Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

As abuse reports surge, secretive Vatican office opens doors to AP

for securing the first TV and photo access to the secretive Vatican tribunal that processes clergy sexual abuse cases. The result was an exclusive on-camera interview with the head of the tribunal’s discipline section, an unprecedented tour of the room where appeals are heard and a look at the trolleys of files documenting all the world’s known Catholic sex abuse cases. The office says it has seen a record 1,000 reports of clergy abuse this year. https://bit.ly/2ETTPsghttps://bit.ly/2rqSyFR

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Wrestler goes public with abuse charges; AP gets the interview

Kantele Franko, reporter, Columbus, Ohio; Larry Lage, sports writer, Detroit; and Thomas Peipert, reporter, Denver, for nimble coordination across three regions to secure an all-formats interview with the first athlete – Olympic wrestler Andy Hrovat – to make public accusations of sexual abuse against now-deceased Dr. Robert Anderson of the University of Michigan.https://bit.ly/2HZ8m7Ghttps://bit.ly/2PwPH7j

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Vatican envoy knew of offer to bribe abuse victim

for teaming up in a new investigation into the disgraced Legion of Christ religious order, revealing that the pope’s own envoy knew about a sex abuse settlement offer that is the subject of an obstruction of justice and extortion trial in Italy. AP scored the first-ever interview with the victim’s mother and obtained her wiretapped conversation with the Vatican cardinal running the Legion who was utterly unfazed that the order wanted to pay her son to lie to prosecutors and deny he had been abused.https://bit.ly/2TftYlihttps://bit.ly/2VpMJVI

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP team follows African migrants risking all to reach Saudi Arabia

After Maggie Michael, Nariman El-Mofty and Maad al-Zekri followed Ethiopian migrants across Djibouti and Yemen, they worked with the digital storytelling desk to deliver an all-formats package that hooked readers from the start, weaving together the differing fates of two migrants – one who succeeded in his epic walk to Saudi Arabia, the other who failed, left stranded and hopeless along the way.

The story demonstrated the scope of the AP’s reach, covering a little-noticed but rapidly growing route for migrants, exploring what motivates these men and women to risk their lives, and making readers care about people to whom they would not otherwise have been introduced.

The package, produced and packaged by Natalie Castañeda and Peter Hamlin, showcased how AP’s formats can work seamlessly together – from reporting on the ground to digital production – with dazzling results.

For stunningly beautiful work that took AP’s audience on the migrants’ journey from the sun-blasted wastelands of Djibouti to the shores of the Gulf of Aden and beyond, Michael, El-Mofty, al-Zekri, Castañeda and Hamlin win AP’s Best of the Week honors.

Best of the States

Records reveal Virginia attorney-lawmaker privilege that delays court proceedings

Sometimes accountability stories are hiding in plain sight, but getting to them requires first recognizing the potential and then doing a whole lot of digging. Virginia reporter Sarah Rankin did both of those things. 

After seeing a one-sentence mention in a legal trade publication, Rankin began the hunt for a deeper story about a continuance privilege granted to lawyer-legislators, and how one Virginia lawmaker used the privilege to consistently delay court hearings. 

Rankin plowed through records of cases that involved Virginia lawmaker Jeff Campbell, the defense attorney for a one-time NASCAR race driver accused of domestic violence. She found that Campbell had employed the continuance privilege at least 30 times over three years, more than double any other lawyer-legislator.

For seizing on the brief mention, then following up with determined reporting that revealed a potential for abuse by lawyer-lawmakers in Virginia and elsewhere, Rankin wins the week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

NFL’s Saints accused of helping shape clergy abuse list

for advancing the story he broke a week earlier, now reporting exclusively on court filings claiming that work done for the area’s Roman Catholic archdiocese by the NFL’s New Orleans Saints went beyond “minimal” public relations work on sex abuse by clergy, and allegedly included helping to shape a list of credibly accused clergy that appears to be undercounted. Mustain also reported on a judge’s ruling that the AP can move forward with its case to have documents between the Saints and the archdiocese made public. https://bit.ly/3718pK7

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: Trump rape accuser seeking his DNA

for landing an exclusive report about the columnist E. Jean Carroll seeking a DNA sample from President Donald Trump to potentially back her accusation that he raped her in a department store dressing room. Peltz raised the question of DNA testing with Carroll’s legal team last November and stayed in contact with the team, prompting them to reach out with the news that they had tested the dress Carroll wore during the alleged assault. https://bit.ly/36ZTaRM

