Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Agency exclusive video of Ted Cruz in Cancun

collaborated to give the AP an agency exclusive with video of Sen. Ted Cruz at Cancun’s airport as he was returning to the U.S. amid the backlash over leaving Texas during the deadly winter storm.Triboulard, senior producer in Mexico City, had alerted Rojas about the potential scandal brewing in the U.S. and Rojas, freelance Cancun video journalist, immediately began reaching out to local contacts after images started circulating on Twitter purporting to show Cruz en route to Cancun with his family. After hearing the senator was booked on a return flight early that afternoon, she rushed to the airport and was there when he showed up to check in. Rojas followed the visibly annoyed Cruz through the terminal to the security checkpoint, getting not just video but also eliciting comment from the senator, who said that he was headed home to work on helping Texans. Cruz’s comments were immediately included in the AP’s text story. A competitive agency had to obtain video of Cruz from its Mexican partner, Telemundo, moving it more than an hour after AP’s fast file. https://bit.ly/2ZSVsRf

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP exclusive as fired anti-corruption prosecutor flees Guatemala

had spent years cultivating a rapport with Juan Francisco Sandoval, Guatemala’s special prosecutor against corruption, who had won praise from U.S. officials for work that rattled Guatemala’s most powerful citizens, including President Alejandro Giammattei.Her efforts paid off when Sandoval was abruptly fired, a move that would lead the U.S. to temporarily suspend cooperation with the office of Guatemala’s attorney general. After attending the post-firing news conference, Pérez was ushered into the office of the country’s human rights ombudsman and invited to be the sole journalist to accompany Sandoval in his small convoy of armored SUVs as he fled the country. Across the border in El Salvador, Pérez reported on his comments and took photos and video, agreeing for safety reasons to publish only once he had safely boarded a flight to the United States hours later.Pérez’s story moved early the next morning and was used by major national and international outlets; a competitive agency didn't report Sandoval's exit until later that day and did so citing the human rights ombudsman.https://aplink.news/z1ehttps://aplink.video/mt3

Best of the States

As wells dry up in parched US West, AP reports on residents now without running water

The extreme drought in the American West has already taken a dramatic toll. And now, near the Oregon-California border, as many as several hundred wells have dried up in the past few weeks, leaving dozens of homeowners in the parched region with no running water at all. Reporter Gillian Flaccus and freelance photographer Nathan Howard documented the residents’ plight and the challenges facing authorities responding to the situation.

Flaccus used sources she had built in months of reporting on the dire conditions in the Klamath River Basin, convincing people to let Howard depict their hardship over water in photos and video. Digital storyteller Samantha Shotzbarger then weaved all the elements into a compelling multimedia offering. The story drew widespread play in the U.S., especially in the West.

For continuing to shine light on the effects of the drought afflicting the U.S. West, Flaccus, Howard and Shotzbarger win this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP team finds first evidence of Belarus facilitating migrant wave

collaborated on an “Only on AP” package documenting Belarusian authorities’ involvement in a recent surge of immigration from Belarus into Lithuania. In the past two months more than 1,700 have crossed the border — 20 times the total for all of 2020.Lithuanian and European Union officials have accused Belarus of assisting the migration in retaliation over EU sanctions against the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko, but no evidence had been provided and no media outlets had been able to speak to the migrants themselves, who are held in heavily guarded, makeshift camps in Lithuania.The determined all-formats trio of Chernov, Dapkus and Kulbis, seeking to hear from the migrants themselves, drove from camp to camp, more than 600 kilometers (375 miles), eventually finding two smaller, remote camps where police allowed the journalists to speak with migrants. People confirmed they were paying to be taken to Europe via Belarus, and that Belarus had helped them get to Lithuania. AP was allowed inside one of the camps to briefly make photos and video of the migrants’ living conditions.With Karmanau reporting from Belarus and Isachakov in Moscow pulling all the reporting into a cohesive piece, the resulting all-formats exclusive revealed how migrants have once again been caught up in a game of political brinksmanship.https://aplink.news/fwdhttps://aplink.video/flk

