for keeping AP ahead over five furious days with details about the resolution of the state budget deadlock in Illinois, the nationās longest since the Great Depression. http://abcn.ws/2ufuOBh
for reporting exclusively that Illinois officials had eliminated funding for domestic violence programs and then failed to inform service providers for more than five months, forcing many organizations to abruptly cut staff and other resources. http://trib.in/2lQ9rkL
for giving readers the first word on two key decisions by Pennsylvaniaās governor as he combats a budget crisis: a prison closing and the consolidation of four government agencies. http://bit.ly/2jKDTyQ
for an enterprise project that accurately anticipated a major change in the nation's school choice movement; two weeks later, it happened after President Donald Trump released his federal budget proposal. http://apne.ws/2rRCEzH http://bit.ly/2qyGYmi
for digging into financial reports showing that Louisiana lawmakers slashed spending across state services and described budget struggles even though they had built up an undisclosed $85 million surplus in legislative agencies. https://bit.ly/2BCzAxV
for breaking the news via public records request that federal prosecutors donāt plan to charge anyone over the $1 billion cost overruns at the new VA hospital outside Denver. http://bit.ly/2rob4sz
for their work showing that dozens of states are expected to consider legalizing sports betting this year. An AP analysis shows that they should not expect it to provide a windfall for their budgets. http://bit.ly/2Tq6JDE
for his interview with Myron Ebell in which the recently departed head of Trumpās transition team at the Environmental Protection Agency predicted the president will significantly cut the agencyās staff and budget. http://apne.ws/2kXu52K
AP Tallahassee reporter Gary Fineout started noticing how often Florida under Republican Gov. Rick Scott was losing court cases over its policies and was forced to pay opposing attorney fees. He decided to start a tally. But those fees would be just the tip of a quarter-billion-dollar iceberg. The money the state spent on private law firms to defend itself dwarfed that initial amount.
Getting that overall tally was the hard part. When Gary asked what was spent on outside legal counsel during Scottās half-dozen years in office, the state attorney general told him: āWe do not have that information."
So, Gary set out to search through the documents himself, revealing the true cost to taxpayers. For bringing to light a huge chunk of opaque spending and hold state leaders to account, Gary wins this weekās Best of the States.
The tip that led to an exclusive by Chicago reporter Sara Burnett seemed outlandish: When poor people couldn't afford to bury their loved ones, a western Illinois coroner was cremating the bodies and keeping the ashes until the family paid $1,000. Heās continued the policy even though the state has resumed a program to pay for the funerals.
Burnett reported on a woman whose ex-husband and father of their three children died. They were both on disability and she couldnāt come up with the money, leaving the family to hold a memorial service with just a photograph and an empty container. Wendy Smith said she felt the policy was unfair. "I just think they pick on the people that are poor."
The coroner told Burnett that the policy started after the state, which for years has faced billion-dollar deficits, announced it was too broke to pay for indigent funerals and burials ā shifting the cost to funeral homes and county coroners. Further, the coroner claimed only one woman was unhappy. But Burnett tracked down other families, and had a back-and-forth with the state about how much money was appropriated for the burial program
Within days, the state comptroller, citing The Associated Press story, weighed in that the coroner's practice was "disgusting behavior" and called for a ramped-up campaign to alert local officials that state-funded burial is again available.
For illuminating a questionable practice and how the stateās budget crisis continues to cause pain for the poor and vulnerable, Burnett earns this weekās Best of the States award.
When the Supreme Court allowed all states to offer betting on sports, some lawmakers across the country saw an opportunity: Here was a way to bolster state budgets with revenue from an activity that was already happening in the shadows. But an AP review showed that actual tax revenue has yet to match expectations in the majority of states that legalized sports gambling.
State government team reporter Geoff Mulvihill, based in New Jersey, and Rhode Island statehouse reporter Jennifer McDermott looked through monthly state revenue reports and then compared the tax revenue generated to the original estimates in the legislation that authorized sports betting. They found that in four of the six states that legalized it last year ā Rhode Island, West Virginia, Mississippi and Pennsylvania ā tax revenue was far below what the state had projected it would be.
The revenue story was the latest in a string of distinctive stories from reporters working the sports betting beat. Many of the stories, including the state revenue piece, have been accompanied by a data set compiled by Mulvihill that tracks every piece of legislation related to sports gambling. It is being made available to all AP customers who subscribe to our data distribution platform and has been promoted to local reporters as a way to add context to their stories.
For revealing the difference between lawmakersā promises on tax revenue and the reality, Mulvihill and McDermott win this weekās Best of the States prize.
found a cryptic nugget buried in the hundreds of pages of Californiaās budget, then used his two decades covering the stateās corrections department to report exclusively that Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to dismantle the nationās most populated death row within two years. Thompsonās story earned heavy play and was widely credited. Read more
for a story of national interest about President Donald Trumpās administration, reported not from Washington but from the nationās heartland. After the president released his latest budget proposal, Lieb revealed that Trump has failed to deliver on his promise of a $1 trillion infrastructure spending plan. He has so far been unable to persuade Congress to pass anything like that, even when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. https://bit.ly/2T38OrE
While it is widely understood that U.S. public health departments have suffered budget cuts over the years, a collaborative AP/Kaiser Health News team used data and deep reporting to show exactly how expansive those cuts have been.
The investigation by APās Michelle Smith, Meghan Hoyer and Mike Householder, teamed with KHNās Lauren Weber, Laura Ungar, Hannah Recht and Anna Maria Barry-Jester, drew on data from disparate sources and interviews with more than 150 people to reveal a system starved of money and staff for years, and facing more cuts amid the worst health crisis in a century.
