for their quick reaction and effective coordination by teams on two continents that allowed AP to score an exclusive on Venezuelan families who became the unintended victims of U.S. sanctions against companies tied to the embattled government of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. https://bit.ly/2EARlzw
for revealing that despite mandated reforms, the Pentagon still struggles to provide justice when the children of service members sexually assault each other. Acting on a tip to Dunklin, their story describes the case of a 13-year-old boy accused of molesting at least 10 younger children on a U.S. Air Force base in Japan. The girlsâ mothers say Air Force officials showed little urgency to offer counseling or investigate. âHow is this OK?â asked a mother who locked her kids indoors. https://bit.ly/2XZXbSf
Two weeks before the 25th anniversary of the killings that led to O.J. Simpsonâs âTrial of the Century,â special correspondent Linda Deutsch was summoned from retirement to try to coax an interview from the fallen football star. Simpson hadnât submitted to an interview since being released from prison in 2017, and he turned down an interview request from Deutsch last year. But Deutsch tried again, this time by phone. O.J. didn't want to talk, but he relented after Deutsch reminded him that if he spoke to her, APâs story would reach all media.
Simpson wouldnât discuss the crime, but he provided a glimpse into a life now very much outside the public eye, telling Deutsch âlife is fine,â a quote that stung any who believed he got away with murder.
Deutschâs story, including two photos of Simpson at home that were exclusive to the AP, was the dayâs top-read AP story online, and the centerpiece of a multi-story package looking back at Simpsonâs trial, its key figures and its impact.
For a timely, exclusive interview with a man who remains the focus of intense public interest, Linda Deutsch receives APâs Best of the States award.
Vatican correspondent Nicole Winfieldâs five-month investigation revealed the stunning allegations: A high-ranking Catholic priest had a sexual relationship with a Houston woman for more than a year, counseled her husband on their marital problems, pressed for hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from the couple and continued to hear her confession.
But the cardinal overseeing the churchâs handling of sexual abuse allegations in the United States approved the priestâs transfer to a church two hours away.
The fallout from Winfieldâs revelations was swift: The priest was suspended and church officials reopened their inquiry into the handling of parishioner Laura Pontikesâ accusations.
To tell the sensitive story, Winfield â and a team that included Raleigh-based national writer/video journalist Allen Breed, New York global enterprise photographer Wong Maye-E and Houston correspondent Nomaan Merchant â meticulously planned coverage in each format, including on-camera interviews with Pontikes and her husband, and photos and video of the cardinal and the accused priest.
For an investigation that cast doubt on a top church officialâs handling of a case involving startling allegations of abuse, Winfield, Breed, Wong and Merchant wins APâs Best of the Week award.
Execution coverage often focuses on the condemned inmate or the manner of death. So, faced with covering his eighth execution â a Florida serial killer â Tallahassee correspondent Brendan Farrington told the extraordinary personal story of a victim who escaped and helped police find the man after he raped her decades ago. That woman had chosen to witness the manâs execution.
Farrington doggedly tracked down the woman, now a sheriffâs deputy, who finally agreed to an interview on the eve of the execution. Her compelling story resonated with readers everywhere.
For his persistence and sensitivity in telling a personal and emotional victimâs story in what could have been a rote story on a serial killerâs execution, Farrington wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
for months of covering the Ohio State sexual misconduct scandal and extensive background preparation that put AP in front when the universityâs report on the misconduct was released. It showed at least 177 athletes had been abused by a now-dead team doctor, from the 1970s through the 1990s. https://bit.ly/2wmLZ6l
After a gunman opened fire in a Southern California synagogue on Passover, killing a woman and wounding a man, his 8-year-old niece and the rabbi leading the service, the inevitable question was asked: Could anything have been done to stop the violence?
Reporters Don Thompson and Adam Beam in Sacramento and Julie Watson in San Diego combined to report exclusively that the synagogue itself had recognized security deficiencies and even received a state grant to address them.
But it hadnât spent the money, the AP team revealed.
