Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Sourcing, expertise deliver latest scoop on Venezuela corruption case

used strong sourcing, along with prep work and his deep knowledge of the federal court system, to snag a court filing before a judge ordered it redacted, giving Goodman his second major scoop in as many weeks in the case of a top U.S. corruption target from Venezuela.Latin America correspondent Goodman has spent years painstakingly covering the shady dealings between Alex Saab and Venezuela’s socialist government. But when the Colombian-born businessman was finally extradited to Miami last month, media interest surged, with 300 journalists attending his first court appearance.Goodman, the must-read reporter on corruption in Venezuela, beat all the competition with a major discovery: Saab, who has repeatedly sworn loyalty to President Nicolás Maduro, had been betraying the Venezuelan government for years in secret meetings with U.S. law enforcement. Goodman had previously heard about the meetings from off-the-record sources, but here they were described in a court record that gave him cover to publish. Only Goodman, an ace on the labyrinthine federal courts record system, knew what to look for and could find it before a federal judge removed the document from the docket. Other news organizations were left scrambling to match the AP story.This latest scoop followed Goodman’s recent reporting that Maduro’s government had quietly offered to swap six imprisoned American oil executives for Saab in a secret Mexico City meeting with a Trump administration envoy and controversial Blackwater founder Erik Prince. https://aplink.news/rix

Best of the Week — First Winner

Powered by facts: AP investigation undercuts Trump voter fraud claims, prompts rare interview

Former President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 presidential election and his efforts to spread the false claim that widespread voter fraud cost him a second term raised a critical question: How much voter fraud occurred in the six crucial battleground states disputed by Trump?

Turns out, just 473 potential cases in those states. Many of the cases involved Republicans and virtually every case was an individual acting alone rather than coordinated fraud.

AP’s finding was the result of an exhaustive investigation by a team of reporters, data journalists and others, based on detailed fact checks of the vote entries for every county in each of the six states. The investigation also led to an exceptionally rare recorded phone interview with the former president in which he repeated his unfounded conspiracy theories but could find no fault with AP’s reporting.

The story made headlines and was widely cited. For meticulous reporting and analysis that revealed the actual attention-grabbing sliver of voter fraud cases, the team of Christina A. Cassidy, Scott Bauer, Bob Christie, David Eggert, Camille Fassett, Anthony Izaguirre, Shawn Marsh, Anna Nichols, Michelle Price, Ed White and Corey Williams is AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Tip unleashes blizzard of AP coverage on Breyer’s SCOTUS retirement

met the highly anticipated moment, leveraging a tip to deliver fast, sweeping coverage on the retirement of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP journalists deliver global coverage of dire UN climate report

definitively examined, from six continents and in all formats, the impact of climate change, merging the science behind a major — and sobering — United Nations report with the voices of people who are living it.Weeks before the Feb. 28 release, climate news director Peter Prengaman, reporters Seth Borenstein and Frank Jordans, both veterans of climate coverage, and Stockholm-based video journalist David Keyton brainstormed the plan, putting AP’s global footprint to use: Instead of just one big, all-formats story — the norm for previous reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — AP would use the report as a jumping-off point to explore the state of climate change from each continent. Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Video shows Lyoya shot in back of head by officer

teamed up with colleagues elsewhere in the country to provide multiformat coverage of the release by Grand Rapids, Michigan, police of video showing the April 4 shooting death of motorist Patrick Lyoya. Video showed Lyoya, a Black man, facing the ground when he was fatally shot in the back of the head by a police officer after a traffic stop, a brief foot chase and struggle over a stun gun.In addition to AP’s spot coverage and video analysis, distinctive enterprise in ensuing days examined a gap in the police officer’s body camera video, an explainer on what prosecutors will use to determine any charges, and how police stops of Black people are often filled with fear and anxiety and can end in deadly use of force.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Amid controversy, Black Lives co-founder gives rare interview

used years of source building and a reputation for fair and accurate reporting to land an interview with Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who acknowledged that she and the organization had struggled to handle their sudden prominence — and $90 million in donations — in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, though she denied allegations of improprieties.Cullors had not given any interview of this sort, though BLM’s purchase of a $6 million LA compound in 2020 has drawn scrutiny and heavy criticism. Morrison’s interview was cited widely and picked up by outlets across the spectrum.Read more

