for coverage of the bizarre theft of an airplane from Sea-Tac Airport late Friday night and the subsequent federal investigation. https://abcn.ws/2vMZY5g https://bit.ly/2nFWH3i https://bit.ly/2KYiQ6l
for pressing for AP to be part of Garrison Keillorâs first extended interview since his firing over alleged sexual harassment. The two balanced Keillorâs assessment of events by seeking comment from his accuser. http://nyti.ms/2F7vRbk
teamed up on a story examining the controversy over a Vermont town employee who secretively reduced the fluoride in the townâs water supply for years.Rathke reported from the townâs water commission meeting and the trio fleshed out the story with background and context on the health benefits of fluoride and some of the persistent misinformation around it.The final story â among the most-viewed on AP News last week â used the small-town flare-up to tap into the larger interest in fluoride and offered yet another example of how misinformation is impacting even at a local level. It was also a textbook example of elevating a local story to one of interest nationally.Read more
revealed that in the global race to find a COVID-19 vaccine, SinoPharm, a state-owned Chinese company, claimed it gave experimental shots to top pharma executives and employees, raising ethical concerns. The all-formats coverage examining the ethics of researchers testing vaccines and remedies on themselves was a global effort, with contributions from AP journalists in China, the U.S., Indonesia and Russia. The story appeared on more than 500 online sites, and the package received more than 100,000 page views on AP News. https://bit.ly/3htDPOG
for an Only on AP story: An email revealed that the former CEO of a payday lending company investigated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was seeking the top job at the watchdog agency, indicating a friendlier relationship between the industry and its regulator. http://bit.ly/2H7MILR
for documenting how the kinds of jobs Americans long enjoyed â permanent positions with stability, bonuses, pensions, benefits and opportunities to move up â have become rarer, which is why many donât feel much like beneficiaries of whatâs now the longest economic expansion on record. Drawing on economic research, government data and interviews with workers, Smith sketched a picture of lagging wages, eroding benefits and demands that employees do more without more pay. Her reporting concluded that the loyalty and security many say they once felt from their employers have diminished, and with it a measure of their satisfaction. https://bit.ly/2P914oj
In this weekâs installment of Best of the Week, Pennsylvania correspondent Mike Rubinkam shows us how to translate a local story for a global audience, give it scope and reach, and in the process build a following for ongoing coverage.
Rubinkam, who covers northeastern Pennsylvania, was watching his local 6 p.m. newscast when a story caught his eye: A beloved, longtime Walmart greeter with cerebral palsy had been told that his position was being eliminated in favor of a new âcustomer hostâ position.
His interest piqued, the next morning Rubinkam interviewed the man, Adam Catlin, for his first story. That got a lot of attention on social media, but it was only the start.
Rubinkam followed up with three more stories, updating the public about Catlinâs talks with Walmart and interviewing greeters across the country. He also obtained photos of several greeters in their Walmart vests.
With each update, the storyâs reach grew, with hundreds of online uses by AP customers and significant engagement on social media. And Walmart was listening. After a week of Rubinkamâs coverage, the mega-retailer announced it would make every effort to keep greeters with disabilities.
The story was a classic example of the impact that the APâs footprint can have, bringing attention to an issue that surfaced locally but had not yet received national attention. The outcome was a change in corporate policy at one of the worldâs biggest companies.
Because of his smart, dogged and curious reporting, and for capitalizing on the APâs global reach, Rubinkam earns APâs Best of the Week award.
The plot was bold: Fuel a military uprising in Venezuela by shifting the loyalty of key leaders, putting them in opposition to President Nicolas Maduro. But the plan to help the U.S.-backed opposition leader backfired at the moment of truth, prompting an understandable reaction from press to find out what went wrong.
While most other media speculated, AP Andean News Director Joshua Goodman used dogged reporting and years of source development to break the untold story of how the Obama and Trump administrations missed golden opportunities to woo two generals that the White House said were central to the plan.
