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)

Assaults continue at Washington state’s largest psychiatric hospital

for gaining unprecedented access to a meeting at Washington state’s troubled Western State Hospital where staff expressed safety concerns as nurses and others are assaulted by patients and inmates with severe mental issues. https://bit.ly/2CqIOjE

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Teamwork delivers standout AP coverage of July 4 mass shooting

mobilized on July Fourth to deliver fast, multiformat coverage of the mass shooting at a parade in Highland Park, Illinois, that ultimately resulted in seven deaths and dozens wounded. Local and regional staffers responded quickly with all-formats coverage in the Chicago suburb while colleagues across the U.S. and into Mexico stepped in to assist with reporting, writing and editing.Monday’s efforts laid the groundwork for coverage in the days that followed, including more breaking news updates, victim profiles, a narrative on how the events unfolded, explainers, an investigative piece on how the suspect was able to get weapons despite Illinois’ red flag law and more.The mainbar story trended near the top on AP platforms for much of the week and made the front page of newspapers across the country.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Viewers go nuts for AP’s video of ‘Squirrel Girl’

for telling the story on Penn State’s ‘Squirrel Whisperer’ with a video that became the top download of the year for AP Video US.

Text: http://wapo.st/2haE0n0

Video: http://apne.ws/2hhhlWc

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Joint reporting reveals hidden suspensions of students with disablities

set out to document ways students with disabilities are excluded from the classroom — and from learning. Their reporting led to advocates who described working with families whose children were essentially kept out of school, with none of the records that come with formal suspensions. The families claimed their schools couldn’t or wouldn’t accommodate their students’ disabilities — a violation of federal law — and said the practice had gotten worse during the pandemic.Ma, race and ethnicity reporter in Washington, partnered with Kolodner, of the nonprofit Hechinger Report, who had been pursuing the same topic. Together, they interviewed 20 families in 10 states, and a top Department of Education official. Read more

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.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP secures video exclusive as French police shoot beheading suspect

teamed up to obtain exclusive video of police confronting a beheading suspect outside Paris.

Macpherson, senior field producer, Paris, was coordinating video coverage Saturday after the horrific news that a teacher had been beheaded the previous day. She was working with AP freelance video journalist Patrick Hermansen, who had been sending live video all morning outside the school where teacher Samuel Paty had held a class discussion about the Charlie Hebdo-published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

Juggling live and edited coverage, Macpherson saw that phone video had surfaced in local French media, shot from a home, on which police can be heard screaming at the beheading suspect to throw down his weapon and get down. A short time later, you can hear, but not see, police shooting the man and killing him.

Macpherson knew instinctively that our best chance to get this video was through old-fashioned shoe leather reporting. She had Hermansen stop everything he was doing to try to pinpoint the the house from which the amateur video was shot. Going house-to-house, Hermansen eventually found the the right one and put the owner of the video on the phone with Macpherson, where they negotiated an agency exclusive for AP.

Dozens of customers used the exclusive video, including some key clients such as EuroNews, Sky News, Al Jazeera and Russia Today. https://bit.ly/3jiJAzghttps://bit.ly/2ITiz9r

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Iraqi offensive engages Islamic State forces near Mosul

for dominating global coverage with their video and stories on the renewed offensive against west Mosul in Iraq. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f084b4f094f440058e6...

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP examines states’ readiness for contact tracing

led a team of AP reporters to determine if state governments are prepared to conduct contact tracing, a key requirement for restarting state economies. They began by putting a series of detailed questions to state health officials. The AP review found a patchwork of systems around the country, with many states unable to keep up with caseloads and scrambling to hire and train enough people to handle the task for the months ahead. https://bit.ly/35jbrdk

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Promises, cash for making protective gear in US fall flat

delivered a distinctive accountability story, finding that U.S. governors’ promises to produce personal protective gear domestically remain unfulfilled, despite tens of millions in taxpayer money to support the proposals.Missouri-based state government reporter Lieb identified at least $125 million in PPE production grants to more than 300 business in 10 states but found that most of the companies were leaving the business because they couldn’t find buyers. Company executives told Lieb that production was again going overseas, potentially putting U.S. supplies of protective gear at risk in a future pandemic.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Islamic State trying to keep people in Raqqa as human shields

for the first extensive look into what is going on inside Raqqa ahead of the U.S.-backed assault on the Islamic State group's de facto capital, revealing in particular the extent to which the militants are holding the population hostage. http://apne.ws/2p9m2l0

Best of the States

Minnesota: Projecting the GOP health plan's statewide impact

It’s no secret that the repeal and replacement of Obamacare could have a significant impact both on those holding insurance and on the finances of states that have embraced the health care law. But over the last few months, few details had emerged on what that precise impact might be.

