Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP investigation of Louisiana State Police triggers federal probe

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 “pattern-or-practice” 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 agency’s instinct to protect troopers rather than investigate them.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP Investigation: Moscow taking Ukrainian kids to raise them as Russians

Russia has been open about its desire to turn Ukrainian orphans into Russian citizens with Russian families — a flashpoint of the war. But whether or not they have parents, raising the children of war in another country or culture can be a marker of genocide, an attempt to erase culture and identity.

This investigative piece, reported from Ukraine, Russia and France, made AP the first news organization to show the disturbing process from beginning to end — and prove that many of the children are not orphans at all. The all-formats story led with the account of a Ukrainian mother who, against the odds, successfully retrieved six children who had been trapped in Mariupol and seized by pro-Russia forces.

The story won wide play online, was a hit on Twitter and was singled out during a State Department briefing.

For documenting a severe breach of human rights with a heart-wrenching story that resonated across audiences, Sarah El Deeb, Tanya Titova, Anastasiia Shvets, Elizaveta Tilna and Kirill Zarubin earn AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP’s global ‘Sacred Rivers’ series explores hallowed waterways and cultures under threat

Over the course of several months, more than 30 AP staffers across five continents teamed up to execute the illuminating and alarming six-part Sacred Rivers series. The ambitious project leveraged all-formats skills to tell lyrical stories, each with compelling images and presentation, engaging audiences with the intersection of spirituality, religion, Indigenous culture, business practices, energy, environmental degradation — even geopolitical conflicts.

The series resonated with AP’s readers and customers worldwide.

For an enterprising, inspiring and unmatched creative collaboration that showcased AP journalism at its best, the Sacred Rivers project team is AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Source work documents Russia recruiting prisoners to fight

found sources who gave detailed accounts of covert Russian military recruitment efforts — including offers of amnesty to prisoners — to make up the manpower shortage as losses mount in Ukraine.Getting anyone to speak, even off the record, about the recruitment drive has been virtually impossible. But AP’s reporter, unnamed for their security, managed to obtain access to a Russian social network group for family members of prisoners. One woman agreed to speak privately about how her boyfriend declined the offer to fight but others accepted the offer; she said eight had died in Ukraine.Another contact, the father of a soldier, corroborated reports of hundreds of Russian soldiers refusing to fight or trying to leave the military.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reports on consequences of shrinking US police ranks

spent weeks finding and reporting on real people across the country affected by the trickle-down effects of a shortage of police offers.Instead of focusing solely on the police, whose ranks are thinning because of burnout and other issues, Portland, Oregon-Based Flaccus, working with photographer Mitchelldyer, gave voice to the parents of a cold-case victim whose case was pushed aside because of rising gun homicides.In Philadelphia, Lauer and photographer Rourke showed how complaints have swelled over abandoned cars and other quality-of-life issues in low-income areas. And in Los Angeles, Dazio, video journalist Garcia and photographer Dovarganes found the problem has deeply impacted police homeless outreach.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP pair raises awareness of overlooked Atlanta Race Massacre

delivered a distinctive enterprise package, shining light on the little-recognized 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre which involved the killings of at least 25 Black people and the destruction of Black-owned businesses.Warren, an Atlanta desk editor who also writes and edits for the AP’s Race and Ethnicity Team, has a passion and eye for history, particularly overlooked events related to race. Through diligent source work and reporting — and despite the misgivings of some Atlantans — he and multiformat colleague Sharon Johnson developed an engaging all-formats package raising awareness of the massacre and making it relevant to the current racial reckoning in the U.S.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Enterprising all-formats coverage of deadly Kentucky floods

AP journalists from Kentucky and beyond responded to June 28’s torrential rainfall and historic flooding with a remarkable run of enterprise work spun from the breaking news, telling the deeper stories behind the tragedy in poignant and authoritative text, photos and video.From the impact on a region already struggling with the coal industry’s rapid decline to intimate stories of families coping with profound loss, the AP led with sweeping, insightful coverage, offering detail and context that can only come from familiarity with the landscape and its people.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP Exclusive: Unserved 1955 arrest warrant discovered for woman at center of Emmett Till case

“And I do not say this lightly: Holy shit.” That, from producer and Black List founder Franklin Leonard, sums up the collective reaction to the scoop by AP’s Jay Reeves and Emily Wagster Pettus: Searchers in Mississippi had discovered the nearly 70-year-old unserved warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman whose unproven accusation against Emmett Till led to the Black teenager’s lynching, a horror that galvanized the civil rights movement.

Reeves had reported previously that relatives and activists were still seeking the long-lost warrant, and years of source work paid off with a tip: The document had been found in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse. He confirmed it and teamed up with Wagster Pettus, contacting law enforcement officials and legal experts on what the discovery means to the case, which had been considered closed.

