for their in-depth look at the culture of abuse at USA Gymnastics. The two spoke with dozens of gymnasts, from lesser-knowns who never made the U.S. Olympic team to the legendary Cathy Rigby. What emerged was a tale of a gymnastics culture rife with verbal, emotional and, sometimes, physical abuse. http://bit.ly/2FcDIHY
for scoring a cross-format scoop by being first to report that a conservative Italian journalist helped rewrite and edit the bombshell accusation of sex abuse cover-up against Pope Francis. https://abcn.ws/2Cty83F
for being first to report that a now-deceased Ohio State team doctor accused of sexual misconduct had ties to several other schools. https://trib.in/2yWgdRr
for careful planning and quick reaction on verdict day, putting AP ahead of all media with the news that notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin âEl Chapoâ Guzman was convicted at his closely watched federal drug-trafficking trial. AP was credited with breaking the highly competitive news at outlets around the globe. https://bit.ly/2VhusqD
Vatican correspondent Nicole Winfield sensed a potentially explosive development in Chile's long-running sex abuse and cover-up scandal when she noticed a cryptic tweet from a former member of the Pope Francis' abuse advisory board.
Board member Marie Collins had tweeted that Francis was well aware that victims of Chile's most infamous predator priest had placed Bishop Juan Barros at the scene of their abuse. Collins herself had been involved in relaying those concerns to him.
Intrigued and sensing an important twist in a story that AP has already dominated, Winfield and Santiago correspondent Eva Vergara kicked off an extraordinary effort that would culminate in a three-day, multinational, cross-format papal fact-check, prompting calls for the pope to come clean about a scandal that now threatens his legacy.
Over the course of one frantic weekend the enterprise involved a Paris airport stakeout by senior TV producer Jeff Schaeffer, a missed Super Bowl party hosted by Philadelphia-based TV producer Yvonne Lee and a surreal TV interview conducted by AP reporters on three continents.
For teamwork that spanned the globe, in service of a story of immense global interest, Winfield, Vergara, Schaeffer and Lee are recognized with Beat of the Week.
for revealing that despite mandated reforms, the Pentagon still struggles to provide justice when the children of service members sexually assault each other. Acting on a tip to Dunklin, their story describes the case of a 13-year-old boy accused of molesting at least 10 younger children on a U.S. Air Force base in Japan. The girlsâ mothers say Air Force officials showed little urgency to offer counseling or investigate. âHow is this OK?â asked a mother who locked her kids indoors. https://bit.ly/2XZXbSf
As the ranks of dioceses promising to release lists of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse began to mushroom at the beginning of this year, Philadelphia reporter Claudia Lauer and Washington-based data editor Meghan Hoyer started to strategize: How could they leverage the information on a scale never before accomplished?
The hurdles were high: Many of the released lists were lacking in basic information, and the priests had scattered around the U.S. and beyond, living almost entirely under the radar.
After months of systematic, dogged work, the result was âWhere Are They Now,â a blockbuster investigation that found almost 1,700 priests and other clergy members living with little to no oversight, many with positions giving them access to children. Dozens have committed crimes, including sexual assault.
The story received exceptional play online and in print, and AP Managing Editor Brian Carovillano called it, âOne of the most monumental pieces of AP journalism in my memory.â
For more on this groundbreaking investigation which also received this weekâs Best of the States award, see the full citation here.https://bit.ly/2pIr4u8https://bit.ly/2nBkh4Yhttps://bit.ly/2p42Zh6
for obtaining an exclusive 2015 letter from the pope revealing that he knew about the scandal around a controversial bishop hiding sexual abuse but named him to the helm of the diocese of Osorno anyway. http://bit.ly/2mQeCTU
Iowa City correspondent Ryan J. Foley has written extensively about problems tracking felons who are ineligible to vote in Iowa, but it had been five years since heâd gotten a copy of the database itself. So when a trusted source produced a state database of 103,000 felons, Foley set to work analyzing the data. He found it riddled with errors, including laughable mistakes â such as the Des Moines Police Department being banned from voting.
