Greg Beacham, sports writer, Los Angeles, for being first to report that the oldest son of the late Kimbo Slice was making his professional debut in mixed martial arts, a sport with a rapidly growing fan base.
for disclosing that the world governing body for track and field was weighing whether to tighten the rules that allow athletes to switch the country they represent. http://bit.ly/2bGeItU
for revealing details about the Russian doping scheme contained in hundreds of pages of emails and for breaking the related news that the sledding world championships would be moved from Russia.
http://apne.ws/2hb4hAt
for relying on a more than a decade-long relationship with track star Allyson Felix to expose a fight for equal treatment of pregnant women when it comes to sponsorship deals. https://bit.ly/2IlhEeD
With a powerful and evocative photo gallery, AP journalists in Italy captured the heroism of 16 Italian medical personnel on the front lines of the battle against the coronavirus pandemic.
Photo editor Alberto Pellaschiar proposed the idea, and hospitals â reassured by APâs reputation for professionalism â permitted photographers Antonio Calanni and Luca Bruno and chief photo editor Domenico Stinellis to make photos of the doctors and nurses during breaks or as they finished their shifts.
The intimate portraits conveyed the fatigue and determination of the men and women working round-the-clock to save lives. Chief correspondent Nicole Winfield studied the portraits and interviewed some of the subjects to put their struggle into words.
The impact was tremendous â the stark, understated images and accompanying story riveted audiences around the globe.
For conceiving and executing a brilliant series of images that captures in human terms the battle against the disease, Pellaschiar, Stinellis, Calanni, Bruno and Winfield win APâs Best of the Week.
broke news of the groundbreaking policy mandating that U.S. Olympic athletes and staff be vaccinated by Nov. 1 to use facilities of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee in advance of Februaryâs Beijing Games.Pells, APâs longtime Olympics beat writer, knew that the committee was exploring a new vaccine policy and had followed the story closely. When the USOPC reached its decision they forwarded a stakeholdersâ letter on the policy to Pells, telling him to be ready for its public release later in the week.Armed with the letter, Pells was fully prepped with a story and link to the freshly updated team website when the announcement came Wednesday, giving AP a full-fledged scoop on one of the first sports organizations anywhere to make vaccines mandatory. https://aplink.news/9mt
used his longstanding contacts in the leadership of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee to break the news that the organization was ready to heed the calls of its stars and wonât sanction athletes for raising their fists or kneeling on the medals stand at next yearâs Tokyo Games and beyond.The USOPC knew Pells was monitoring the issue â they offered him advance interviews along with copies of their recommendations so the AP could have the story ready to publish before the official news release. Other news outlets used Pellsâ story or had to scramble to match it. https://bit.ly/3gQSW5M
collaborated on a rare 45-minute interview with Fiona Hill, a Russia scholar and analyst who served in the past three U.S. administrations. Hill offered AP a sober assessment of the Ukraine crisis.During the interview, spot developments in the standoff were relayed to the AP team for instant analysis from Hill. She provided so much insight that AP turned the interview into a two-part video edit, the first piece focused on the breaking news and the second story focused on Hillâs assessment of how Putin and Biden are managing the evolving crisis.All the interview elements, video and text, scored heavy usage and engagement, including a promotional clip for social media that had a cautionary observation from Hill, âThe basic message is buckle up because this is going to be very difficult.â Read more
landed a clean scoop on the death of director-producer Ivan Reitman thanks to her reputation for professionalism on the film beat. Los Angeles-based Bahr received a call from a source during the Super Bowl, saying the 75-year-old Reitman had died and the family trusted her to break the story. That set Bahr and AP into motion on an obit that made news, even on a busy Sunday night. Read more
National sports writer Eddie Pells was first approached in February by the mom of a player who said she had some concerns about abuses going on in the volleyball program at Oregon State.
Over the next five months, Pells conducted dozens of interviews both in and out of the program, and checked with experts to learn if volleyball coach Mark Barnard was over the line. Several athletes spoke to Pells, including a former OSU player who described how the coachâs abusive practices contributed to a suicide attempt.
Pellsâ exclusive led to immediate calls for the coachâs firing and questions about the university officials who didnât take action after hearing complaints.