The resulting story made waves, scoring heavy play with customers and on AP platforms.For breaking news on one of the country’s most notorious civil rights cases, Reeves and Wagster Pettus share this week’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Fin-tastic! AP dives deep into the world of mermaiding

reported from the Philippines and Australia for this engaging package that introduced readers and viewers to the growing subculture of mermaiding, and how it has come to represent diversity.The piece, as enlightening as it is entertaining, celebrates the range and spirit of the merfolk community with writing both amusing and sensitive, complemented by distinctive photos and video including striking underwater and drone images. The piece was the second-most-read on the AP News platform, elicting compliments from no less than the actress who voiced Disney’s mermaid Ariel.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

All-formats reporting gives voice to abortion opponents

took readers to Columbia, South Carolina, and the front lines of the fight against abortion as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs a decision that could reverse Roe v. Wade.National reporter Sedensky and photo/video journalist Goldman spent several days with members of A Moment of Hope, a group that assembles outside a Planned Parenthood clinic every abortion day, trying to change the minds of women who show up. The resulting all-formats package weaves together the voices of both opponents and defenders of abortion and the history of the movement as it relates the gripping case of one pregnant woman and the conflict playing out at the clinic as the woman decides whether to end her pregnancy.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Indians rich and poor face pandemic hardship on their own

revealed how failures of India’s government during the pandemic have left Indians across the country — from the poor to the rich — struggling virtually on their own. Despite a surge of coronavirus illness and death within the AP staff in India, the team put together an intimate story that showed how the pandemic impacted Indians from all walks of life.The story was born when, during a call, health and science reporter Ghosal noted that Indians across the social spectrum faced severe shortages of services and resources. Someone he knew was even asking where he could get wood for a funeral pyre. The team went out to look for people to tell the story, eventually narrowing the list to three families.Photographer Rahi went to the home of a woman who scavenged human hair in Bengaluru despite coronavirus concerns, and Ghosal provided photos from Delhi. Hussain reported details from family members whose stories were chronicled in the article, and enterprise correspondent Sullivan wove the piece together, capturing the poignancy and despair of the situation on the ground in India. From diplomats to sewer cleaners, no has been immune to the hardships wrought by the virus, as the medical system neared collapse and the government found itself unprepared. https://aplink.news/plz

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP explores El Salvador’s strict abortion ban through the voices of women who lived it

As the U.S. Supreme Court considers overturning the constitutional right to abortion, reporter Luis Henao and video journalist Jessie Wardarski provided a compelling account of what can happen under a total abortion ban, through the testimonials of women who were raped or suffered miscarriages in El Salvador — where the country’s harsh anti-abortion law committed them to long prison terms.

Henao and Wardarski traveled to rural El Salvador to meet women willing to share on camera their harrowing stories of being imprisoned under the law. To these Salvadoran women, their plight should serve as a cautionary tale for Americans.

The AP pair also sought the views of a Catholic cardinal and a lawmaker who defended the ban on abortion. The resulting all-formats package was used by hundreds of news outlets, was widely praised by experts on the issue and generated impassioned commentary on social media.

For engaging, insightful coverage that gives voice to women who have suffered the consequences of an abortion ban, and shedding light on an issue that sharply divides opinions in the U.S. and beyond, Henao and Wardarski earn AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Data and on-the-ground reporting reveal toll of Somali famine

joined forces to deliver an all-formats package on the unfolding crisis in Somalia, where severe drought is driving hunger-related deaths.Until this Only on AP story, media coverage of the drought in the Horn of Africa consisted largely of aid groups’ dire warnings or isolated stories of grieving families, but little concrete information on how many people have begun to die. Nairobi-based correspondent Anna instead dug into unpublished humanitarian reports and coordinated with dedicated Mogadishu freelancers — correspondent Faruk, photographer Warsameh and video journalist Nor — producing a story that merges exclusive data on the mounting deaths with compelling personal accounts that put a human face on the crisis.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Expanding Gulf Coast gas exports raise residents’ concerns

led an AP team producing a visually rich, deeply reported package examining a vast expansion of natural gas facilities in coastal Southwest Louisiana that is escalating greenhouse gas emissions, raising global temperatures, fueling extreme weather and imperiling communities.Reporting from coastal Southwest Louisiana, energy reporter Bussewitz and national multiformat journalist Irvine captured the lives of families hurt by extreme weather linked to a build-out of liquefied natural gas export terminals. But the two went further: They depicted an urgent concern: Where once it looked as if the nation might soon shift away from fossil fuel industries, a reversal has occurred. The U.S. has become the world’s largest exporter of LNG, with worrisome consequences for Gulf Coast residents and the planet’s climate.A few news organizations, mostly local or niche environmental publications, have reported previously on this issue, but none have had the depth and range of AP's package, with its data, visuals and reporting on human impact.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Intimate accounts of limbs lost, lives devastated in Ukraine