The story garnered major play among customers and APNews users, and even earned the attention of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a driver of U.S. policy on Venezuela, who praised Goodman on Twitter.
For unearthing pivotal clues around a shadowy turn of international events, Goodman wins APâs Best of the Week.
The low-key, secretive trip by senior official Kim Yong Chol from North Korea to the U.S., carrying a letter for President Donald Trump, could have gone undocumented were it not for clever, enterprising work by staffers on two continents.
Senior video producer Raf Wober, based in Hong Kong, noticed high security in Beijing's airport, recognized Kim, and used his cellphone to capture video as the North Korean walked through the airport. Wober's video and his alert to the Asia Desk set off a worldwide scramble as Trump later announced that Kim was heading to the U.S. for talks about the upcoming U.S.-North Korea summit.
In New York, the team of video journalists Sara Gillesby, Joseph Frederick, Luke Sheridan, Ted Shaffrey, David Martin and Robert Bumsted picked up Woberâs efforts, using technology and street smarts to get exclusive live shots that included Kimâs plane arriving at John F. Kennedy airport, Kim walking on the tarmac to a motorcade, and his arrival at a Manhattan hotel.
All of which was unmatched by the competition, resulting in strong play in the U.S. and internationally.
For their quick and creative thinking to net AP worldwide exclusives, Wober and the New York video team share the Beat of the Week award.
The assignment always promised to be a challenge: talk with Christians in China about a state crackdown on their faith when many are afraid to speak out for fear of government retribution.
When reporter Yanan Wang, photographer Han Guan Ng and video journalist Emily Wang visited cities in Chinaâs Christian heartland, they discovered the governmentâs campaign to âSinicizeâ Christianity was far more aggressive than previously known. Hundreds of informal churches in private homes were shuttered. Gatherings were raided. Bibles were seized. Authorities ordered posters of Jesus replaced with portraits of President Xi Jinping.
For careful, persistent reporting to expose what experts and activists described as the most severe systematic repression of Christianity since religious freedom was written into the Chinese constitution in 1982, the three win this weekâs Beat of the Week.
have covered the spread of COVID-19 in prisons, as well as every federal execution of the last year. That reporting and insight led them to the stunning realization that the Trump administrationâs unprecedented string of executions likely became a superspreader event at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.Tarm first learned about the case spread when he heard that he had been exposed â although the Bureau of Prisons did not notify him or others attending the executions. Through rigorous, painstaking reporting, the three Michaels discovered that fully 70% of death row inmates had COVID during the 13 executions in six months, but the Bureau of Prisons felt it wasnât their responsibility to ensure that everyone was told about the spread or whether their employees were following protocols.The trioâs riveting story detailed how cases spread rapidly through the federal prison complex and likely helped spread infections around the country during a critical time in the pandemic as deaths were skyrocketing. The Friday evening scoop lit up social media and was a top news story well into the weekend. https://bit.ly/3qmh0Sh
As AP race and ethnicity writer Aaron Morrison covered the protests that grew out of the 2020 killings of George Floyd and others, he also saw President Donald Trump on TV, trying to undermine the racial reckoning at every turn.
Fast forward to Jan. 6, when a mob of mostly white rioters, upset that Trump wasn't reelected, violently breached the U.S. Capitol. Morrison connected the dots of what he described as a war of white aggression. âA war rages on in America,â Morrison wrote in this analysis piece, âIt started with slavery and never ended ...â
With powerful video by Noreen Nasir, portraits by Chris Carlson and presentation by Alyssa Goodman, the package received prominent play and sparked discussion both online and within the AP.
For a timely, compelling package that looks at the state of race relations with historical context and thoughtful analysis, the team of Morrison, Nasir, Carlson and Goodman earns this weekâs Best of the States award.
On the news-heavy weekend between impeachment and inauguration, Lolita Baldor broke a story that became the dominant item for news organizations across platforms: Top military officials feared insider attacks from National Guardsmen activated to protect the inauguration, prompting the FBI to vet all 25,000 troops sent to the city.