For their exclusive follow-up to a crime that generated global attention, Thompson, Watson and Beam win this weekâs Best of the States.
for exclusively reporting that a former top New York State government official fired a year ago for sexual harassment was quietly reassigned to another agency where heâs been making $136,000 a year while doing no work. https://bit.ly/2Cv8BVz
for breaking news on the unusual circumstances around $4.15 million in settlements for alleged victims of sexual harrassment by a former close ally of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds. From a comprehensive records request and interviews, Foley learned that a lawyer for the women had sent a detailed âdemand letterâ threatening a lawsuit days before the election and a promise to dig into the governorâs association with the now-fired director of the Iowa Finance Authority. The state, Foley reported, agreed to settle immediately after receiving the letter. https://bit.ly/2EoXmxR
for an AP Exclusive revealing a particularly egregious case of sexual harassment in New Yorkâs state government, complete with an interview with the accused in which the man asked incredulously, âI tell her to âshut her whore mouthâ and Iâm the big villain?â Klepper also interviewed three women who say that supervisors did not act over the course of two years despite their claims that the man groped them and exposed himself. https://bit.ly/2ETadtX
A source called Iowa City correspondent Ryan J. Foley with a tip: He had a shocking letter that he couldnât share in which the Catholic Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, acknowledged a priest admitted to abuse of 50 boys in Iowa over 20 years.
Foley eventually tracked down a copy of the letter, and it was stunning: The diocese admitted the Rev. Jerome Coyle reported his pedophilia in 1986 but was simply shuffled to New Mexico for treatment. The diocese also offered to pay Coyle to stay in New Mexico, warning that his desired return to Iowa would retraumatize his victims, now grown men.
Yet sources said he returned to Fort Dodge, Iowa, which is where Foley and photographer Charlie Neibergall found him. The priest wouldnât talk, but the diocese confirmed Foleyâs story and acknowledged two victims had come forward in recent weeks with allegations against Coyle that would now be turned over to police. The 32-year coverup was over.
Reaction to Foleyâs story â the lead story in newspapers across the state â was quick, with Coyle removed from the home, the Iowa attorney generalâs office launching an inquiry, and the diocese promising to identify all priests who have faced credible allegations.
The diocese said it was taking this action due to the continuing investigations of âthe AP reporter.â
For breaking a story in vivid detail that had been kept hidden for decades, Foley wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
for scoring an exclusive on-camera interview with a whistleblower cleric, establishing a timeline of sexual misconduct allegations against a former Argentine bishop. The accusations by the bishopâs former top deputy undermined the Vaticanâs claims that it had learned of the charges just a few months ago. https://bit.ly/2MvhHWf
for his excellent coverage of migrants climbing a wall and running as U.S. agents fired tear gas. While many people were raising their glasses to celebrate the New Year, some 150 migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border tried to cross into the U.S., where Border Patrol agents stood wearing camouflage and carrying assault-style riffles. Ochoa's widely used photos captured the drama of the migrants, including children, running away from the gas.https://bit.ly/2Ce6Zyqhttps://bit.ly/2Fq4jRx
for back-to-back Vatican sex abuse scoops, reporting exclusively on a confidential Vatican letter to U.S. bishops about proposed responses to the scandal, and exclusive Vatican confirmation that an Argentine bishop hand-picked by the pope for a top Holy See job was under investigation for sexual misconduct.https://bit.ly/2D2ELsihttps://bit.ly/2RFk1Pi
for a creative approach to frame newly released body-camera footage showing Milwaukee police shooting an unarmed black man, contrasting the way that encounter ended in violence against the peaceful resolution that officers achieved with a white man who confronted officers in the same neighborhood while holding an assault rifle. https://bit.ly/2TIR8iE
AP investigative reporter Maggie Michael has done landmark reporting on Yemenâs civil war throughout the past year, revealing abuses by the Saudi-led coalition that controls much of the south of the country.