For months of persistent and sensitive reporting despite uncertain prospects, resulting in an impressive story with impact, Pells wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
joined forces to document anti-vaccine activism among a vocal group of chiropractors.Rhode Island-based reporter Smith has been closely tracking anti-vaccine activists. That diligence paid off with a story on a group of influential chiropractors who are becoming leading voices against vaccines and coronavirus safety measures. Theyâre making money by peddling alternatives as they work to weaken vaccine-related state laws and policies across the U.S., undermining one of the key tools in fighting the pandemic.
The report by Smith and statehouse reporters Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, spotlighted an industry that has had little scrutiny during the pandemic. It started out as a tip: Chiropractors attending an anti-vaccine conference in Wisconsin had earned continuing education credits valid toward their licenses. It reminded Smith that a group lobbying against vaccines, Stand for Health Freedom, had been co-founded with chiropractors.The trio scoured public databases to find states allowing CE credits for the anti-vaccine conference, dug up chiropractic board meeting minutes, tracked down statehouse testimony and public comment by chiropractors in numerous states, reviewed news reports and mined digital tools along with interviews of chiropractors, lawmakers and public health advocates to establish that:
â 10 states gave CE credits for the anti-vaccine conference, and that it brought in tens of thousands of dollars in revenue to the chiropractic group and college that sponsored itâ Chiropractors have worked to influence vaccine-related legislation and policy in at least 24 states since 2019; a chiropractor-backed group running several lobbying campaigns has never registered as a lobbyistâ Dozens of chiropractors use their websites to discourage patients from getting vaccinesâ Chiropractors are advertising on Facebook and Instagram to sell anti-vaccine productsâ A California chiropractic group raised $545,000 for anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.â Chiropractic professional groups have taken anti-vaccine stands, including one now run by a longtime anti-vaccine activisthttps://aplink.news/z1m
for extra effort after covering a Florida Panthers-Carolina Hurricanes hockey game; learning that the Florida teamâs coach, Gerard Gallant, had been fired and that his former team had left without him, DeBlaker captured exclusive images of Gallant stepping into a cab.
http://qctimes.com/sports/hockey/professional/flor...
When the Taliban overran Kabul on Aug. 15, no one in the city knew if the Taliban would resume the brutal practices that carried them to power in 1996 â or would they show some restraint?
Kabul video journalist Ahmad Seir and photographer Rahmat Gul remember the previous Taliban rule, but like their AP colleagues, they were determined to record history. The pair took to the streets. Despite being beaten with rifle butts at a Taliban checkpoint near the airport, they persisted, eventually gaining the trust of Taliban fighters at a checkpoint near APâs office. Seir and Gul went on Taliban patrols, delivering unique video and photos of the militiamen now in command of Afghanistan.
Those rare images, along with spot features that included daily life in the capital and an interview with a female activist now in hiding, played at the very top of APâs offerings for the week and reflected the tireless efforts of everyone in APâs Kabul office who pushed aside their own fears and personal concerns to continue reporting in all formats.
For their historic and important work, thorough professionalism and unbound bravery, Seir and Gul share APâs Best of the Week honors.
teamed up to deliver a vivid and memorable account of a new migration trend: Venezuelan migrants appearing at the U.S. border with Mexico, particularly in Del Rio, Texas. Goodman, APâs Miami-based Latin America correspondent, noticed the development and chased down the data showing that asylum-seekers are increasingly from Venezuela, Ecuador and Brazil. Among the thousands of Venezuelans who have crossed the border illegally since January are many professionals, and many who had been living for years in other South American countries, part of an exodus of nearly six million Venezuelans since President NicolĂĄs Maduro took power in 2013.With deep reporting on both sides of the border and compelling visuals from both San Antonio photographer Eric Gay and New York video journalist David Martin, the all-formats package adds new insight into the long-running political and economic crisis in Venezuela, the coronavirusâs impact on migration and the large increase in asylum-seekers encountered at the U.S. border under President Joe Biden. âIt is better to wash toilets here than be an engineer over there,â one migrant told AP on camera.https://aplink.news/xdjhttps://aplink.video/pxe
reported that thousands of retired Black professional football players, their families and supporters are demanding an end to the use of ârace-norming,â a practice the NFL has insisted on using in the leagueâs $1 billion brain injury settlement. Black NFL players delivered some 50,000 petitions to a federal court to end the practice.The algorithm used by the NFL assumes Black men start with lower cognitive skills. They must therefore score much lower than whites to show enough mental decline to win an award. The practice went unnoticed until 2018.Dale and Smith recognized that the story extends far beyond sports and money, to discrimination and racial injustice. Their deeply reported story quotes neurology experts who said the practice, sometimes used in medicine as a rough proxy for socioeconomic factors that can affect a personâs health, should not be used in the settlement because it has the effect of systematically discriminating against Black players. The story played widely; CBSN devoted eight minutes to the piece, calling it âa damning report.â https://aplink.news/rcp
The AP team arriving on Capitol Hill expected to cover history on Jan. 6: an unprecedented challenge from Republicans lawmakers to the outcome of the election. Within hours, however, those staffers found themselves covering an insurrectionist mob storming the U.S. Capitol.