And officials werenât whispering their concerns anonymously; Baldor quoted the Secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy. That was no fluke; Baldor has built trust with McCarthy and other top officials at the Pentagon. The Army granted her exclusive, off-the-record access to an inaugural planning session, then arranged on-the-record interviews with a number of leaders.
Baldorâs scoop immediately lit up social media and was picked up by some 330 news outlets, including networks and major publications.
For impressive source work that produced a major scoop in the intensive buildup to the inauguration, Baldor wins APâs Best of the Week award.
teamed up to provide a science-based reality check to the popeâs planned trip to Iraq. Their story raised questions about how the Vatican can justify going through with the trip during a global pandemic. Chief Vatican correspondent Winfield had been preparing a preview on the Iraq trip and Christian-Muslim relations, but while interviewing experts she realized that the virus issues would dominate that story. Instead, she and Baghdad colleague Kullab hustled to put together a weekend piece focused exclusively on the virus, adding a valuable story to APâs planned trip line-up.Beyond the obvious risks involved in any mass religious gathering, the story also raised the more problematic optics of having a vaccinated papal delegation descend on a country where the virus is surging, the vaccine campaign hasnât even begun and where an already fragile health care system has been weakened by war and economic crises. The story was well timed, given the day it moved the popeâs own ambassador to Iraq tested positive. https://bit.ly/2O0EcHD
Justice Department reporter Mike Balsamo has spent months cultivating sources at the Department of Justice, earning a reputation as an objective journalist who reports fairly and accurately.
His relationships paid off with an exclusive interview of U.S. Attorney General William Barr, in which Barr said the DOJ could find no evidence of widespread voting fraud, dramatically undercutting President Donald Trumpâs insistence to the contrary.
âI knew ... he had made probably the biggest news he has in his tenure as AG,â said Balsamo. His story topped the news cycle and resonated for days. No other news outlet could match it and AP was widely cited for the scoop.
For persistent, evenhanded reporting on the Justice Department beat resulting in the interview that netted one of APâs most consequential news coups of the year, Balsamo wins APâs Best of the Week honors.
used source work, non-public documents and a technique borrowed from spycraft to connect recent criminal allegations against the Texas attorney general to the conservative Republicanâs previously unreported extramarital affair.In late September, Attorney General Ken Paxtonâs top deputies accused him of criminally abusing his office to help a wealthy donor. Bleiberg spent weeks building sources in his aggressive pursuit of answers to what was behind these explosive, but unspecified, allegations.Those efforts paid off last week when Bleiberg was able to obtain a private transcript of real estate developer Nate Paul acknowledging that the attorney general recommended he hire a woman whom Paxton was rumored to have had an affair with. The sensitive document was picked up at a âdead dropâ â a prearranged drop spot â by Austin reporter Paul Weber.Bleiberg then worked sources heâd developed while breaking earlier stories to identify people whom the attorney general may have told about his affair. His relentless outreach ultimately turned up two people with firsthand accounts of Paxton acknowledging the affair in 2018.The reporting allowed AP to draw back the curtain on one of Americaâs most prominent conservative legal crusaders and break major news on a highly competitive story. It revealed a relationship thatâs almost certainly at the center of an ongoing federal public corruption probe. https://bit.ly/2UnuZc1
navigated issues of access, multiple locations and complex logistics in covering this yearâs one-of-a-kind Academy Awards ceremony, altered from top to bottom by the pandemic.The event was one of the largest photo pools AP has ever run. APâs remarkable access came as the result of years of relationship building with the film academy, which trusted AP to not only shoot photos of its marquee event, but also distribute those images to news outlets around the globe.Under the leadership of Kaufman, assistant director of photography, and with a workflow developed largely by photo editor Munoz, the team expedited some 1,500 still images to 11 members of the pool. Meanwhile, in London, Jankovic coordinated photographers and