The story was used extensively by Iowa newspapers and broadcasters, who were especially interested given that Iowaâs governor is seeking to change the law regarding voting by felons who have completed their sentences.
For detailed research and reporting that produced an engaging story of statewide interest, Foley earns APâs Best of the States award.
followed up on their initial reporting that exposed widespread labor abuse in the palm oil industry, conducting a comprehensive investigation into the brutal treatment of women in the production of the omnipresent ingredient, including rapes by plantation supervisors, serious health issues from toxic chemicals and injuries from back-breaking loads. The pair then traced the oil produced by these women to the supply chains of top Western beauty brands â including conglomerates that make billions of dollars as they market the empowerment of women.Mason and McDowell persuaded dozens of female workers to tell their searing stories, spending months getting the women to trust them and then arranging clandestine meetings in an effort to protect the workers from retaliation by plantation owners. They bypassed the stonewalling of major Western brands that refused to say whether their products contain palm oil by using company data and U.S. Customs records to link the workersâ abuse to the brandsâ palm oil supply chains.The package featured striking digital display, video and evocative photos by Indonesia-based stringer Binsar Bakkara, as well as a powerful series of closeups of workersâ hands cradling familiar products containing the fruits of their labor.The story is nearing 250,000 page views on AP News. The Clorox Company, which owns Burtâs Bees Inc., said it would raise the allegations of abuses with its suppliers, calling APâs findings âincredibly disturbing.â https://bit.ly/3liKAV3https://bit.ly/2VeVUXRhttps://bit.ly/3mlXgfd
for finding out that Pope Francis had trimmed sanctions against a handful of pedophile priests who had sought his mercy, and that one case backfired so badly that the Vatican had to put the priest on trial for a second time. http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20170225/news/3...
It was just a coincidence: Emails from 2010, showing that the Atlanta Falcons were worried about the teamâs reliance on painkillers, were quietly entered into the court record as the Falcons were making just their second Super Bowl appearance. But AP sports columnist Jim Litke was prepared, and the result was a Super Bowl week scoop.
Litke's story is the Beat of the Week.
for being first to report the findings of the state of Montanaâs investigation into the deaths of 14 children, and how lawmakers missed a chance to fix the problem: http://bit.ly/2iVA9Zd
The idea for this deeply reported story emerged months ago when AP noticed Ukrainian refugees being sent to Russia â then disappearing.
The process was painstaking, but AP spoke with 36 Ukrainians, most of them from the devastated city of Mariupol, all of whom were sent to Russia. Some had made their way to other countries, but almost a dozen were still in Russia, an important find. The refugeesâ personal stories humanized the larger findings of the investigation: Ukrainian civilians have indeed been forced into Russia, subjected along the way to human rights abuses, from interrogation to being yanked aside and never seen again.
The story was widely used and cited by other news organizations, and a week after it ran it was still near the top for AP reader engagement.
For teamwork across borders that resulted in the most extensive and revealing investigation yet into the forcible transfers of Ukrainian refugees, the team of Lori Hinnant, Vasilisa Stepanenko, Cara Anna, Sara El Deeb and colleagues in Russia and Georgia earns APâs Best of the Week â First Winner.
