan Ellgren, which had roughly 2,000 views on YouTube.https://bit.ly/3lJ91wQhttps://bit.ly/3rfjaT6