editors handling the Oscarsâ global satellite locations â from Sydney to Stockholm to Kilkenny, Ireland, and points in between. Success meant assembling a team of AP staffers, including a team of 10 editors â most off-site due to pandemic restrictions â who quickly edited, captioned and transmitted the images. In addition, at the academyâs request, video journalist Turner shot the Oscarsâ pool fashion feed â a key position that is highly valuable to clients looking for red carpet looks and unscripted moments.Bottom line: If you saw a photo from the red carpet, or a winner clutching the coveted statuette, chances are it was shot by the AP. The images were used in countless tweets, online stories and on dozens of newspaper front pages, notably above-the-fold play for shots of âNomadlandâsâ best picture winners by Pizzello, who also authored a âVirus Diaryâ with his reflecions on being an entertainment photographer during the pandemic.https://bit.ly/3vpV8HDhttps://bit.ly/3gOI1eY
delivered a bold, smart story exploring how this pivotal presidential election became a referendum on the future of race relations in America.Stafford, a race and ethnicity journalist, gathered a range of local and national voices to examine how the U.S. is being forced to confront systemic racism in an election year in which the coronavirus pandemic, economic uncertainty and police brutality have converged. One of those voices was that of Omari Barksdale, a Black man who was impacted by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. And more personally, he lost his sister to COVID. Detroit photographer Sancya met with Barksdale and captured him in strong portraits that complemented the text story.Stafford also landed interviews with some notable national figures, including civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton who said the âsoul of the nationâ was âat risk.â https://bit.ly/3p4Kwf5
dominated the story of the massive cargo ship blocking in the Suez Canal. Using satellite images, tracking data and healthy skepticism, the AP team avoided the errors of their competitors to deliver accurate, timely all-formats reporting. From the first day that the Ever Given wedged itself across the canal, authorities offered incorrect information, claiming the canal remained open to traffic and that the ship had been pulled aside. While others repeated those false claims, AP relied on tracking data to report the truth â the Suez Canal was completely cut off.Cairo regional news director Hyde and her Dubai counterpart, Gambrell, worked closely together on this complex story, directing coverage while also producing video and photo content as text reporter Magdy and video journalist Hatem worked on the ground in Suez despite tight restrictions.APâs relationship with the satellite photo provider Planet Labs gave AP an advantage of eight hours or more over major competitor agencies. Interviews recorded on Zoom and video of idle ships in the canal allowed clients to visualize the story â with one video edit being used by 118 channels. Text explainers added context that helped clients better tell the story that affected shipping and economies across the globe.https://bit.ly/3cEUE9Vhttps://bit.ly/3cGz5pw
took advantage of agency exclusive all-formats backstage access at the Grammy Awards, resulting in a wealth of interviews for video, and photo access unmatched by wire service rivals. Isaza, Landrum and Pizzello underwent numerous COVID-19 screenings in the six days leading up to the show in order to gain access. That access came about because of the APâs decade-plus relationship with the Recording Academy â and a firm stand by AP: Some artists demanded approvals of performance photos, which the AP declined, and some talent said they would only do interviews if certain questions were off limits. Again, no.The AP landed at least 20 video interviews with stars such as Dua Lipa, Da Baby, Miranda Lambert and H.E.R, touching on fashion, racial injustice, their pandemic experiences, the return to performing and more. The biggest wins were photos of BeyoncĂ© and Taylor Swift, both rarely photographed by AP, on their big night. AP was one of four photo outlets onsite and the only photo news wire. Competitive news services were forced to use years-old pictures of the pair, as well as several other stars, with their stories.Isaza produced a behind-the-scenes video feature, and Fekaduâs mainbar â powered by photos from Pizzello and Strauss, and quickly updated thanks to his preparedness â racked up nearly 110,000 pageviews by Monday afternoon. Google listed APâs story first in searches for Grammys or BeyoncĂ© during the evening. https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards
