Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP profiles some of the US jobless facing cutoff of aid

teamed up, giving voice to some of the millions of Americans whose unemployment benefits will run out by year’s end unless Congress reverses course and decides to act. The joint effort between Business News and AP’s Report for America state government reporters combined sensitive field reporting and expert handling of the most relevant data, producing a people-focused all-formats piece that highlights the human cost of government inaction as the virus surges anew amid a faltering job market.https://bit.ly/37OBcnzhttps://bit.ly/2LrfwXj

Best of the States

Diversifying pot: How some states are luring minorities into the legal business

For years, marijuana arrests have put minorities in jail at a disproportionately higher rate than whites. Now that recreational marijuana is legal in eight states, the majority of those who benefit most from the profitable industry are white.

Reporters Janie Har, from the Associated Press Race & Ethnicity team, and Bob Salsberg, from the Massachusetts statehouse bureau, set out to explore this dichotomy and how local governments are responding to it.

For their compelling explanation of the cannabis racial divide, Har and Salsberg receive this week’s $300 Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Women make big gains in state capitols; men still wield power

for leading an AP review across 50 state capitols showing that even though women made historic gains in state legislatures in 2018, men still hold the vast majority of top leadership roles. https://bit.ly/2MIgafu

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP reveals that Barrett was trustee for schools with anti-gay policies

Supreme Court nominees are scrutinized for signs of how they may vote on important issues, but Amy Coney Barrett’s jurisprudence told little about her views on gay rights.

Reporters Michelle R. Smith and Michael Biesecker knew that Barrett’s 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 AP’s Best of the Week award.

Best of the States

A photographer’s unique vision merges past and present for front-line nurses

With the U.S. slowly emerging from COVID-19, it might be easy to assume that the pandemic will soon be in the past, but for many, particularly health care workers, the trauma of what they experienced while caring for deathly sick patients will be with them for years to come.

To capture the idea that the past can be part of the present, Los Angeles photographer Jae Hong focused on intensive care nurses at a Southern California hospital who had taken care of extremely ill COVID patients and, despite all efforts, had lost many. That ward closed this spring, but the memories endure for these nurses.

Hong’s approach called for a photo technique not typically used in reporting the news: He made multiple exposure portraits of 10 of the nurses in the hospital, resulting in haunting images that show each nurse both in the photo, the present, and seemingly somewhere else in the past.

Accompanied by revealing interviews, the piece played widely in the U.S. and beyond, and attracted attention on social media.

For arresting, interpretive photography that evokes the lingering effects of the pandemic on these front-line medical workers, Hong earns this week’s Best of the States award.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP examines patient consent before pelvic exams; states, med schools split on legislation

“Don’t dismiss a [story] idea just because it’s unfamiliar. Pelvic exams aren’t exactly in the wheelhouse of the State Government Team, but it turned out to be a really terrific and distinctive topic.”

That’s one editor’s takeaway from a story by Providence, Rhode Island, reporter Jennifer McDermott and Seattle medical writer Carla Johnson, both of whom, acting on a heads-up from New York photo editor Jenny Kane, found that it’s common practice for medical students to perform a pelvic exam on women under anesthesia as part of their training. Whether the patients have given consent for that exam is not clear, drawing the interest of state lawmakers.

The pair faced multiple obstacles in reporting the story, including initial reluctance by doctors and harried legislators to discuss the issue, but McDermott and Johnson succeeded in defining the conflict between medical schools and elected officials seeking to protect patient rights. Their efforts resulted in a unique story that received heavy play among major AP customers, both online and in print.

For their teamwork, execution and sensitive handling of a complex topic, McDermott, Johnson and Kane win AP’s Best of the Week award.

Best of the States

Brown reveals thousands of safety defects on oil train lines in 44 states

As domestic production of oil has increased in recent years, Billings, Montana, Correspondent Matthew Brown closely followed derailments of trains carrying volatile crude. A train from North Dakota jumped the track, exploded and killed 47 people in Canada in 2013. In Brown’s own state, a derailment near the town of Culbertson spilled 27,000 gallons of oil in 2015. Last year, Brown reported that more than 800 potential safety violations were discovered on Union Pacific freight lines after a fiery June 2016 oil train derailment in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge.

But Brown wanted to know how widespread the problem really was. By pushing repeatedly for public records and working with a longtime source, Brown was able to exclusively report the results of a two-year federal inspection program for the nation’s oil trains – and he revealed that some safety defects uncovered where similar to ones blamed in derailments that triggered huge fires or oil spills in Oregon, Virginia, Montana and elsewhere. For his AP NewsBreak, Brown wins this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s claims in his State of Union address

for their quick, authoritative work in producing both text items and a rich multimedia experience for users as they fact-checked President Trump’s claims during his State of the Union speech. http://bit.ly/2nsBvNO

Best of the States

AP Exclusive: Secret panel investigating Louisiana State Police unit’s treatment of Black motorists

From the very beginning of Jim Mustian’s stellar reporting on the death of Black motorist Ronald Greene, he has been driven by two main questions: What really happened to Greene on the night of his 2019 arrest? And was this a pattern of how Louisiana state troopers treated Black motorists?

Mustian answered the first last month when he obtained body camera video showing troopers stunning, choking, punching and dragging the unarmed Greene as he apologized and begged for mercy. 

And he began answering the second this past week when he exclusively reported that the Louisiana State Police has convened a secret panel to investigate whether Troop F — the same unit involved in Greene’s arrest  — was systematically targeting other Black motorists. Mustian’s detailed reporting and solid sourcing turned up new cases and new video, and he landed the first-ever interview with one of the victims. 

His scoop scored with heavy play and strong engagement. For dogged reporting to keep the AP ahead on a searing case of racial injustice and its continuing fallout, Mustian earns this week’s Best of the States award.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Source work, reporting, exclusive data modeling put AP ahead on omicron immunity

For two years, as COVID-19 ravaged the world, AP health and science reporter Carla Johnson stayed in constant contact with disease modelers who were using careful analysis to predict what the coronavirus would do next.

This time her subject was the omicron wave — millions were infected and millions more had immunity through vaccination and/or past infection. Johnson knew those numbers might answer one of the most vexing questions of the pandemic: How much immunity had Americans developed from omicron?

Johnson leaned on her sources and asked one influential analyst to produce projections for the AP. The result was a key finding that gave the country the earliest and clearest sense yet of how the U.S. is navigating the pandemic: 73% of the country is believed to be protected from omicron.

Her deeply reported but straightforward story, explaining why future waves may be far less disruptive in the U.S., played widely with credit to AP’s exclusive reporting.

For recognizing that the data might hold answers on COVID immunity, and resourceful source work that delivered a unique projection of future infection, Johnson is AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Exclusive AP data reveals popularity of US homeschooling

obtained data across the country to establish the continued popularity of homeschooling for American families — even as schools reopened and vaccines became widely available.Because the federal government does not have a current database of homeschooling numbers, Thompson built her own by reaching out to education departments in all 50 states for their data. She also interviewed families for their perspectives on homeschooling, and used her experience on the education beat to put the trend in the context of homeschooling regulation debates, concerns over neglected students and a broader decline of public school enrollment.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Emotional Connecticut governor announces unexpectedly he’ll not seek re-election

for capturing emotional images of Gov. Dannel Malloy announcing unexpectedly that he would not seek reelection. The photos widely used on members’ front pages and websites http://bit.ly/2obtW1i

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP out front on US raid where leader of Islamic State group died

combined outstanding reporting in all formats and stellar coordination between the Washington and Beirut bureaus to put AP ahead with quick, thorough, vivid on-the-ground coverage of the U.S. raid in Syria’s Idlib province that left the Islamic State group’s leader dead.Source work by AP’s Pentagon staff gave the teams in Washington and the Mideast some advance notice of the operation, and after the raid, AP was quick to the Idlib site, filing photos, video, drone footage and eyewitness accounts. AP was ahead of the competition with its alert and a solid writethrus, as well as reporting of the death toll.Beirut added a substantive biographical piece on the dead IS leader who tried to rebuild IS from its defeat, and Washington put together a compelling timeline of the raid, from planning through aftermath.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Census reveals Black migration from big US cities

teamed up to reveal where Black people in the United States are growing in number and where their population is shrinking. Tareen a Chicago-based race and ethnicity writer, and Schneider, an Orlando, Florida-based census writer, reported a pair of telling stories: one that found Black residents have been leaving some of the nation’s largest cities for the suburbs, and another about Black growth in less-congested cities with lower profiles.The stories, elevated by the work of photographers Huh and Otero in Chicago and Dallas respectively, complemented each other but also stood on their own as strong enterprise work. Other news organizations had done their own stories on Black population trends, but none with the depth and range of the AP package. Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Michigan to stop issuing A-to-F letter grades for public schools

for reporting first that Michigan’s top education official decided to back away from issuing A-to-F letter grades for each public school in the state. http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/lo…

Best of the Week — First Winner

Months of planning, preparation put AP out front with unmatched coverage of SCOTUS abortion ruling

With extensive preparation ahead of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the AP moved at lightning speed, covering the historic ruling comprehensively in all formats. Months of meticulous planning and prep work paid off when the court’s opinion came down Friday morning, enabling AP to get the word out ahead of the competition and then deploy teams of journalists to capture reaction and the broader ramifications of the ruling.

Countless AP journalists in Washington and around the country delivered spot and enterprise coverage in all formats, including live and edited video, insightful analysis, striking photos, state-by-state updates and the stories of people on both sides of the abortion issue.

For exemplifying the news cooperative at its best, covering a pivotal moment with far-reaching consequences for American society, AP recognizes journalists Mark Sherman, Jessica Gresko, Jacquelyn Martin, Steve Helber, Gemunu Amarasinghe, J. Scott Applewhite, Andrew Harnik, Rick Gentilo, Dan Huff, Nathan Ellgren, Mike Pesoli, Kimberlee Kruesi, Lindsay Whitehurst, John Hanna, Matt Sedensky, David Goldman, Rogelio Solis, Rick Bowmer, Eric Gay, Alex Connor, Kevin Vineys and colleagues throughout the organization with Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Flawless source work, preparation deliver all-formats scoop on US-Russia prisoner swap

In a textbook display of outstanding source work and planning, Eric Tucker and Matthew Lee acted on a tip to score a massive scoop on a stunning U.S.-Russia prisoner exchange that happened despite heightened tensions between the countries.

In the process, the pair showed the rewards of careful, long-term source-building, a model of how to prepare in all formats to put the AP ahead of the competition the moment the news broke, and examples of how to build on a big story with smart sidebars in-cycle and a compelling follow-up story that offered new, behind-the-scenes details.

Their efforts paid off handsomely on Wednesday when Lee got the green light that the exchange had taken place, allowing AP to push out an alert and full story accompanied by photos and video, well before any Western media competitors were even aware the swap had happened.

For their exhaustive, comprehensive work that scooped everyone on the surprising swap, Tucker and Lee share AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Staying on top of a closed case yields news and unseen visuals

for exemplary journalistic craft in requesting records of the case of the car-and-knife attack at Ohio State after a grand jury had cleared the police officer who shot and killed the attacker. The request produced an APNewsBreak and previously unseen visuals. http://apne.ws/2qXaHpm

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Michigan State response to Nassar scandal leads to calls for interim president’s ouster

for breaking the news that Michigan State University’s response to the Nassar scandal prompted 150 Nassar victims to call for the interim president’s ouster. https://bit.ly/2KgxQRr

Best of the Week — First Winner

50-state investigation reveals arbitrary patchwork of justice for juvenile lifers

After the U.S. Supreme Court told states that juveniles who had been given mandatory life without parole sentences should get the chance to argue for their release, national writers Sharon Cohen and Adam Geller wanted to know how judges, prosecutors, lawmakers and parole boards were dealing with the inmates.

Aided by reporters in all 50 states, their exhaustive investigation showed for the first time that the high court’s mandate in 2016 to give inmates a chance at freedom is being applied inconsistently, varying from state to state, even county to county, “in a pattern that can make justice seem arbitrary.”

The resulting three-day series featured deeply reported text stories, an expansive photo report of inmates from across the country, a 16-minute audio extra, a video animation on teen brain development, a video story, and a searchable trove of state-by-state details – all hosted in a dynamic hub on APNews.com.

Cohen and Geller’s work wins this week’s Beat of the Week prize.