for a story on how a leading journal of political philosophy took up the Black Lives Matter movement in its June issue without a single contribution from a black academic, triggering an outcry. http://bit.ly/2sxlg6y
for a story pointing out that the New England Patriots would be one of the last NFL teams to start a black quarterback when Jacoby Brissett played on Sept. 22. http://bit.ly/2dkHQnL
As New York, Chicago, New Orleans and other cities with large black populations began to emerge as hot spots for COVID-19, reporters Aaron Morrison and Jay Reeves decided it would be relevant to examine how black Americans have historically mistrusted the medical field.
The pair connected the skepticism in the black community in part to the aftermath of the notorious âTuskegee Study,â in which roughly 600 poor black Alabama men were left untreated for syphilis to track the diseaseâs progress. The secret program was exposed in 1972 and ended, but its effects linger, well beyond Alabama.
With photography by Bebeto Matthews, the story received heavy play as the nation wrestled with the high rate of coronavirus infections among the black community.
For setting the AP apart with a timely examination of black Americansâ mistrust of the medical field, Morrison, Reeves and Matthews win this weekâs Best of the States award.
for a package that demonstrated how the vast majority of violent crime laws named for victims carry the names of white victims. With no databases available, Smyth did painstaking research with the help of other statehouse reporters, and the team reported a powerful story about one black middle-school student who was murdered, but for whom no law is named. https://bit.ly/34h6WOzhttps://bit.ly/2siKNCb
scored an exclusive interview with one of the four former Blackwater security contractors pardoned by President Donald Trump for a shooting rampage in Iraq that killed more than a dozen civilians. The interview, the only one granted by any of the contractors, was the result of years of ongoing source work with the contractorsâ legal team, who knew that Tucker would be fair and accurate, and that he was intimately familiar with the case from having covered it extensively.
Evan Liberty revealed he was not remorseful for his actions, believed that he had âacted correctly,â and shared details about the moment he learned he had received a pardon, including the three personal items he took with him when he left prison. Tucker made clear the pardons inspired broad condemnation in the U.S. and Middle East and included the perspective of the prosecutors who charged him, the jury who convicted himand the judge who sentenced him. https://bit.ly/3okz4et
teamed up to reveal wide disparities among the nationâs historically Black colleges and universities, with many smaller private schools fighting for survival.The reporting by Hudspeth Blackburn and Amy was built on an analysis of enrollment and endowment data by data journalists Fenn and Fassett. They found that many smaller, lesser-known HBCUs are struggling with weak endowments, aging buildings and steady enrollment declines. And while HBCUs in the U.S. have received millions of dollars in federal coronavirus aid and fresh attention after last summerâs racial justice protests, not all benefit equally.The teamâs comprehensive story was complemented by embeddable graphics illustrating the disparities, and advance detailed data on all 102 HBCUs for localization by AP customers. https://aplink.news/wrn
solved a central mystery of Pacific Gas & Electricâs intentional power shutoffs: why the utility was so prone to bungling the intentional blackouts.Following an earlier exclusive looking at PG&Eâs blackout response last fall, Pritchard received a tip: PG&E had revealed it did not require emergency management personnel to be trained in emergency management. The pandemic interrupted that reporting, but he and Liedtke revisited it just as blackout season returned to California this year. Their central finding was startling: Among the hundreds of people who handled the 2019 blackouts from PG&Eâs emergency operations center, only a handful had any training in Californiaâs Standardized Emergency Management System (SEMS) â the playbook that California has used for a generation. In response to the reportersâ questions, PG&E revealed to AP that only âseveralâ emergency operations center workers or executives had any SEMS training, something not even the executive director of the California Public Utilities Commission knew.The story rippled through the San Francisco Bay Area media market and outward from there, receiving strong play in broadcast, online and in print. https://bit.ly/2FNzlFA
teamed up to chronicle the toll the pandemic has taken on Black funeral directors in the U.S. Some 130 Black morticians have died since the onset of COVID-19, leaving holes not just in their families but in their communities, where they have long played a prominent role. Often admired for their success in business, a number have been elected to political office, served as local power brokers and helped fund civil rights efforts.Geller interviewed the families of Black morticians who died, and Breed shot emotional video and photos of Mullins, South Carolina, funeral director Shawn Troy, who suddenly finds himself trying to fill his fatherâs shoes. The result is a powerful look at a unique toll that COVID has taken in many Black communities.https://aplink.news/f8shttps://aplink.video/b4a
for turning a spot story on YouTubeâs removal of hundreds of thousands of videos from Syria into a wider look at how Syrian activists are scrambling to rescue their history. http://bit.ly/2xScoLJ
for a story that revealed how former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newmanâs turn against President Trump wasnât enough to convince blacks to let her return to the family fold. https://bit.ly/2MJbjwW
looked at at the circumstances faced by Mississippiâs Black voters for the third installment of APâs âLooking For Americaâ road trip series.The highly evocative package was framed in the context of the âMississippi Burningâ murders of three civil rights activists in 1964 â and it found that too little has changed. The AP team saw the issue through the eyes of a now-elderly activist who was close to two of the murder victims more than 50 years ago. They reported that while poll taxes and tests on the state constitution may be gone, Black voters still face obstacles such as state-mandated ID laws and the disenfranchisement tens of thousands of former prisoners.The text, photos and video, with digital presentation by multimedia journalist Samantha Shotzbarger, perfectly captured the frustration that so many decades later, Black voters are still challenged by the state.The work was highlighted in a long entry in Politicoâs Playbook, and attracted attention in the U.S. and internationally.https://bit.ly/31THAI1https://bit.ly/3jzaKCphttps://bit.ly/3oCX50E
