Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Olympic gold medalist trusts AP with news of transition to male

made the AP one of only two news organizations trusted to interview and break the news of Ellia Green, a star on Australia’s 2016 gold medal-winning women’s sevens team, who has become rugby’s highest-profile player to transition to male. And AP was the only news outlet to get photos of Green and his family before the story went public.Trust established with the LGBTQ community over years by Sydney-based sports journalists Passa and Pye, and rapport built with Green, helped overcome his initial resistance to an interview and photographs. The resulting story, further elevated by Baker’s photos, won virtually all the play in Australia, appeared on major news sites in North America and Europe, and led sports coverage on AP’s own platforms.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: FDA skipped most baby formula plant inspections in 2020

turned seemingly mundane testimony of a legislative hearing into a timely scoop, breaking the news that the Food and Drug Administration had skipped nearly all its inspections of baby formula plants during the first year of COVID, likely contributing to the severe shortage of formula in the U.S. and raising questions about what the federal government could have done to prevent it.Using information he gleaned from Capitol Hill testimony by the three top baby formula manufacturers, Washington-based health writer Perrone identified the companies’ plants in the FDA’s online database and discovered the agency hadn’t inspected Abbott’s plant — responsible for a recall of formula that exacerbated the nationwide shortage — for two years between 2019 and 2021. In fact, the FDA later acknowledged only three of the nation’s 23 formula plants were inspected in the first year of the pandemic.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: Bodies of Mariupol steel-plant defenders returned

teamed up to scoop Ukrainian media and the international press corps by revealing the return of Ukrainian fighters’ remains following the weekslong last stand at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.Leicester first learned of the return of the defenders’ bodies while interviewing a soldier for another story. He and Arhirova then pursued multiple sources in a difficult environment, including family members, unit commanders and spokespersons, confirming on the record, ahead of the competition, that several hundred bodies had been swapped with the Russians, including dozens from a regiment that took a lead in defending the complex during the Russian siege of the port city.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Fast, exclusive coverage after fatal vehicle attack in Berlin

put AP ahead of the competition, responding immediately to first word that a driver had plowed his vehicle into a visiting school group in a popular capital shopping district. One teacher was killed, others were seriously injured.Berlin photographer Sohn was among the first at the scene, reporting for all formats including exclusive photos and live video, while Frankfurt photographer Michael Probst jumped in to handle editing duties, quickly relaying images from Sohn’s camera onto the AP wire. The visuals were heavily used by online media and TV clients, among others.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP investigation finds Ukrainian refugees forcibly evacuated, subjected to abuse in Russia

The idea for this deeply reported story emerged months ago when AP noticed Ukrainian refugees being sent to Russia — 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 refugees’ 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 AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP team answers reader questions around possible US recession

responded to a spike in reader queries around the term “recession” with a suite of stories published over successive days, with the goal of familiarizing readers with the economic data and conversations dominating the news.The stories ranged from a primer on economic reports to practical tips for day-to-day “recession proofing,” but perhaps most essential was a comprehensive explainer on recessions, a term that was rapidly becoming politicized. AP explained that a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization analyzes multiple factors to declare a recession.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Rents spike as investors buy up mobile home parks

combined national reporting and analysis with strong on-the-ground journalism for a unique story exposing how institutional investors are buying up mobile home parks, then raising rents to recoup their investments.Sparked by a tip, Casey identified a mobile home park in upstate New York where the mostly low-income and older residents have faced upkeep problems and repeated rent increases by corporate owners. Thompson visited the park to document residents’ concerns, while Casey worked his sources to illustrate how this is part of a larger trend that has hit parks across the country.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Deep sourcing and sensitive reporting deliver blockbuster on Mormon sex abuse cover-up

AP investigative reporter Mike Rezendes’ years of source work led him to a stunning discovery: a so-called help line that enabled a cover-up of sex abuse in the Mormon church community, including the case of a 5-year-old Arizona girl, molested by her father for seven years while church leaders were aware of the abuse.

Rezendes, video journalist Jessie Wardarski and photographer Dario Lopez met with victims and their families, earning their trust and telling the story in the victims’ own voices. The resulting package, including illustrations by Peter Hamlin, was one of AP’s most-viewed investigative projects of the year, protecting the victims even as it revealed a systemic effort to cover up horrific child sex abuse.

For deep sourcing and commitment to report a story with both impact and sensitivity, Mike Rezendes, Jessie Wardarski, Dario Lopez, Peter Hamlin and Randy Herschaft earn AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP finds inflation limiting access to Indigenous foods

differentiated AP’s inflation coverage from that of other news organizations, telling the real-world stories of an underrepresented population — urban Native Americans — to vividly illustrate the financial burden of rising food prices on minority communities.Deeply sourced and richly told in the voices of their subjects, the trio’s all-formats story takes readers into a community struggling to maintain access to traditional Indigenous foods that are often unavailable or too expensive for Native families in urban areas, already faced with financial, medical and cultural concerns. The recent inflation spike has priced such foods even further out of reach.Read more

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.

