for being first with the news that the Trump administration would extend temporary residency for nearly 7,000 Syrians in the U.S., but cut it off so new arrivals couldnât apply. http://wapo.st/2EP02Vz
for a quickly turned AP data analysis that found that the vast majority of people who will be affected by President Donald Trumpâs decision to end a key health insurance subsidy are in states he won. http://bit.ly/2gnjqB2
When AP reported exclusively last August that New York state was undercounting its COVID nursing home death toll by thousands, Gov. Andrew Cuomo ripped the story as part of a politically motivated âblame game.â
But the stateâs own investigation, announced last week, reached a nearly identical conclusion, affirming APâs reporting.
APâs 2020 investigation had seized on the fact that New York counts just residents who died at nursing homes, not those who were transported to hospitals and died there. APâs analysis of federal data indicated that the stateâs official toll was undercounted by 65%, or well over 4,000 deaths.
For sharp reporting that led the media pack, withstood criticism from the governor and months later was vindicated, this weekâs Best of the States award goes to Bernard Condon, Matt Sedensky and Meghan Hoyer (now data director at The Washington Post).
AP national writer Hillel Italie took a call Thursday evening from a longtime source with an unexpected tip: Groundbreaking actress Cicely Tyson, known for her roles playing strong, fiercely dignified Black women, was dead.
Italie set off to get the news on the wire quickly, while also alerting colleagues. That included entertainment writer Mark Kennedy who had met Tyson years earlier. Kennedy had decided that when the time came, the AP obituary would have to capture the breadth and achievement of her life and career. And he had prepared just that.
The AP story moved at least 15 minutes before other outlets, earning more than 265,000 page views and front page headlines.
Celebrity obituaries are intensely competitive; Italie and Kennedy kept AP well in front, through source work, commitment and solid preparation. For that, they win APâs Best of the Week award.
Earlier this year, states and cities across the country pleaded for a pandemic ârescueâ plan to avoid a fiscal cliff, and they got it: $350 billion from Washington for local and state governments. Five months later, AP State Government Team reporter David Lieb dug into the data, state by state, city by city. He found that states overall had spent just 2.5% of their initial allotment while large cities spent 8.5% â not such an emergency after all.
It was a dramatic finding from an ongoing series of accountability stories led by APâs state government and data teams tracking hundreds of billions of dollars in pandemic aid.
As Lieb gathered and analyzed the reports, data journalist Camille Fassett prepared the information for wider distribution to customers who used it for their own localized reporting.
Play for the story was outstanding. It landed on the front pages of dozens of APâs biggest customers, online and print, and drew readership on AP News. For distinctive accountability journalism that delivered on both the national and local level, Lieb and Fassett earn APâs Best of Week â First Winner.
used the last major installment of the âAWOL Weaponsâ investigative series to take readers inside an attempted sale of stolen Army ordnance.LaPortaâs textbook source development yielded access to private text messages and Facebook groups, as well as exclusive interviews with both the government informant and one of the men he helped bust, providing intimate details of the intended weapons sale to narcotraffickers that ended instead with a SWAT team raid at an El Paso, Texas, truck stop.The story, written by Dearen, was produced by the digital storytelling team of Raghu Vadarevu, Natalie Castañeda and Peter Hamlin with the distinctive visual presentation of previous installments. A well-conceived social media plan by audience engagement journalist Elise Ryan helped drive remarkably strong readership: The piece led APâs platforms for pageviews (more than 100,000) and reader engagement for the day.https://aplink.news/mvhhttps://apnews.com/hub/awol-we...
for their competitive coverage of an international investment forum hosted by Saudi Arabia in a restrictive climate, amid peak interest in the Jamal Khashoggi affair.https://bit.ly/2EUDTZqhttps://bit.ly/2QhLJ0N
After a prominent Philadelphia neurologist was charged with groping several patients at his clinic, Pennsylvania reporter Michael Rubinkam began digging into the neurologist's past to see if he had been accused of wrongdoing elsewhere.
Reviewing documents in three states, and checking with medical centers and law enforcement, he was able to determine that at least 17 women in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey have stepped forward to accuse Cruciani of sexual misconduct that goes back at least a dozen years. Two days after Rubinkamâs story ran, Cruciani pleaded guilty to groping seven patients.
For reporting exclusively that Cruciani has left behind a trail of sex abuse claims in at least three states, and obtaining powerful accounts of how he was able to prey on vulnerable patients, Rubinkam wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
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 courtâs 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 â First Winner honors.