delivered a 24-hour text and video exclusive, reporting that 12-year-old Keedron Bryant had signed a record deal after his single, âI just Wanna Liveâ â written by his mother following George Floydâs death â went viral. https://bit.ly/3hUVQqh
for anchoring expansive and informative coverage of President Donald Trumpâs impeachment trial â just the third such trial in American history. Coverage of the trial in all formats showcased the APâs unmatched ability to meet the call of history with sharp storytelling, delivered with speed but hanging on substance. The APâs mainbar provided a definitive account of the trial for more than three weeks running. And as lawmakers weighed the ultimate judgment on a president, journalists in Washington carefully reported the arguments in real-time while churning out informative sidebars, fact-checks and explanatory guides. The final story alone, on the Senate vote to acquit Trump, appeared on more than 200 newspaper front pages across the country, and hundreds of websites. https://bit.ly/2UQ9EcK
teamed up to make AP first to report on how the pandemic exacerbated the spread of opioid addiction among Black Americans. Their story focused on St. Louis, bringing to light a new consequence of the coronavirus and racial injustice, major themes of the past year, showing that the pandemic accelerated a trend that was already in the works: The spread of opioid addiction from mostly rural, white communities to more urban, Black neighborhoods. The reporting placed this trend squarely in a history of drug addiction in America that has long discriminated against Black people, and described how even today, the best drug abuse treatment is more accessible to white people than to Black people. As one doctor put it, the soaring death rate from drug addiction has become a pressing civil rights issue. The story was sensitively told in text, photos and video, with poignant details, including one mother fearing her sonâs overdose death for so long that she paid for his funeral in monthly installments. The care taken in telling this story was rewarded with APâs second-highest reader engagement metrics of the day.https://aplink.news/ak7https://aplink.video/ce5https://aplink.photos/kgr
teamed up to reveal where Black people in the United States are growing in number and where their population is shrinking. Tareen a Chicago-based race and ethnicity writer, and Schneider, an Orlando, Florida-based census writer, reported a pair of telling stories: one that found Black residents have been leaving some of the nationâs largest cities for the suburbs, and another about Black growth in less-congested cities with lower profiles.The stories, elevated by the work of photographers Huh and Otero in Chicago and Dallas respectively, complemented each other but also stood on their own as strong enterprise work. Other news organizations had done their own stories on Black population trends, but none with the depth and range of the AP package. Read more
The name âTuskegee, Alabamaâ evokes images of black empowerment in a once-segregated nation.
Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver became legends of education at what is now Tuskegee University, and the nationâs first black fighter pilots were known as the Tuskegee Airmen after training in the town during World War II. Michelle Obama gave an impassioned speech there in 2015 while first lady.
So why is there a Confederate monument in the middle of the nearly all-black city?
Birmingham, Ala., correspondent Jay Reeves, using information gleaned from old newspaper accounts, local government records and interviews, reported that the United Daughters of the Confederacy raised money for the monument in the early 1900s. And the white-controlled county gave the heritage group land at the center of town for a whites-only park. Itâs there that the statue still stands 109 years later.
Several efforts to relocate the monument have failed through the years, mainly because the Confederate heritage group still owns the land and refuses to move the statue.
In addition to text, Reeves shot photos and located archival images, as well as shooting and editing video for the multiformat package.
For digging in to examine why Confederate monuments are coming down nationwide but not in the historic, majority-black town of Tuskegee, Ala., Reeves wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
tell the story of a historic Black town in North Carolina threatened by climate change, and its residents determined to endure and prosper.Princeville, North Carolina, the oldest town in the U.S. founded by Black Americans, has flooded many times, including two horrific disasters in recent memory: Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and Matthew in 2016. And it will flood again â likely worse under the effects of global warming.APâs all-formats trio visited the town multiple times, talking to the people who live there and reporting on the townâs historical significance as well as its efforts to rebuild and protect. They found townspeople determined to preserve their land and legacy, seeing connections to both a shared history and a continued fight for survival.Read more
for swinging into action on a Saturday evening to provide visuals and key details when a blackout hit the heart of Manhattan. https://bit.ly/2Y4wUli
were the first to piece together video, records and interviews for an in-depth, multiformat story outlining how a Black teen in Kansas ended up in foster care and died at a juvenile intake center after being restrained on his stomach for 40 minutes.AP had written previously about the death of Cedric âC.J.â Lofton, but Kansas City reporter Hollingsworth sensed a backstory waiting to be told. Her exhaustive reporting and Sheridanâs revealing video tell the story of a troubled youth and the disturbing confluence of events and decisions leading to his death.Read more
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 â and $90 million in donations â in the wake of George Floydâs killing, though she denied allegations of improprieties.Cullors had not given any interview of this sort, though BLMâs purchase of a $6 million LA compound in 2020 has drawn scrutiny and heavy criticism. Morrisonâs interview was cited widely and picked up by outlets across the spectrum.Read more