Best of the States

Only on AP: 20 years later, chaplain’s litany of prayers for US troops killed in Afghanistan finally comes to an end

With the end of the war in Afghanistan looming, national writer Matt Sedensky sought a compelling way to humanize America’s longest war — and he found it. Nearly all the American troops killed in the war had their remains returned to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the military runs a mortuary. There, Sedensky found chaplain David Sparks, who had been called to active duty after 9/11, assigned to the mortuary, and had been there ever since.

Sedensky pieced together Sparks’ experience: writing hundreds of prayers for the dead, standing beside their disfigured remains and ministering to their broken families. Joined by New York video journalist Jessie Wardarski and Washington photographer Carolyn Kaster, the team had access to parts of the base hidden far from public view. The resulting package, with Sedensky’s expressive prose and affecting visuals by Wardarski and Kaster, generated a strong response from veterans and non-military alike.

For intimate, revealing work that eloquently writes one of the closing chapters of America’s 20-year war, the team of Sedensky, Kaster and Wardarski earns this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Only on AP: Tournament challenges racism, French social model

inspired anti-racism advocates and young people in neglected quarters of France by shining a global spotlight on the National Neighborhoods Cup, an unusual soccer tournament aimed at celebrating the diversity of immigrants and casting a positive light on working-class areas with large immigrant populations that some politicians and commentators scapegoat as breeding grounds for crime, riots and Islamic extremism.AP was the only international media to cover the tournament, and the only media to put it into the perspective of France’s strained ideal of a colorblind republic that doesn’t identify people by race or ethnic background. The story was widely used in U.K. and U.S. media, prompted discussion online and earned praise from tournament participants.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reports on furtive lives of US residents still in Afghanistan

kept following a story much of the media has moved on from: what day-to-day life is like for American resident green-card holders who were left behind after the U.S. military’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan.The pair’s story, based on text messages, emails and phone conversations from those still in Afghanistan to loved ones and rescue groups, and directly with the AP, described a fearful, furtive existence of hiding in houses for weeks, keeping the lights off at night, moving from place to place, and donning baggy clothing and burqas to avoid detection by the Taliban if they absolutely must venture out.All say they were scared the Taliban would find them, throw them in jail, perhaps even kill them because they are Americans or had worked for the U.S. government. And they are concerned that the Biden administration’s promised efforts to get them out have stalled.Investigative reporter Condon and San Diego-based journalist Watson had to walk a fine line, telling individuals’ stories without identifying details that would open them to potential retaliation. The ambitious story, accompanied by photos provided by one family of green card holders from California, was part of an important body of AP work over the past week that remained focused on Afghanistan in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal. https://aplink.news/yt9

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Texas farmers race to preserve land in Dust Bowl zone

used the Freedom of Information Act and on-the-ground reporting in the Texas Panhandle to reveal a new Dust Bowl brewing on farmland above the nation’s biggest aquifer — and the halting efforts to stave it off.Farmers, communities and researchers have long known that groundwater in the Ogallala aquifer was steadily declining due to irrigation and might not recover. But while researching a story about disappearing prairie grasslands, Webber discovered that both issues were colliding to create another challenge: As climate change is making rainfall scarcer, farmland is blowing away just as it did during the Dust Bowl.Webber, a member of AP’s global environment team, talked to researchers who warned of huge farmland losses, and she traveling to the Panhandle town of Muleshoe where she told the story of farmers planting native grasses to preserve terrain as their wells struggle to produce water. She also reported that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had identified a Dust Bowl zone where farmers would receive extra money for grasslands conservation, and spent months prying loose government data showing that not all farmers were embracing the program.Webber’s comprehensive and engagingly written narrative, with photos by freelancer Mark Rogers, vividly captured the new Dust Bowl threatening an important agricultural region, and the efforts to keep farmers on their land. https://aplink.news/6or

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP investigation reveals pattern of beatings, shrouded in secrecy, by Louisiana State Police

Law enforcement reporters Jim Mustian and Jake Bleiberg built on their previous reporting to document a devastating pattern of violence and secrecy at the Louisiana State Police, identifying at least a dozen beating cases over the past decade in which troopers or their bosses ignored or concealed evidence, deflected blame and impeded efforts to root out misconduct.

Their exclusive investigation stems from the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene — initially blamed on a car crash. That case was blown open this spring when the AP published long-withheld video showing state troopers stunning, punching and dragging the Black motorist as he pleaded for mercy. Mustian and Bleiberg proceeded to scour investigative records and work sources, finding a disproportionate use of force against Louisiana’s Black population and an absence of transparency and accountability in the agency.

Impact from this latest story was swift, from the head of the state police to a Louisiana congressman and others calling for investigation and reform.