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP out-hustles the competition on Maxwell, Kelly sentencings

used thorough preparation and planning to overcome access hurdles, putting the AP ahead of the competition on the sentencings in two of the highest-profile cases of the #MeToo era: Ghislaine Maxwell and R. Kelly.With no cameras and no electronics of any kind allowed in the federal courtroom, teamwork, careful execution and a quick sprint enabled AP to get the news out first on two consecutive days.Read More

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Exclusive on royal charity examines climate-conscious investing

delivered an exclusive on the Royal Foundation, revealing that the conservation charity founded by Prince William, an outspoken environmental advocate, keeps its investments in a bank that is a major backer of fossil fuels. And more than half its investments are in a “green” fund that owns shares in multinational food companies that buy palm oil from companies linked to deforestation.Based on a tip, Davey spent months poring over the charity’s public filings. The London-based climate accountability reporter also interviewed experts on environmentally responsible investing, connected the foundation’s investments to cases of deforestation and sought comment from all the principals, ensuring that any critique of the Royal Foundation’s investment practices would be fair and accurate.No news organization came close on the widely played story — others either used the AP piece or cited AP in their own reporting.Read more

Best of the Week — First Winner

Sweeping AP coverage captures the life, death of Queen Elizabeth II and a nation in mourning

Years of AP preparation and planning paid off when first word came early Thursday evening in London: Queen Elizabeth II had died.

Customers had an AP Flash within a minute, followed by all-formats coverage that was stunning for its speed and scope, from a comprehensive obituary to video and photo retrospectives, profiles of Charles and Camilla, a look at global tributes, a piece on the complex reaction of former British colonies, and much more. Countless AP staffers across bureaus and continents contributed, with London staffers critical to the core coverage.

Performance for the all-formats coverage bore witness to the exceptional work — the main obit alone had 1.1 million pageviews on AP News.

For remarkable journalism still unfolding as the queen’s funeral approaches, the London-based team of Susie Blann, Danica Kirka, Jill Lawless, Sylvia Hui, Samira Becirovic, Brian Friedman, Pete Brown, Naomi Koppel, Anne-Marie Belgrave, Martin Cleaver and Frank Griffiths, and colleagues near and far, receives AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP exposes candidate’s lies; upends one of the year’s most competitive congressional races

This AP exclusive started with a tip: A Republican nominee in Ohio had made questionable claims about his tenure in the Air Force.

J.R. Majewski told voters he was a combat veteran with a tour of duty in Afghanistan, but reporters Brian Slodysko and James LaPorta, joined by investigative researcher Randy Herschaft, reported extensively using public documents, expert interviews and a survey of former employers, revealing that among multiple misrepresentations, Majewski did not deploy to Afghanistan but instead spent six-months loading planes in Qatar. He was also demoted and barred from reenlisting.

The story was a hit with readers and had rival news outlets citing AP’s exclusive, while the Republican Party pulled its advertising money from Majewski, essentially giving up on his race.

For deep source work and dogged reporting that exposed a political candidate’s blatant lies about his record, Slodysko, LaPorta and Herschaft take AP’s Best of the Week — First Winner honors.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Only on AP: No US-born Black players in the World Series

noticed at the 2005 World Series that the Houston Astros fielded a team without any U.S.-born Black players, prompting the AP baseball writer to wonder when he would cover a World Series without such a player on either team. The answer: 2022.Leaning on his previous reporting, reaching out to sources and working closely with Race and Ethnicity reporter Aaron Morrison for precise language about Black identity in baseball clubhouses, Walker and AP were alone in reporting that this year’s Astros-Phillies Fall Classic would be the first since 1950 without any U.S.-born Black players.In a World Series full of big names and rich storylines, Walker’s piece was undoubtedly the buzz of baseball in the days before Game 1. It was the top Google result for searches of “World Series,” “MLB” and “baseball” for several days, and it was cited widely even outside the sports world, by NPR, CNN and others.Read more