for exemplary all-formats coverage of Fidel Castro's death, with staffers working through the night and strong preparedness in all formats, including a masterly written obituary by Latin America News Director Paul Haven and Havana chief Michael Weissenstein.
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for landing an exclusive telephone interview with a South Carolina prison inmate who calmly confesses his role in the deaths of four fellow prisoners. https://apnews.com/f939c602fe9f40e3a33ebe78331a08e...
Long lines of people and traffic seemed to indicate that dependency on food banks was on the rise in the U.S. as the COVID-19 pandemic hit home. But a team of AP journalists set out to know the facts and tell the stories of those relying on handouts — many accepting the aid for the first time.
Merging exclusive data analysis with in-depth personal reporting, the team delivered an accurate, powerful picture of food insecurity and economic distress in the U.S. APâs analysis found a significant increase in food bank distribution during the pandemic, while all-formats AP journalists across the country reported from food lines and the homes of those relying on food aid.
For telling data analysis and on-the-ground coverage that harnessed APâs national footprint to reveal the consequences of the pandemic economy, this AP team wins Best of the Week honors.
went beyond just documenting the fires that swept across Brazilâs Pantanal wetlands, decimating wildlife, but also reported that the governmentâs meager response allowed the blazes to spiral out of control. Almost one-quarter of the Pantanal, the worldâs largest tropical wetlands, went up in flames â an area bigger than the state of Maryland, and double what California lost this year.
The Brazilian government said it mobilized hundreds of troops and agents. as well as aircraft dropping water, to douse the fires. The AP team used witness testimonials, local data and its journalistsâ own observations â they didnât find a single armed forces member during five days in the northern Pantanal, where the fires were centered. Sources yielded further evidence and a government source who was involved in the Pantanal fire response later confirmed the APâs findings, despite continued assertions by Brazilâs environment ministry that its response was stellar.
The team produced multiple packages with especially strong video and photos. The work was the most used from Latin America by AP clients for all of September.https://bit.ly/33zTrMvhttps://bit.ly/36KwSad
Maria Verza, contractor reporter, Mexico City, and Enric Marti, news director for Mexico and Central America, for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at how weekly newspaper Riodoce is continuing its work after its founder and publisher was gunned down in the street in broad daylight. http://wapo.st/2w2GNFV
âAnd I do not say this lightly: Holy shit.â That, from producer and Black List founder Franklin Leonard, sums up the collective reaction to the scoop by APâs 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 teenagerâs 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 countryâs most notorious civil rights cases, Reeves and Wagster Pettus share this weekâs Best of the Week â First Winner honors.
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.
spent months earning the trust of prisonersâ families and senior U.S. officials, enabling them to break the story of the largest prisoner swap between the United States and a foreign government in recent years. Their scoop on the release of seven American prisoners in Venezuela, in exchange for the release by the U.S. of two relatives of President Nicolas Maduro, put AP far ahead on a hugely competitive story and on a development journalists at rival news organizations had themselves been chasing for years.The AP published a full, detailed story before any competitor had a single word and ahead of the official White House announcement.Read more
When Mexico announced in August that its 30 million students would start the school year using a combination of internet and television-based distance learning, many poor families chose to send their children to work to help survive the pandemicâs economic toll.
With tens of millions of out-of-school children worldwide, AP decided to look at this sad phenomenon on a broad level, from Latin America, where children hammered away inside amber mines or labored in brick kilns, to Kenya where girls had been forced into prostitution while others broke rocks in a quarry.
For their important and compelling work, the team of Maria Verza, Eduardo Verdugo, Alexis Triboulard, Carlos Valdez, Juan Karita, Carlos Guerrero, William Costa, Jorge Saenz, Tom Odula, Brian Inganga, Sheikh Saaliq and Dario Lopez wins APâs Best of the Week award.
The sensational news about a campaign-season meeting involving a Russian lawyer and Donald Trumpâs inner circle â including his son, Donald Trump Jr. â developed over six days, with details and accounts changing almost by the hour. Reports trickled out that another man also was at the meeting to represent Russian interests.