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Strong Weinstein trial coverage despite judge’s restrictions

overcame a judge’s strict rules for journalists covering Harvey Weinstein’s trial – including a ban on electronic communication from the courtroom, limited seating and no remote access to trial proceedings – to deliver standout coverage of Harvey Weinstein’s New York trial on charges of sexual abuse. AP’s coverage got wide play and frequent citations by news organizations unable to get their own reporter into the room.https://bit.ly/36zXRBnhttps://bit.ly/2uF9f1Dhttps://bit.ly/2Uerk14https://bit.ly/2GyI3Er

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Exclusives lead all-formats coverage of Virginia pro-gun rally

for exclusive reporting and photo/video dominance around a massive pro-gun rally in Richmond, Virginia, including breaking the news that Gov. Ralph Northam temporarily banned all weapons on the Capital grounds and a story that four Democrats opposed legislation that would have sought to ban assault weapons in the state, effectively killing the measure. https://bit.ly/3aDMYlhhttps://bit.ly/37njd6lhttps://bit.ly/2sTFrhl

Best of the States

Multiple investigations deepen AP’s coverage of ‘The Reckoning’ in the Catholic Church

The AP designated coverage of the Roman Catholic Church and its handling of sexual misconduct as a major focus in 2019, exploring myriad facets of the church’s greatest credibility crisis since the Reformation. That focus carried through the past two weeks, with three strong stories delving into various aspects of the church’s handling of abuse accusations:

– Reporter Claudia Lauer and data journalist Meghan Hoyer showed definitively that the church has failed to be fully forthcoming about the number of clergy members credibly accused of child sexual abuse. 

– Investigative reporter Michael Rezendes broke the news about a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by one of Mother Teresa’s key confidants.

– Global religion editor Gary Fields, photographer Maye-E Wong and reporter Juliet Linderman delved into how, almost without exception, the church does not track the number of minorities who have been victimized by predator priests.

For illuminating work that further deepens AP’s “Reckoning” reporting on the Catholic church, Lauer, Hoyer, Rezendes, Huh, Fields, Wong and Linderman share this week’s Best of the States award.

Best of the States

Early Epstein accuser: Police could have stopped him in 1997

It’s exceedingly rare to get any details from a police report in California and even rarer to get a glimpse inside a detective’s notebook. But Jennifer Peltz and Katie Campione did just that. Peltz and Campione convinced police to finally explain how they handled one of the earliest known sex crime accusations against Jeffrey Epstein, a 1997 case that the accuser has called a massive missed opportunity to bring the financier to justice years before he was accused of sexually abusing dozens of girls and young women.

Their story turned out to be one of the most popular stories of the week on the AP News mobile site and was also one of the most engaging with readers. Even the Los Angeles Times had no choice but to put the AP story on its website front page.

For going the extra mile to get an explanation for a case that could have stopped Epstein from the start, Katie Campione and Jennifer Peltz win this week's Best of the States.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Emails: NAACP president chastised women who claimed harassment

for using leaked emails and a recording she obtained from a closed-door meeting to detail how the national NAACP leader, Derrick Johnson, chastised women who went public with sexual harassment claims against a former North Carolina state chapter officer. https://bit.ly/39eCzf0

Best of the Week — First Winner

How tramadol, touted as the safer opioid, became a 3rd world peril

It was supposed to be the safer opioid, a way to fight pain with little risk of addiction. That promise has meant much less regulation of tramadol than other opioids. And its relatively low cost has made tramadol the drug of choice in many developing countries, becoming what the United Nations calls “the other opioid crisis.”

National writer Claire Galofaro spent months researching the issue – but how to illustrate the story from a fresh perspective?

Galofaro turned to New Delhi-based correspondent Emily Schmall, who traveled to India’s Punjab state, where she talked to people struggling with addiction, visited a treatment center and gained unprecedented access to officials trying to stem the crisis. 

The deeply reported story, one of the top-read pieces on AP News, also delved into tramadol’s heavy toll in Africa, and its trafficking among terrorist groups. 