But there had been a major gap in the coverage for all media: putting the same scrutiny on the other side in the conflict, the Houthi rebels who control the north. The Houthis impose strict controls on reporters, and sources are afraid to talk, problems that have prevented journalists from reporting in-depth on abuses carried out by the Houthis during the 4-year-old civil war.
Michael found another way. She and Cairo photographer Nariman El-Mofty travelled to the coalition-controlled city of Marib, where they could meet freely with victims of the Houthis who had fled the rebelsâ rule. There, former prisoners described horrifying tortures at the hands of the Houthis. Narimanâs riveting visuals encapsulated the suffering, including photos of a man recovering from horrific acid burns, draped in red bandages.
The reporting, supported partly by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, was a breakthrough, as it has been rare to see atrocities by Houthis so prominently featured. Rather than denying the story, a top Houthi figure called for an investigation into allegations of torture in the movementâs prisons.
For their investigation that exposed in raw, excruciating detail the scope of torture committed by the Houthis, Michael and El-Mofty share AP's Best of the Week award.
for a compelling set of photos, accompanying a story by Todd Pitman, documenting Palestinians wounded by Israeli gunfire. Israeli snipers have been targeting one part of the body more than any other â the legs. Israel says it is considers firing at the lower limbs an act of restraint as it responds to assaults on its frontier by Palestinians armed with stones, grenades and firebombs. https://bit.ly/2RUDgkI
As video journalist Carrie Antlfinger awaited a news conference outside a Chicago hospital where a gunman had killed three people a day earlier, a deliveryman waiting for the emergency room to reopen showed her a photo he had taken.
The cellphone photo captured a pivotal moment in the story â the shooter standing next to his first victim, his former fiancee, whom he had shot in front of the hospital.
Antlfinger, who had been dispatched from Milwaukee to cover the breaking story, immediately recognized the value of the image and the manâs firsthand account. While the deliveryman was at first reluctant, Antlfinger was able to persuade him not only to provide the AP with the photo but to go on camera for an interview describing what he saw: the gunman standing over the body with a handgun in his hand, police pulling up to the scene and the gunman shooting at police.
Antlfingerâs scoops â central to the APâs second-day coverage of the story â were part of an aggressive cross-format effort by AP staff to cover all aspects of the story from day one.
For recognizing a critical way to advance the APâs reporting and then negotiating exclusive access to the photo and interview, Antlfinger wins this weekâs Best of the States.
Just before midnight on the day after California staffers were up late covering the midterm election came reports of a shooting at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, about 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Over the next 12 hours, as the scale of the carnage emerged, Sacramento correspondent Kathleen Ronayne, Washington-based reporters Mike Balsamo and Tami Abdollah, and photographer Mark Terrill and video journalist Krysta Fauria, both based in Los Angeles, combined to provide exclusive all-formats content for AP customers.
Despite the hour, Fauria and Terrill were on the scene within 90 minutes of the first reports coming in. Terrill made tight shots of the scene that no one else could match â his photos were used heavily by numerous outlets. Meanwhile, Fauria quickly set up a live shot, the first of four she would do over 12 hours at three locations. She also got APâs first interview from a survivor.
Reporter Ronayne, bleary-eyed from the long election night, provided the first live video of authorities searching the shooter's home, while Balsamo used a source to break the widely played news that the murder weapon was a handgun, not an assault weapon.
As other news organizations pulled photos of the gunman from social media, Balsamoâs Washington colleague â and fellow AP-Los Angeles alumnus â Tami Abdollah used a source to obtain a driverâs license photo that is believed to be the first and still perhaps the only rights-cleared image of the gunman.
For providing news, photos and video that others couldnât, Ronayne, Terrill, Balsamo, Abdollah and Fauria win this weekâs Best of the States award.
for scoring an APNewsBreak on one of the most important details of how Olympic leaders in the United States are handling sexual abuse cases, finding that $2.2 million in key federal funds could not be used for the most pressing need of investigating any cases, with a backlog of more than 800 to be resolved. https://bit.ly/2TbqAqE