In an “Only on AP” story, St. Paul, Minnesota, statehouse reporter Kyle Potter revealed that Minnesota officials were bracing for additional costs that could reach $6 billion by 2029 to maintain a low-income health care program that covers more than 900,000 state residents. For providing one of the first concrete glimpses into the possible ramifications states envision, Potter wins this week's Best of States recognition.

Best of the States

AP reporting reveals some front-line health care workers balking at COVID vaccine

The AP team of Bernard Condon, Matt Sedensky and Carla K. Johnson assembled the most detailed national look yet at one of the most vexing snags in the coronavirus vaccine rollout: Surprising numbers of health care workers — who have seen firsthand the misery inflicted by COVID-19 — are refusing the shots.

The deep reporting, with contributions from colleagues across the country, found the paradox occurring in nursing homes and hospitals, with some individual facilities seeing a refusal rate as high as 80%. The story, one of AP’s most-read on an extremely busy news week, quoted both health workers expressing fears of vaccine side effects and frustrated facility administrators.

For bringing to light an important part of the stumbling early rollout of the much-anticipated vaccine, Condon, Sedensky and Johnson win this week’s Best of the States award.

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)

AP wins access as opioids victims confront Purdue’s Sackler family

leveraged years of source building and evenhanded reporting on opioid litigation in the U.S., securing rare access in all formats to an unprecedented federal court hearing in the most high-profile opioids case in the U.S.In the virtual hearing, people who had become addicted to opioids, and the parents of children lost to addiction, would finally confront members of the family that owned Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin. Mulvihill overcame federal court restrictions to get full access to the Zoom link for the hearing, and he leaned on his relationship with victims’ attorneys to have a multiformat team at a law firm as victims made emotional statements to members of the Sackler family. Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP data project shows women facing restrictions increasingly seek abortions out of state

Legislative debates over restricting abortion access in the U.S. have been among the most hotly contested and thoroughly covered state government topics of recent years. But what of the women affected by those laws? A distinctive, data-driven investigation by the state government and data teams provided answers: Each year thousands of women travel to get abortions in another state, and the share of non-resident women getting abortions had risen significantly in states where conservative legislatures passed measures restricting the procedure.

To arrive at that conclusion, state government team reporter Christina Cassidy went state-by-state to gather the most recent abortion data, while data team editor Meghan Hoyer oversaw the methodology and analysis. Cassidy also worked sources to find women who had left their home state for an abortion, humanizing the story behind the data. Colleagues Alina Hartounian, Susan Montoya Bryan, Gillian Flaccus and Francois Duckett produced compelling all-formats content for the package.

A unique dataset released before publication allowed AP’s member publications to produce localized graphics and stories. The project checked all the boxes for customer and reader engagement, which was extraordinarily strong.

For putting the AP out front on one of the most contentious issues roiling American politics, Cassidy, Hoyer, Flaccus, Montoya Bryan, Hartounian and Duckett share AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Email: State opioid talks fail, Purdue bankruptcy filing expected

for obtaining an email providing the first on-the-record report on the status of closely-watched settlement talks between the states and OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma. State attorneys general said that Purdue was expected to file for bankruptcy after settlement talks with the states over the nation’s deadly overdose crisis hit an impasse. https://bit.ly/2m5lkJd

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Misconduct allegations no obstacle for many state lawmakers

for an AP analysis that finds that many state lawmakers accused of sexual misconduct in the #MeToo era are having success running for re-election or new legislative seats, suggesting that voters are conflicted about whether personal failings should disqualify someone from public office.http://bit.ly/2LusUVKhttp://bit.ly/2zMesHf

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP analysis finds most states falling short on virus testing

analyzed data showing that most states are not meeting the minimum level of coronavirus testing suggested by the U.S. government. In the absence of comprehensive federal data, AP calculated the monthly testing rate for each state, along with a separate review by AP state reporters, to find that only 40% of states currently meet the Trump administration’s testing threshold. Those that don’t include several that have been moving quickly to reopen their economies. And some states with infection hot spots are not testing at a higher rate recommended by Harvard University. https://bit.ly/3fpF7ud

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.