For their work exposing an aspect of the international opioid crisis that has received far less attention, Galofaro and Schmall win AP’s Best of the Week award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP documents China’s trafficking of poor Pakistanis as brides

for spending months tracking down an official list of 629 poor Pakistani girls and women trafficked as brides to China. The story provided the first concrete evidence of the scale of China’s trafficking of brides, many of whom are sold into prostitution, physically and sexually abused, or forced to undergo fertility treatments. https://bit.ly/2M4QI4T

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: New abuse suits could cost church billions

for taking a hard look at the financial reckoning of the U.S. Roman Catholic sex abuse trials, and reporting exclusively that changing laws and attitudes could translate into a flood of lawsuits with potential payouts topping $4 billion. Condon and Mustian reported on the potential impact of new laws, enacted in 15 states, that extend or suspend the statute of limitations governing claims. The pair found several attorneys who have turned their entire practices over to such cases, with TV ads and billboards seeking clients. https://bit.ly/36oRoJX

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Exclusive: Boy Scouts mortgaging iconic New Mexico scout ranch

for reporting exclusively that the Boy Scouts of America was taking a surprising step: It was putting Philmont Scout Ranch – a pristine 150,000 acre camp in New Mexico, considered the crown jewel in the organization’s network of camps – up as collateral as it deals with financial fallout over a wave of sex-abuse lawsuits. It was the latest in a series of scoops by Crary about the Boy Scouts and their financial troubles, including his recent break about the organization increasing membership fees by more than double. https://bit.ly/2qZsQbe

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Priests accused of abuse have access to children, dozens commit crimes

As the ranks of dioceses promising to release lists of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse began to mushroom at the beginning of this year, Philadelphia reporter Claudia Lauer and Washington-based data editor Meghan Hoyer started to strategize: How could they leverage the information on a scale never before accomplished?

The hurdles were high: Many of the released lists were lacking in basic information, and the priests had scattered around the U.S. and beyond, living almost entirely under the radar.

After months of systematic, dogged work, the result was “Where Are They Now,” a blockbuster investigation that found almost 1,700 priests and other clergy members living with little to no oversight, many with positions giving them access to children. Dozens have committed crimes, including sexual assault.

The story received exceptional play online and in print, and AP Managing Editor Brian Carovillano called it, “One of the most monumental pieces of AP journalism in my memory.”

For more on this groundbreaking investigation which also received this week’s Best of the States award, see the full citation here.https://bit.ly/2pIr4u8https://bit.ly/2nBkh4Yhttps://bit.ly/2p42Zh6

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Exclusive interview as Franken reemerges with radio show

for an exclusive interview with former Sen. Al Franken, who had resigned his U.S. Senate seat in 2017 amid sexual misconduct charges. Franken announced his return to the spotlight with a weekly political show on SiriusXM satellite radio. https://bit.ly/31KeMjc

Best of the States

In Mississippi Delta, Catholic abuse cases settled on cheap

As allegations of sexual abuse by clergy have proliferated across the Catholic Church, millions of dollars in settlement money has been paid to victims. Some have received as much as $500,000 apiece.

Not La Jarvis D. Love.

At an IHOP in the Mississippi Delta, a white official from the Franciscan religious order offered to pay him just $15,000 to keep years of alleged abuse secret.

“He said if I wanted more, I would have to get a lawyer and have my lawyer call his lawyer,” Love told The Associated Press. “Well, we don’t have lawyers. We felt like we had to take what we could.”

The story, the latest in AP’s investigation into abuse in the Catholic Church, revealed deals struck with two black men for abuse they said happened in grade school that represent far lower amounts than what other clergy abuse survivors have received. It also revealed the men had been asked to sign nondisclosure agreements, which had long been banned by U.S. Catholic leaders.

Despite the challenges, the team – investigative reporter Mike Rezendes, photographer Maye-E-Wong, video journalist Sarah Blake Morgan, digital storytelling producer Samantha Shotzbarger and researcher Randy Herschaft – produced extraordinary work. Herschaft discovered several critical threads that showed an alleged abuser was working with children even after the church had known about one of the men’s allegations.

For their sensitive work on a complex, emotional and previously untold story, the team of Rezendes, Morgan, Wong, Shotzbarger and Herschaft win this week’s Best of the States.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

APNewsBreak: More than 300 accusers in Ohio State doctor scandal

for dogged source work and thorough reporting to confirm the growing number of sexual misconduct accusers against the late Ohio State team doctor, Richard Strauss, Franko has covered the scandal from the beginning and has deep sources, but nailing down the number of accusers has been difficult. Because the lawyers have been tight-lipped about the mediation process, Franko stayed in touch with some of the plaintiffs even if they would talk only off the record. The subject of the growing number of accusers came up during one such conversation, and Franko started checking with some of the lawyers to confirm it. She learned enough to prep a draft story, and when she finally got multiple confirmations and comment, she had the story ready to roll out: More than 300 accusers have come forward. The APNewsBreak was used by the hometown Columbus Dispatch and received wide play online with solid engagement on social media. https://bit.ly/2MFdD8F