tell the arresting stories of Ukrainians who have lost limbs to Russian attacks.Madrid-based Chief Photographer Morenatti, who lost his left leg in 2009 while on assignment covering the conflict in Afghanistan, says people who have experienced amputation share a camaraderie, and that he now prefers to document victims left behind by “this damned war," far removed from the front lines.He and Athens Bureau Chief Becatoros worked through local contacts and searched hospitals for the right subjects to convey the varied experiences of those who had their lives suddenly and violently upended. With intimate images and evocative text they convey the brutal consequences of war — “Beyond any human logic,” Morenatti says — for men, women and children suffering permanent loss and facing long journeys of recovery and reconciliation.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

All-formats package: Environmental workers facing violence

teamed up to vividly illustrate why environmental work is emerging as one of the world’s most dangerous professions, as seen through the lens of one such worker in Haiti. In 2020 alone, a record 227 environmental workers were killed globally, according to one human rights organization.Daniel reported from New York while Haiti video journalist Luxama and his colleague, photographer Joseph, followed marine biologist Jean Wiener during a rare trip to his native Haiti. Wiener has been forced to do most of his conservation work from afar because of rampant violence in his homeland.With tight collaboration between AP departments and bureaus, the compelling package of text and visuals transports readers to the ominously named Massacre River as Wiener confronts climate change in a poor nation hit hard by global warming — and violence.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Perseverance lands AP interview with Ukrainian president; team in Bucha documents evidence of war crimes

With a dedication to continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine, the AP teams in and around Kyiv landed an interview with the Ukrainian president and offered a definitive all-formats chronicle of the mass killings in Bucha.

In the capital, AP journalists relentlessly pursued an interview with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Asia-Pacific news director Adam Schreck, video journalist Mstyslav Chernov and photographer Evgeniy Maloletka eventually sat down with the president in a bunker-like government building, the dramatic setting adding to the power of the all-formats interview.

Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Kyiv, reporter Cara Anna and a team of visual journalists brought the horror of life and death in Bucha to readers around the world, walking the streets and talking with witnesses to the murders and other abuses under Russian occupation of the town. The team saw at least a dozen uncollected bodies and talked with two dozen survivors and witnesses, each telling horrific stories.

The teams’ coverage received strong play and reader engagement, a sign that AP’s customers and audience are still keenly interested in accurate, definitive accounts of the war.

For shedding light on an increasingly dark era for Ukraine, we honor Adam Schreck, Mstyslav Chernov, Evgeniy Maloletka, Cara Anna, Oleksandr Stashevskyi, Rodrigo Abd, Vadim Ghirda and Felipe Dana as AP’s Best of the Week — First Winners.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: States passing tough abortion laws often have weak social programs

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.AP’s 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 team’s 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

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP investigation: Police can track your phone with ‘Fog’ tech tool

delivered an all-formats package revealing a startling truth: U.S. law enforcement agencies have used a smartphone tracking tool called “Fog Reveal” — made by a company that has no website or public information — to track people’s movements going back months, if not years, sometimes without search warrants.A tip to AP early this year launched the in-depth investigation of Fog Data Science, a company whose marketing materials said it drew from data generated by thousands of popular apps. Police have used the company’s Fog Reveal to search hundreds of billions of records from some 250 million mobile devices, according to documents reviewed by AP.The exclusive package, with an engaging presentation of illustrations, video and photos, attracted a global audience online, in broadcast and in print.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Unique AP visual investigation reveals Myanmar's junta using bodies to terrorize civilians

The video was startling: As a motorcycle carrying three men speeds down a city street in Myanmar, a soldier traveling in the back of a pickup truck opens fire. A man falls to the ground, mortally wounded, while the other two run away. 

Investigative reporters Robin McDowell and Margie Mason found that the video was one of many seeming to show the military firing at civilians indiscriminately in the wake of February’s coup. They also noticed that security forces appear to go out of their way to mutilate and drag bodies in the street, seemingly to terrorize the populace. The pair teamed up with the Human Rights Center Investigations Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, applying cutting-edge image analysis to thousands of social media posts and images online to reveal how the junta in Myanmar was using the bodies as tools of terror, according to human rights activists. 

With important contributions by Southeast Asia news director Kiko Rosario, and video by Manuel Valdes, the piece received more than 53,000 views on AP platforms.

For finding a way to analyze visual data from one of the world’s most secretive countries and presenting it in a rich and compelling multiformat narrative, McDowell, Mason, Rosario and Valdes earn AP’s Best of the Week award.