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

A year later in the pandemic, AP revisits with kids across the world

reinterviewed kids from around the world about how the pandemic had changed them, one year after first asking them to describe their experience as the pandemic gripped the world. Coordinating with her international colleagues and the far-flung subjects, U.S. enterprise journalist Irvine delivered affecting video and touching interviews, giving AP’s customers and readers a window into how the pandemic had molded these young lives. Among the vignettes: An 18-year-old in California, newly vaccinated, flashes a smile and a peace sign as she poses for a prom photo with her pals. She feels strange but elated without her mask. In Australia, a girl still clings to the fluffy border collie that her family got to comfort them in the depths of last year’s lockdown last year; she recently had to shelter at home again because of a nearby COVID-19 outbreak. And a baby-faced teen in Rwanda who wanted to be a soldier has changed his mind — he now wants to be a doctor.https://aplink.news/lrohttps://aplink.news/9rnhttps://aplink.video/kgk

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Exclusive AP interviews make headlines on Nepal, Tibet, India

landed key interviews in quick succession to drive the South Asia news agenda.Persistence by Kathmandu’s Gurubacharya paid off when Nepal’s newly appointed health minister, Sher Bahadur Tamang, revealed on camera that Nepal was in desperate need of vaccines and would allow any vaccine producer to run trials and produce vaccines with all fees waived.Meanwhile, across the border in India, Bhatia conducted a timely Zoom interview with the new president of the Tibetan government-in-exile, Penpa Tsering, in the northern city of Dharmsala, where the Dalai Lama has been living since fleeing Chinese forces in 1959. Tsering said a visit by the Dalai Lama to Tibet could be the best way to resume talks with China. Tsering’s extensive comments contrasted with a recent Chinese-led media tour of Tibet.And a day later, Delhi’s Pathi arranged an on-camera interview with Dr. Vinod K. Paul, head of India’s COVID-19 response team. He defended the India’s move to restrict vaccine exports, saying India wants to resume exports but can’t do so until its domestic needs are met. Paul also denied that the government was deliberately undercounting deaths or cases.The exclusive interviews elevated AP’s news report across formats, making headlines with regional and international customers.https://aplink.news/9u8https://aplink.news/5c9https://aplink.news/cddhttps://aplink.video/dfchttps://aplink.video/2vz

Best of the Week — First Winner

Mother and child reunion is only a photo away; determined AP team is there to record it

On a midnight assignment at the U.S.-Mexico border in mid-May, the all-formats team of Greg Bull, Eugene Garcia and Adriana Gómez Licón reported on an 8-year-old Honduran migrant named Emely. Bull made a striking image as Emely stood alone and barefoot after crossing into Texas with strangers and turning herself into border agents.

Thanks to Bull’s photograph, just more than three weeks later another AP team — reporter Acacia Coronado, photographer Eric Gay and video journalist Angie Wang — were on hand when Emely hugged her mother for the first time in six years. The girl’s mother had seen Bull’s photo on television, setting her on a desperate mission to find Emely and setting in motion a determined AP effort to report on the reunion. 

The result was a vivid and emotional package with remarkably high reader engagement and outstanding customer use in all formats.

For spotlighting the stories that persist even when a nation’s attention to the U.S-Mexico border does not — and commitment and compassion in seeing it through — Coronado, Gay, Wang, Bull, Garcia and Gómez Licón earn AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

All-formats team puts AP ahead on Spain-Morocco migrant crisis

alertly put AP out front of a burgeoning migration crisis on both sides of the Spain-Morocco border.While much of the world focused on the conflict in Gaza, Parra noticed something unusual on May 17: Dozens of migrants had entered Ceuta, Spain, that morning by swimming from Morocco. Usually, migrants seeking to enter Ceuta — in Spanish territory in North Africa — do so by climbing the border fence in small groups, evading the Moroccan security forces that keep would-be migrants away from the frontier. Parra filed a brief story and flagged it to other formats. Additional reporting confirmed something bigger was brewing, with the Moroccan authorities relaxing border security amid a diplomatic dispute. The all-formats team quickly responded, capturing riveting images of migrants swimming ashore by the thousands as Spain deployed troops and armored personnel carriers. Video coverage, both live and edited, showed migrants, including children, being rounded up on the beach and immediately returned to Morocco through a border gate by baton-wielding Spanish soldiers. There were also dramatic photos from the Moroccan side of the border, giving AP comprehensive coverage from both sides of the humanitarian crisis.Play for the story was tremendous. The video edits scored heavily and Armangue’s photos landed on news sites and in newspapers around the world, including in Spain, where the top papers used his photos on the front page two days in a row. His photo of a young migrant hugging a Red Cross volunteer on the beach went viral in social media and became perhaps the most iconic image of the crisis.https://aplink.news/mefhttps://aplink.news/vqihttps://aplink.photos/emahttps://aplink.video/j7whttps://aplink.video/zxuhttps://aplink.news/h8zhttps://aplink.photos/f8x