As angry supporters of President Donald Trump descended on Capitol Hill, confronting police, breaking down barricades and smashing through windows, AP journalists working in all formats documented the chaotic scenes inside and outside the Capitol.
Despite orders to evacuate, trashed equipment and a vicious attack on one of our staffers, the team on the ground kept words and images moving throughout the day, highlighted by stunning visuals. The work continued into the early hours of the next morning, when Congress finally the certified election results.
For their riveting real-time coverage as U.S. history unfolded, the courageous and dedicated staff on Capitol Hill earns APâs Best of the Week award.
In the year since COVID-19 surfaced, journalists for The Associated Press have produced an impressive array of stories documenting its grim march around the world. Conveying the extent of disruption and death wrought by the virus in 2020 warranted a marshaling of APâs global resources for a one-of-a-kind project: the Pandemic Atlas.
The collaborative effort included a compendium of how 13 countries responded to the crisis, six character-driven videos and compelling photos. Deeply reported text stories were translated into Spanish, while the videos received Arabic and Spanish edits. All made possible by the dogged and authoritative work of APâs field journalists, editors and producers around the world.
For an outstanding display of planning, teamwork, ingenuity, storytelling and presentation on the story that shaped 2020, the Pandemic Atlas — and the scores of AP journalists around the world who contributed — are recognized with APâs Best of the Week award.
Through 78 days at Walt Disney World, basketball writer Tim Reynolds proved himself virtually unstoppable, turning out game stories on deadline while also spinning insightful pieces that examined the major topics of 2020, from coronavirus concerns to racial injustice issues and the presidential election â not to mention the leagueâs work stoppage. The so-called bubble may have confined him to an arena in central Florida, but Reynoldsâ relentless NBA coverage reminded readers that sports illuminate our lives in ways big and small.
In all, Reynolds wrote an eye-popping 200-plus stories, collecting exclusives along the way. He capped his efforts with his insightful analysis of LeBron Jamesâ legacy after James led the Lakers to their record-tying 17th NBA title.
For his exhaustive, and exhausting, work that went well beyond the games in the NBA bubble, Reynolds wins this weekâs Best of the States award.
leveraged longstanding professional relationships to reveal fear and anger rampant among household workers and Secret Service agents working in the coronavirus hot zone of the White House.The story was challenging to report because personnel knew their jobs could be in jeopardy, but the AP team reached out to a broad range of sources and contacts to piece together a compelling story about the anxiety and antagonism pulsing through the White House. While competitors took smaller bites of the apple, the AP story wove together rich details about the workersâ worries and the lack of guidance from White House officials, as well as historical context stretching back to the flu pandemic of 1918.The morning after the story ran, former first lady Michelle Obama posted a tweet seemingly tailored to APâs piece, voicing support for those working in the White House. And days later the story still had sky-high reader engagement. https://bit.ly/314XRt6
In Americaâs pitched debate over abortion, the voices of the people most affected by the slew of new laws restricting access to abortion are seldom heard.
Allowing patients to tell their stories of seeking to end their pregnancies has been a priority in APâs coverage of Texasâ new law banning most abortions. Oklahoma City-based reporter Sean Murphy and Miami-based photographer Rebecca Blackwell delivered impressively on that goal with a sensitively written, visually compelling all-formats package.
The pair carefully negotiated access to a clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana, and earned the trust of Texas patients whose voices were vividly brought to life in text, photo, video and audio. They also met with anti-abortion protesters outside the clinic.
For gaining access and handling a delicate and polarizing story with professionalism, grace and accuracy while providing APâs worldwide audience a greater understanding of the real-life impacts of the Texas law, Murphy and Blackwell are APâs Best of the Week â First Winners.