With all major news organizations in hot pursuit, Washingtonâs Desmond Butler was the first to nail the identity of the lobbyist in question and also to nab the first on-the-record interview with him. For tenacious source work, Butler wins Beat of the Week.
excavates pain and patriotism in his family history, in particular his great-uncleâs World War II service, to examine the meaning of Independence Day and reclaim the holiday at a time of national reckoning. Contrerasâ first-person story recounts years of racism against his family. But he chooses to focus on his Mexican American great-uncle who was wounded on Iwo Jima, even as the Contreras family was subject to Jim Crow in Texas.That episode in the Contreras family history resonated through the generations, and today family members use it as a cornerstone of their Independence Day celebrations. In the process of his eloquently told tale, Contreras not only redefines the holiday for himself and his family; he makes a valuable contribution to APâs coverage of inequality, capturing many threads of recent American history in the process. https://bit.ly/38ySUvc
Baton Rouge-based reporter Michael Kunzelman was reporting on the police killing of a black man outside a convenience store last summer when a source called to encourage him to look into a case in front of a federal judge that had been mysteriously reassigned. It wasnât the easiest time to be chasing down tips: the Alton Sterling shooting was swiftly followed by the killings of three law enforcement officials and then catastrophic flooding in Louisianaâs capital.
But Kunzelman didnât forget about it.
When he was free, he began an investigation into the performance of U.S. District Judge Patricia Minaldi, work that would take months and aggressive use of public records. It culminated with the discovery last week sheâd been ordered to seek treatment for alcoholism so severe that a colleague believed she couldnât take care of herself. For his work Kunzelman wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
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.
With school districts nationwide wrestling with tough decisions on reopening amid the pandemic, South Carolina reporter Jeffrey Collins wanted to show that process at work.
When several districts rebuffed his efforts at behind-the-scene access, Collins took another approach. He started reporting by watching a school boardâs meetings online, taking voluminous notes. Demonstrating a thorough understanding of what the district was facing, he was finally granted in-person access to the districtâs meetings and discussions for a revealing all-formats package.
For finding a way to delve into a local school boardâs deliberations, and providing insight into conversations happening nationally, Collins wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
teamed up to vividly illustrate why environmental work is emerging as one of the worldâs 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 â and violence.Read more
for breaking the news of the arrest of a 25-year-old U.S. woman for allegedly insulting President Robert Mugabe as a "sick man" on Twitter, followed by a subversion charge. https://apnews.com/b52cfa03d9d2469f99d7a7f6650e244...
for anticipation, cool wits and presence of mind to secure for AP the only live international video of the fiercely competitive arrival in South Korea of the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the Olympics. They pre-positioned a LiveU unit at the train station at the airport, rather than waiting outside the airport with most of the media pack, a gamble that allowed AP to get the first pictures of Kim Jo Yongâs historic arrival. Yong Jun at the last minute won an argument with officials to be allowed to record the arrival live, putting AP more than one hour ahead of its closest international competition. https://bloom.bg/2ExG7gh
A team of AP reporters delivered two straight days of deeply reported, distinctive and aggressive coverage on the release by Venezuela of two American detainees, including one of the group of oil executives known as the Citgo 6 â an internationally competitive story.APâs coverage depended on cross-border coordination between Goodman in Miami, Garcia Cano in Caracas and Tucker in Washington, all leaning on sources and hustling to track fast-moving developments in Venezuela. Read more
for revealing that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, while he was the Southern Command commander, forged alliances with Honduran security forces long suspected of corruption in order to win Hondurasâs help in the U.S. war on drugs. https://bit.ly/2H9KNe6
for learning exclusively that lawyers for the Trump Organization had sent a letter appealing to Panama's president to intervene in a bitter dispute over control of a luxury hotel in the Central American nation's capital, an example of the kind of ethical questions surrounding Trump's business dealings that have troubled observers since his election. https://bit.ly/2EZTmlP