revealed that, contrary to World Health Organization claims, WHO senior management did know about at least two cases of doctors accused of sex abuse and misconduct during the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but did not fire or even apparently discipline them.Health and science reporter Cheng advanced the story by putting names, for the first time, to the implicated doctors and a senior manager. She discovered that WHO managers even witnessed an agreement in which a WHO doctor agreed to pay a young woman he had allegedly impregnated.While Cheng worked with her sources, Congo stringer Kudra Maliro tracked down several alleged victims of both doctors, adding text and images. The investigation was based on interviews with dozens of WHO staffers, Ebola officials in Congo, private emails, legal documents and recordings of internal meetings obtained by the AP.The story drew strong and immediate international response. Paula Donovan, co-director of a group that tracks sex abuse, wrote: âNever ... have I seen such a detailed exposĂ© containing so many unanswerable indictments against so many UN personnel. Youâve broken real ground here.âhttps://aplink.news/f39https://aplink.video/pk5
was the first and only journalist to reveal that a New Hampshire therapist accused of sexual assault previously spent 12 years in prison, where he changed his name and earned a degree in counseling after a conviction for a notorious drunk driving incident that resulted in the death of a 12-year-old girl.A tip from the client accusing Peter Stone of abuse started Ramerâs in-depth reporting on the therapistâs dark past and the ethical questions raised over whether professionals should disclose prior criminal convictions.Even major New England news outlets that reported Stoneâs 2021 arrest on sexual assault charges did not link him to his previous conviction as Pete Dushame; Ramer alone made that connection. Her story played widely with news outlets in the Northeast and beyond, and ranked near APâs top for pageviews and reader engagement over the weekend.Read more
Responding to APâs call for ambitious journalism in 2019, Holbrook âBertâ Mohr of the U.S. investigative team tossed out an idea during a brainstorming session: Authorities in Mississippi had found vapes containing fentanyl and synthetic marijuana in stores near Mohrâs home. What caught his eye was that the product was labeled as CBD.
That led to a collaboration by the Investigations and the Health and Science teams that would offer not just the exclusive results of laboratory testing — finding cheap and illegal synthetic marijuana instead of natural CBD in vapes and edibles — but also telling details about the people who bring dangerous products to market.
The âSpiked CBDâ package broke through. It was easily the top story on AP Mobile, and Mohrâs bylined story appeared on the front page of at least 23 newspapers; it was teased on the front of nearly 100 others.
For identifying and leading a collaborative investigative project that connected with customers and readers, Mohr receives this weekâs Best of the States award.
They are crises that have received significant attention while playing out in different parts of the world, but the efforts of a trio of AP journalists have shed new light on both the perilous journey of migrants in the Mediterranean and the opioid epidemic in America.
The work of the journalists, Renata Brito aboard the Ocean Viking humanitarian ship sailing in the Mediterranean Sea, and Lindsay Whitehurst and Claire Galofaro in the U.S., tells the respective stories with a captivating clarity that resonated with readers and earned a rare tie in the Best of the Week contest. Each story demonstrated the profound storytelling power the AP can bring to complex stories with ingenuity, smart planning and teamwork.
Barcelona-based Brito wins for a story that sheâs still living, and telling, from the Ocean Viking. Embedded with a ship that last week rescued 50 migrants fleeing violence in Africa, her dispatch, âMigrant escaping Libya torture: We will go to Europe or die,â showed in stark terms the journey that for many has ended in death.
Galofaro and Whitehurst, meanwhile, share the win with a very different but no-less-gripping tale: âThe rise and fall of an Eagle Scoutâs deadly fentanyl empire,â about a millennial who built a million-dollar empire of mail-order fentanyl-laced pills.
For packages that brought new insight and perspective to heavily covered stories with significant global impact, Brito, Galofaro and Whitehurst win APâs Best of the Week honors.
teamed up to make AP first to report on how the pandemic exacerbated the spread of opioid addiction among Black Americans. Their story focused on St. Louis, bringing to light a new consequence of the coronavirus and racial injustice, major themes of the past year, showing that the pandemic accelerated a trend that was already in the works: The spread of opioid addiction from mostly rural, white communities to more urban, Black neighborhoods. The reporting placed this trend squarely in a history of drug addiction in America that has long discriminated against Black people, and described how even today, the best drug abuse treatment is more accessible to white people than to Black people. As one doctor put it, the soaring death rate from drug addiction has become a pressing civil rights issue. The story was sensitively told in text, photos and video, with poignant details, including one mother fearing her sonâs overdose death for so long that she paid for his funeral in monthly installments. The care taken in telling this story was rewarded with APâs second-highest reader engagement metrics of the day.https://aplink.news/ak7https://aplink.video/ce5https://aplink.photos/kgr
used AP feeds from across the country to report exclusively that millions of doses of hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug touted by President Trump, were flowing from private companies and the federal stockpile to states and cities, despite warnings from doctors that the drug was unproven for treatment of COVID-19. https://bit.ly/2zJ7fYP