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Dallas convention center to hold unaccompanied teens

put AP ahead with the first report that the federal government would use the Dallas convention center to temporarily house up to 3,000 migrant teens amid a scramble for space as more unaccompanied children arrive at the U.S. border.Houston-based immigration reporter Merchant had been looking into whether the federal government would open additional detention facilities for unaccompanied children straining the immigration system at the border when he fielded the tip: It’s going to be in Dallas and it’s going to be big. While on the phone, Merchant passed the information to Dallas colleague Bleiberg, who got a source to provide a memo sent to Dallas City Council members. The story was so far ahead of the curve that White House press secretary Jen Psaki indicated she was unfamiliar with the plan when an AP reporter asked her about it in a briefing. The story was used by U.S. networks as well as local TV and radio stations across Texas.https://bit.ly/3roccvn

Best of the Week — First Winner

Determined source work exposes horrific massacre in holy city of Ethiopia’s isolated Tigray region

Ethiopia’s military campaign in its defiant Tigray province has been shrouded in secrecy since the conflict started in November, but AP East Africa correspondent Cara Anna has been determined to report what happened in the virtually sealed-off region. She has chased every lead through relentless source work, building contacts and networks as she reported one exclusive after another.

For this latest exclusive, Anna had been hearing rumors of a massacre in the holy city of Axum. When phone service returned to the city recently, she was able to reach the deacon of the Axum church who described in disturbing detail the mass killings by Eritrean troops. He believes some 800 people were killed that weekend at the church and around the city, and that thousands in Axum have died in all. Anna found other survivors who corroborated the deacon’s story and offered additional details.

Her reporting scooped all other media and even human rights groups who had been investigating Axum. It also drew rare and surprisingly quick responses from the governments of both Eritrea and Ethiopia.

For determined and resourceful reporting to break through the secrecy surrounding the Tigray conflict and expose the atrocity at Axum, Anna wins AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Tip, source work reveal Pence immigration order to CDC

worked sources and turned a tip into an exclusive story detailing how Vice President Mike Pence ordered the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to use the pandemic as justification to halt immigration into the U.S., over the objections of the agency's scientists who twice refused to take the action.

Burke notified Dearen, who started working CDC sources. After a couple of fruitless weeks, he succeeded in identifying a person close to the events who agreed to talk, and a former Pence aide who confirmed the story on the record.

Meanwhile Burke moved the story beyond politics to bring home the order’s human toll. She gathered data that showed nearly 150,000 people, including 8,800 migrant children, already had been expelled under the order, and she interviewed the father of a 16-year-old Honduran boy who had been held in government custody under the order.

Even on a weekend dominated by news of Trump’s hospitalization, the piece was the top story on AP News and was widely used and cited by local and national news outlets. https://bit.ly/2SvTB14

Best of the States

AP analysis: In the US, a centuries-old race war continues to rage against people of color

As AP race and ethnicity writer Aaron Morrison covered the protests that grew out of the 2020 killings of George Floyd and others, he also saw President Donald Trump on TV, trying to undermine the racial reckoning at every turn.

Fast forward to Jan. 6, when a mob of mostly white rioters, upset that Trump wasn't reelected, violently breached the U.S. Capitol. Morrison connected the dots of what he described as a war of white aggression. “A war rages on in America,” Morrison wrote in this analysis piece, “It started with slavery and never ended ...” 

With powerful video by Noreen Nasir, portraits by Chris Carlson and presentation by Alyssa Goodman, the package received prominent play and sparked discussion both online and within the AP.