The teamās all-formats package drew kudos and high-profile reaction from health officials, to the halls of Congress, to editorial pages.
For an ambitious story that laid bare the state of Americaās public health system, the joint AP/KHN team of Smith, Hoyer, Householder, Weber, Ungar, Recht and Barry-Jester shares this weekās Best of the States award.
developed a nuanced story around the lives of women struggling to raise awareness of the threat posed by COVID-19 in one of the worldās least developed nations, where the virus and its effects are hidden and often overlooked.Tests, vaccines and public messaging around COVID-19 often miss many of Burkina Faso's 20 million people, despite $200 million budgeted for virus response. In a region where women are responsible for family work and community relationships, theyāve stepped up to provide information and resources amid the public health crisis and economic hardship. With funding through a grant provided by the European Journalism Centre, the AP was able to identify the women who could best share their stories with APās audience.But this positive story, simple in inception, was challenging to tell at first. Stringer reporter Sam Mednick writes: ā... COVID hasn't been front and center in Burkina Faso . ... it was really hard to find people who could speak to it since there are so many other problems they have to contend with. Once we found the (subjects of the) story I think the challenge was gaining the womenās trust, bringing their stories to life in a way that did them justice as well as highlighted the situation in the country.āThe story achieved that, exploring the lives of two women in Kaya, a conflict area outside the capital. The package took readers deep into the lives of these women and their communities and explored how their individual efforts make them leaders in the global work against the coronavirus, as vital to their community as politicians and scientists.Video by West Africa senior producer Yesica Fisch was used by key AP clients around the world, and along with photos by freelancer Sophie Garcia, complemented the text, elevating the presentation designed by digital storytelling producer Natalie CastaƱeda.https://aplink.news/nnmhttps://aplink.photos/1m8https://aplink.video/wj2
teamed up two months ago on coverage of an expected Social Security cost-of-living increase. In the current economic climate, they anticipated ā correctly ā the story would have strong audience appeal and would require a range of user-friendly explanatory journalism that would also capture the circumstances and voices of people across the U.S.The result was a week of in-depth all-formats coverage on the jump in benefits. From an overview of how Social Security works to the potential impact on inflation and the midterm elections to on-camera interviews with recipients, the AP team explored and explained the benefits boost from all angles.Read more
With the continued weakening of state laws protecting womenās rights to abortion in the U.S., the APās strong coverage of abortion continues with two stories earning Best of the Week for impressive state accountability reporting and analysis.
A story that surfaced in Tennessee, finding federal dollars being spent on nonprofits aligned with the anti-abortion movement, revealed that legislatures in about a dozen U.S. states were funneling millions of taxpayer dollars to so-called crisis pregnancy centers that are typically unlicensed and have been accused of engaging in misinformation campaigns targeting pregnant women.
A second story focused on racial inequities in access to abortion, an idea sparked by an observation during a visit to the Shreveport, La., abortion clinic where almost every woman in the waiting room was Black. The all-formats package showed how minority women in states where abortion is under attack have the most to lose if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
Both stories drew strong play on AP News and customer platforms.
For revelatory state stories on two elements in the pitched national debate over abortion rights, Kruesi, Willingham, Wagster Pettus, Nasir, Solis and Lo earn APās Best of the Week ā First Winner honors.
The 2012 film āThe Avengersā cemented Marvelās dominance at the box office, but the movie had a secret: A man had died bringing the blockbuster to the big screen. John Suttles died after falling from his truck while preparing to drive it to a set, but his name was not listed in the film's credits. Outside the production and Suttlesā family, the only clue to his death and its connection to the movie was an 84-page investigative file by the workplace safety agency, Cal/OSHA.
That clue was uncovered by AP Entertainment Writer Anthony McCartney, who began investigating set accidents in 2014. After diving into state and federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration records, he discovered that dozens of workers had been killed and more had been seriously hurt on big-name television and film properties. Set accidents remain largely hidden, and the consequences usually amount to mere thousands of dollars in fines paid out of multimillion-dollar budgets, he reported. McCartney also catalogued numerous fatal film-set accidents internationally. His painstaking work wins Beat of the Week.
The Associated Press began chronicling rising violence across Mississippiās troubled prison system in late 2019, but after four deaths in four days it became clear that something bigger was going on.
Reporters Jeff Amy and Emily Wagster Pettus explored the history of underfunding and other problems in the stateās prison system. In addition to official documents describing understaffing, the pair obtained photos and video shot by a prisoner that showed the conditions inside the infamous penitentiary at Parchman.
AP also published all-formats interviews with grieving mothers of prisoners killed, and reported on the stateās decision to house inmates at a private prison.
For bringing much-needed insight and context to a chaotic, evolving situation and giving voice to those affected by the deadly violence, Amy and Wagster Pettus receive this weekās Best of the States award.
Coal-burning generating plants are closing in the U.S., and coal mines are shutting down amid worries of climate change and the new economies of renewable energy.
Against that backdrop, correspondents Felicia Fonseca and Susan Montoya Bryan traveled to Arizonaās remote Navajo Generating Station to the tell the story of workers, their families, a community and the tribal nations who have depended on coal and are feeling the profound effects of the plantās impending closure.
In their all-formats package, the pair let workers explain what they were losing, and how the local economy is taking a massive hit with millions of dollars of revenue no longer flowing to the Hopi and Navajo tribes.
For a comprehensive, compelling look at the impact of coalās decline on a community and a culture, Fonseca and Montoya earn this weekās Best of the States award.