For dogged reporting that peeled back the layers of case after case to reveal a pattern of abuse — and is effecting change in Louisiana — Mustian and Bleiberg earn AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Sweeping team coverage as wildfire threatens Lake Tahoe

teamed up across formats, beats and states, drawing on AP resources throughout the West to dominate coverage of the high-profile Northern California wildfires that threatened an international gem, Lake Tahoe.Striking photos by Noah Berger and Jae Hong captured the drama as the fire raged toward the resort city and a vast swath of the Sierra Nevada. Report for America journalist Sam Metz was indefatigable on the ground, interviewing rescue workers, residents and firefighters, then capturing the chaos of the evacuation. Reporters John Antczak, Janie Har and Jocelyn Gecker worked the phones from Los Angeles and San Francisco providing detail and context as they wrote the spot stories. Video journalist Terence Chea and Michelle L. Price reported on people who refused to leave.For this latest in a series of major blazes, the West region dug to identify wildfire-related stories of interest beyond the breaking news, including Tom Verdin’s story on the special sites that were threatened, Don Thompson’s assessment of what went wrong in fighting the blaze, Brian Melley’s report on canceled vacations nationwide and a piece by Metz and Scott Sonner on price gouging.https://aplink.news/rwdhttps://aplink.news/qo4https://aplink.news/slxhttps://aplink.news/cp0https://aplink.video/4jlhttps://aplink.video/a3bhttps://apnews.com/hub/wildfires

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP: 'Apprentice' cast and crew say Trump was lewd and sexist

Donald Trump's public comments about women have been a familiar theme in the tumultuous presidential campaign. But what had he said behind the scenes on "The Apprentice," the TV show that made him a household name?

That's the question AP’s Garance Burke set out to answer. Combining shoe-leather reporting with an adept use of social media, the San Francisco-based national investigative reporter tracked down more than 20 people willing to talk about the Republican nominee's language on the set. They recalled Trump making demeaning, crude and sexist comments toward and about female cast and crew members, and that he discussed which contestants he would like to have sex with.

Best of the States

AP finds colleges concerned as some students turn to counterfeit vaccine cards

It started with a tip.

When a college student mentioned that fellow unvaccinated students were getting fake COVID-19 vaccine cards in order to attend in-person classes, AP global investigations intern Roselyn Romero remembered that she'd seen an account on Instagram offering fake cards for $25 each.

Romero began searching social media platforms and talked to college students, faculty, administrators and health officials. What she found was a cottage industry offering to accommodate people who refuse to get vaccinated but need documentation saying that they’ve had the shots.

Her deeply reported story had nearly 250,000 pageviews on AP News and was used by hundreds of news outlets, including online and print front pages. She was also interviewed by NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer responded by calling for a multiagency crackdown on the counterfeit cards.

For having a major national impact with her first AP byline, Roselyn Romero wins this week’s Best of the States award.

Best of the Week — First Winner

Deep reporting on a failed KKK murder plot reveals white supremacists working in Florida prison

Some stories just stick with a journalist. For AP investigative reporter Jason Dearen, a sparse 2015 announcement — three currrent or former Florida prison guards, identified by the FBI as Ku Klux Klansmen, had been arrested for plotting a former inmate’s murder — sparked a yearslong reporting effort.

Dearen’s big break came last summer when trial transcripts revealed an FBI informant was the star witness against the KKK members, his secret recordings providing a rare, detailed look at the inner workings of the klan cell and the domestic terrorism probe. Dearen and visual journalist David Goldman retraced the klansmen’s steps through Palatka, Florida, then producers Marshall Ritzel, Samantha Shotzbarger and Peter Hamlin stepped in to create a riveting online presentation.

The resulting all-formats package had immediate impact, with Florida papers featuring it on home pages and front pages, and prompting calls for investigations into white supremacy among prison workers. The story found 360,000 readers on AP News and kept them there for an average of more than five minutes — longer than any other AP story in memory.

For dogged reporting and an immersive all-formats narrative that exposes a salient, timely issue, Dearan, Goldman, Ritzel, Shotzbarger and Hamlin win AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP takes a revealing look at fallout for Jan. 6 defendants

spent weeks gaining the trust of a U.S. Capitol riot defendant, resulting in an exclusive look at how the aftermath of Jan. 6 has affected her and her business.Kunzelman is an integral part of the AP team across the country reporting on the Capitol riot criminal cases, looking thematic stories beyond the daily court proceedings. He arranged to meet Pauline Bauer after a court hearing in Washington, and after a brief interview she agreed to meet him at her restaurant in Kane, Pennsylvania, a town of fewer than 4,000 residents in a county where nearly three-quarters of voters cast ballots for Trump in November. In Kane he interviewed Bauer and a fellow Capitol riot defendant, the mayor and residents both loyal and hostile to Bauer. Bauer’s arrest and that of a longtime friend have rekindled partisan bickering, mostly on social media some residents say, as many in Kane struggle to comprehend how two of their neighbors could be among the hundreds of Trump loyalists bent on overturning the election that day.Kunzelman also delivered photos with the piece, which was the second most-read story of the week on AP News, second only to Simone Biles sitting out Olympic competition. https://aplink.news/be9