For a timely, compelling package that looks at the state of race relations with historical context and thoughtful analysis, the team of Morrison, Nasir, Carlson and Goodman earns this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Determined reporting exposes severe hunger in Tigray region

revealed for the first time the full extent of severe, widespread hunger and the threat of starvation in Ethiopia’s defiant Tigray region, which has been under attack by government forces for more than two months.With Tigray virtually cut off from the rest of the world and our local journalist under extreme pressure from the Ethiopian government, Anna, AP’s East Africa correspondent, set out to report from Nairobi. She reached out to the few aid organizations able to operate in Tigray and to refugees who had fled the conflict to neighboring Sudan; they described acute malnutrition bordering on famine. Building on these contacts, Anna obtained minutes of Ethiopian government meetings in which the government’s own officials warned of imminent, widespread starvation threatening hundreds of thousands of civilians. She also sourced satellite images that showed aid warehouses in the region destroyed during the conflict.Her fact-based, compelling description of the desperate situation in Tigray was the first comprehensive reporting by any news organization to pull all these elements together. The story won prominent play in major news outlets and was hailed as an important exposé by international agencies and authorities, including the United Nations.https://bit.ly/39KJ4HD

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Nimble all-formats team dominates Uganda election coverage

used journalistic savvy and resourcefulness to overcome both an internet ban and AP’s competitors to deliver outstanding all-formats coverage of Uganda’s Jan. 14 presidential election.Uganda had gone to great lengths to discourage international observation of the polls. Just getting into the country with all-important live broadcast equipment required driving into the country at a less-policed border point.And Uganda was widely expected to cut its internet on election day. When it did, reporter Muhumza was unfazed, having wisely filed comprehensive advance copy to colleagues outside the country. He updated with key quotes and details sent by text message.Despite the internet cut, the video team of Kasire and Mwihia noticed that international roaming data was still working. They promptly switched all the SIM cards in their LiveU unit, delivering an incredible four-hours of agency-exclusive live video showing polls opening and heightened security. Authorities eventually got wise and cut off roaming data too.Meanwhile, Delay’s decision to rent a vehicle with black-tinted windows also paid off, allowing him to move around the capital to make compelling photos of security forces without drawing unnecessary attention.Ultimately, the team used its local contacts and managed to negotiate their way into the heavily guarded state broadcaster, where they continued to discreetly file developments for days via state TV’s still operational fast internet — an enormous edge over our competitors who had to rely on much slower communications. The final triumph was to patch and broadcast, live and exclusive, a clean feed of President Museveni's national address on his win.https://bit.ly/39FxH3Chttps://bit.ly/2KEm8l0https://bit.ly/396i1Hy

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Brazilian women seek now-legal abortions in Argentina

teamed up to make AP the first news organization to report the extremely sensitive and timely story of Brazilian women starting to travel to Argentina for now-legal abortions.The complex all-formats story required coordination between Brazilian and Argentine bureaus to follow individuals crossing the border, and awareness of the shifting legal issues in both countries. The staffers had to ensure that AP was presenting the story and its protagonists in a way that was fair, useful to clients, and — most importantly — minimized risks of our interviewees facing backlash.The AP had unique access to a 20-year-old woman traveling to Argentina who agreed to show her masked face and be quoted by her first name. They had worked diligently to cultivate her trust and that of the nongovernmental agency assisting her, repeatedly addressing concerns without applying pressure.Ultimately, both the woman and the agency were comfortable with the result: The package offered a uniquely intimate perspective into this highly controversial issue that disproportinately affects women from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. https://bit.ly/3bws3nd

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP traces child labor from Southeast Asia’s palm oil fields to major brands, Girl Scout cookies

For the third installment of their groundbreaking investigation into labor abuse in Asia’s palm oil industry, reporters Robin McDowell and Margie Mason linked child labor to the supply chains of the makers of popular cereals, candies and ice creams, including KitKats, Oreos and Cap’n Crunch. They also traced the oil to that most American treat: Girl Scout cookies. 

Joined by photographers Binsar Bakkara and Mark Humphrey, and video journalist Allen Breed, their reporting found that some tens of thousands of children toil in the palm fields, some kept from school and forced to work for free or for little pay. Some are trafficked.

The framing of the story — through the eyes of a young girl in the fields in Indonesia and a Tennessee Girl Scout campaigning to have palm oil removed from the cookies — resonated with readers; reaction on social media led the Girl Scouts to address the issue with their suppliers.