tapped into her deep network of Pentagon sources to score a major scoop a full day ahead of the official announcement: Sexual assaults in the military had increased by 13% last year, largely driven by a 26% surge of reported sexual assaults in the Army.Few reporters have broken as many stories on issues affecting the lives of U.S. service members as Baldor, APâs longtime military affairs reporter. She had been working sources for weeks before the official report on sexual assault, and knew the Army numbers would be bad. Then a source came through with all 26 pages of the Pentagon talking points, giving her virtually everything she needed to break the story. Many news organizations used Baldorâs story or had to cite APâs reporting in their own reporting.Read more
has been breaking news about buried treasure since 2018, when the FBI conducted a secretive dig in a remote area of Pennsylvania, aimed at recovering a legendary cache of stolen Civil War-era gold. The FBI has long refused to confirm it was searching for the fabled gold â while also insisting it didnât find whatever it was hoping to dig up.Rubinkam knew the FBI needed a federal search warrant to gain access to the site, but every document in the case was sealed ... as if the case didnât exist. With help from AP attorney Brian Barrett and a Philadelphia-based media lawyer, a judge lifted the sealing order, revealing a veritable gold mine of news and confirming Rubinkamâs previous reporting: that the feds were, indeed, looking for gold. Among the details in the FBIâs unsealed affidavit: A contractorâs sensitive instruments had detected a huge underground mass with the density of gold.What the unsealed case didnât include was a document describing what the FBI actually found. Federal prosecutors assert no such document exists because the dig came up empty. But the treasure hunters who led the FBI to the site in the first place believe the evidence says otherwise. They are seeking FBI records of the dig.Rubinkamâs story was among the top 10 most-viewed stories on apnews.com last week. It appeared on newspapers' front pages and spurred follow-ups, including by The Washington Post.https://aplink.news/gcohttps://aplink.news/jyq
used her vast experience and contacts as AP auto racing writer to land an exclusive interview with Dutch driver Max Verstappen â currently leading the world championship standings â in advance of last weekendâs Formula One race in Austin, Texas.Verstappenâs comments to Fryer went viral when he explained why he chose not to participate this season in âDrive to Survive,â the Netflix docuseries that is credited with expanding U.S. interest in F1. Verstappen said that when he appeared in earlier seasons of the show his quotes were taken out of context and âthey would fake a lot of stuff. ... They faked a few rivalries which they donât really exist.âThe comments caused a sensation online, and when asked about his answers at a news conference days before the race, Versatappen said: âI would recommend you read the article. I explained myself there, in the article.â All AP competitors had to cite and link to Fryerâs story. https://aplink.news/1a3
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 victimsâ attorneys to have a multiformat team at a law firm as victims made emotional statements to members of the Sackler family. Read more
interviewed Spanish league president Javier Tebas following a surprise announcement by outgoing Barcelona team president Josep Bartomeu promoting the idea of a European Super League to be played only by elite clubs. The league would compete against the Champions League and could hurt domestic leagues and smaller clubs. Tebas is the most outspoken critic of the Super League idea in Europe.The day after the embattled Barcelona president dropped the surprising announcement, Madrid sports writer Azzoni landed the first exclusive interview with the Spanish league president. Tebas added fuel to the discussion by saying that Bartomeu was being directed by Real Madrid president Florentino PĂ©rez, whom he called the architect of the idea. The interview was picked up by nearly all Spanish dailies, including Marca, AS, Mundo Deportivo and El PaĂs, and was also cited in sports shows. https://bit.ly/3eruEhz
for finding data from six automakers buried in a government website that allowed AP to earn a two-hour beat on a critical set of recalls involving 1.7 million Takata air bags. Krisher found the news after he acted on a tip. https://bit.ly/2TQGFlw
delivered two jarring scoops as President Donald Trump shifted to a new tactic in his effort to upend the results of the 2020 presidential election.When the two Republicans on the Wayne County, Michigan, canvass board tried to rescind their vote to certify local results, White House Reporter Zeke Miller wondered if Trump was behind their move and started connecting the dots. Working with Washington colleague Colleen Long and others on the law enforcement team, Miller called around to sources he had developed around the country and uncovered major news: The president had made personal calls to the two canvass board members before they tried to rescind their votes. It showed that Trumpâs game had shifted from the courtrooms, where his team was constantly losing, to personally trying to intervene. Millerâs scoop went viral â used by hundreds of websites and tweeted by every major election watcher in the country as a shocking example of the lengths Trump would go to in order to subvert the election. Lansing correspondent David Eggert, working with Miller and Long, followed up with a scoop of his own, reporting that state lawmakers had been summoned to Washington to meet with Trump. The trioâs stories on the drama in Michigan were stocked with news but also wove in critical context on the baseless and extraordinary claims that Trump was making and the damage he was doing to confidence in democratic traditions. Their stories were clear, authoritative, and comprehensive, including important fact check material. https://bit.ly/3lc8IJ6https://bit.ly/36huruX
for an exclusive accountability story showing that the new deputy governor, an appointee, would be paid in part from a state health insurance fund that is $4 billion behind in payments to doctors and hospitals. http://apne.ws/2nsyFKW
Supreme Court nominees are scrutinized for signs of how they may vote on important issues, but Amy Coney Barrettâs jurisprudence told little about her views on gay rights.
Reporters Michelle R. Smith and Michael Biesecker knew that Barrettâs ties to People of Praise, a religious group with anti-gay views, could be an important part of her confirmation process. Through dogged reporting and source work they were able to show that Barrett was a trustee at People of Praise-run schools that had anti-gay teachings.
Their story had an immediate impact in the run-up to her Oct. 26 Senate confirmation. For thorough and groundbreaking reporting on the tightly held views of a justice likely to sit in judgment of high-profile gay rights cases, Smith and Biesecker win APâs Best of the Week award.
for reporting first that Michiganâs top education official decided to back away from issuing A-to-F letter grades for each public school in the state. http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/loâŠ
for landing a scoop about an effort by a broad group including the 28-nation European Union, the United States, Japan, Australia, Argentina, Israel and four other countries to pressure China to scale back plans for intensive inspections of imports that they say would hamper access to its fast-growing market. http://on-ajc.com/2skMfTt