For shedding unprecedented light on the children toiling in Southeast Asia’s palm oil fields, and connecting the abusive practice to major consumer brands, McDowell, Mason, Bakkara, Breed and Humphrey share AP’s Best of the Week honors for the week of Dec. 28.

Best of the States

All-formats team tells the shared story of rural Missouri churches, immigrants, adversity and faith

It’s a story of two churches in rural Missouri, only 30 miles apart — and worlds apart. 

One congregation is mostly white, while the other offers services in five languages with members from around the world. The pandemic has united them, with pastors meeting to support each other, share ideas and figure out how to continue ministering to this region hit disproportionately by the coronavirus.

The team of national writer David Crary, youth and religion reporter Luis Andres Henao and video journalist Jessie Wardarski earned the trust of residents to produce an intimate all-formats story, revealing diverse Midwestern communities that aren't famous but are integral to the nation’s identity.

For compelling coverage of communities united in adversity and navigating with faith, the team of Crary, Henao and Wardarski wins this week’s Best of the States award. 

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP coverage of refugees in Sudan opens a window into Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict

The thousands of refugees spilling over the border into Sudan from Ethiopia’s Tigray region are some of the only firsthand witnesses to a worsening conflict that remains out of reach for most of the world’s media. Crossing a remote desert area, they recount ethnic-targeted killings, many fleeing at a moment’s notice and leaving loved ones behind amid an offensive by the Ethiopian government against Tigray separatists. 

Video journalist Fay Abuelgasim and photographer Nariman el-Mofty have put individual faces on the complex story since arriving at the Sudan-Ethiopia border area nearly two weeks ago. Along with reporters Sam Magdy in Cairo and Cara Anna in Nairobi, their work has revealed the human toll of a conflict to which access remains tightly restricted, even as the United Nations warns of possible war crimes. AP clients have recognized the work with strong play.

For their determined, resourceful and revealing work to document the individual struggles of an escalating refugee crisis, Abuelgasim, el-Mofty, Anna and Magdy earn AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Source work leads to scoop on largest US dam demolition

used strong source development to break news of plans for the largest dam demolition in U.S. history, affecting four massive hydroelectric dams along the Oregon-California border. Native American tribes that have fought for decades to remove the dams and restore vital salmon habitat. Flaccus had reported from the region earlier, but the coronavirus and coverage of Portland’s racial justice protests kept her from returning during the summer. Still, she followed developments and kept in touch with the key players. Her sourcing paid off when she learned recently that an announcement was imminent on plans to demolish the dams. Flaccus pushed for an embargo, reporting and writing the story in advance with the understanding of tribal leaders and the governors of Oregon and California that she would hold her story until the official announcement.Her deeply reported APNewsBreak moved 15 minutes before the official news release, detailing the restructured deal that will almost certainly lead to the largest dam demolition in U.S. history, a first step in what would also be the largest salmon recovery project in history — a project that would also rejuvenate area tribes.Oregon’s biggest newspaper didn’t try to match the story; they used Flaccus’ story and photos in their entirety. https://bit.ly/3qaV8to

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP traces source of Pope’s comment on same-sex civil unions

teamed up to trace the elusive origin of Pope Francis’ bombshell comment on same-sex civil unions in a three-day run of stories that broke news.After Winfield reported that Pope Francis had endorsed civil unions in a new documentary, she discovered that the origin of the quote in the film was not clear. When Winfield asked the director whether he had understood at the time that the civil union comment was news, his longwinded and indirect answer was the first hint that something was off – triggering a 36-hour reporting effort.Thomas, who was covering the premiere of “Francesco” in Rome, got a top papal communications aide on camera insisting that the quote didn’t come from an interview for the film, but a 2019 interview Francis granted Mexican broadcaster Televisa. After three days of contradictory claims, the reporters nailed down that the comments were made during a May 2019 Televisa interview that was never broadcast in its entirety. Verza pressed and elicited a sourced confirmation that the Vatican had cut the quote out of the raw interview footage it provided to Televisa.AP’s story with the information from Mexico moved three hours before major newspapers reported the story. The Vatican, meanwhile, has refused all comment.https://bit.ly/3kBGZlyhttps://bit.ly/31R6VCq