Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

In Argentina, women fight back against gender-based violence

for an all-formats project on a grassroots movement to combat violence against women in Argentina. http://apne.ws/2sigN6F

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP Exclusive: Unequal pay for NCAA women’s basketball refs

used sources developed over years of covering women's college basketball to obtain closely guarded details of NCAA referee pay.The result: an unmatched exclusive revealing that half of the Division I conferences paid referees for women's hoops 22% less on average than they paid officials working men’s games.Read more

Best of the States

#NotInvisible: Why are Native American women vanishing, dying?

It’s a subject that has been largely ignored by the public and mainstream press in the U.S.: the plight of thousands of missing and murdered Native American women across the country.

Albuquerque reporter Mary Hudetz and national enterprise journalists Sharon Cohen and David Goldman teamed up to deliver an impressive all-formats package that illuminated these tragedies, engaging readers on one of the busiest news days in recent memory and earning praise from the industry.

For their efforts, Hudetz, Goldman and Cohen win this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Stunning package documents lives of women jailed for opioids

for their stunning all-formats package on life behind bars for women who were jailed because of opioid addiction. https://bit.ly/2J7ySOb

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP team explores local women fighting COVID in Burkina Faso

developed a nuanced story around the lives of women struggling to raise awareness of the threat posed by COVID-19 in one of the world’s 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, they’ve 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 AP’s audience.But this positive story, simple in inception, was challenging to tell at first. Stringer reporter Sam Mednick writes: “... 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 women’s trust, bringing their stories to life in a way that did them justice as well as highlighted the situation in the country.”The 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 Castañeda.https://aplink.news/nnmhttps://aplink.photos/1m8https://aplink.video/wj2

Best of the Week — First Winner

AP: Rohingya women methodically raped by Myanmar armed forces

When AP Australia correspondent Kristen Gelineau, Singapore photographer Maye-E Wong and New Delhi video journalist Rishabh Jain entered the sprawling refugee camps in Bangladesh that are sheltering Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, they did not need to coax the women they found to talk.

Accounts of cruelty, violence and rape at the hands of Myanmar armed forces poured out of the survivors.

After only one week in the camps, Gelineau had interviewed 27 women and girls to gather evidence that Myanmar’s armed forces had carried out a pattern of sweeping, systematic rape across Myanmar’s Rakhine state. Joined by Wong and Jain during her second week in the camps, the team revisited several of the women Gelineau had interviewed to capture haunting photos and video. Gelineau and Wong then interviewed two more rape survivors, bringing to 29 the number of women struggling to survive in squalid conditions who were desperate to tell the world what had happened to them. The images of their tear-filled eyes, peering out over brightly colored headscarves, conveyed a depth of suffering almost impossible to describe.

For their searing account in words, photos and video, Gelineau, Wong and Jain have earned the Beat of the Week.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Only on AP: Behind-the-scenes with women’s NCAA champions

had exclusive behind-the-scenes access during top-ranked South Carolina’s run to the women’s NCAA championship, the pair delivering unique content in the highly competitive environment of the game’s biggest stage.South Carolina sports writer Iacobelli has established a good rapport with basketball coach Dawn Staley, who allowed him to join the team during the Final Four in Minneapolis. He teamed up with Des Moines, Iowa-based photographer Charlie Neibergall to produce a widely used package that moved the morning after the Gamecocks captured their second national title under Staley.Read more

Best of the States

AP tracks record number of women running for US House seats

The Women’s March shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration energized its backers with a message to get politically engaged. The emergence of the #MeToo movement later that year provided even more momentum. But would women follow through? At the start of 2018, a midterm election year, the state government and data teams decided to find out.

The goal was ambitious: Track every woman running for Congress, statewide office and state legislature in the country, get historical numbers for comparison and follow their electoral fates through Election Day to see if the movements had led to real change. That effort, which will be ongoing throughout the year, produced its first scoop last week when AP declared a record number of women running for the U.S. House of Representatives.

For breaking significant news on one of the most dominant political trends of the year, state government team reporters Christina Cassidy and Geoff Mulvihill, and data team visual journalist Maureen Linke share this week’s Best of the States.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Women photographers, editors produce ‘Growing up Female’ gallery

for a thoughtfully produced global photo gallery that shows what it’s like to grow up female in 2018. https://bit.ly/2OwGKw3

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Commissioner admits two women’s hockey leagues will consolidate

for reporting exclusively that the commissioner of one of two rival women's hockey leagues in North America admitted that a single league is ‘inevitable,’ an extraordinary turnaround from her previous position. https://bit.ly/2qfFxKZ

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Women say New York agency ignored blatant sex harassment

for an AP Exclusive revealing a particularly egregious case of sexual harassment in New York’s state government, complete with an interview with the accused in which the man asked incredulously, “I tell her to ‘shut her whore mouth’ and I’m the big villain?” Klepper also interviewed three women who say that supervisors did not act over the course of two years despite their claims that the man groped them and exposed himself. https://bit.ly/2ETadtX

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Emails: NAACP president chastised women who claimed harassment

for using leaked emails and a recording she obtained from a closed-door meeting to detail how the national NAACP leader, Derrick Johnson, chastised women who went public with sexual harassment claims against a former North Carolina state chapter officer. https://bit.ly/39eCzf0

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP: Brazilian women seek now-legal abortions in Argentina

teamed up to make AP the first news organization to report the extremely sensitive and timely story of Brazilian women starting to travel to Argentina for now-legal abortions.The complex all-formats story required coordination between Brazilian and Argentine bureaus to follow individuals crossing the border, and awareness of the shifting legal issues in both countries. The staffers had to ensure that AP was presenting the story and its protagonists in a way that was fair, useful to clients, and — most importantly — minimized risks of our interviewees facing backlash.The AP had unique access to a 20-year-old woman traveling to Argentina who agreed to show her masked face and be quoted by her first name. They had worked diligently to cultivate her trust and that of the nongovernmental agency assisting her, repeatedly addressing concerns without applying pressure.Ultimately, both the woman and the agency were comfortable with the result: The package offered a uniquely intimate perspective into this highly controversial issue that disproportinately affects women from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. https://bit.ly/3bws3nd

Best of the States

AP examines troubling trend of women dropping out of the workforce

As parents scramble to manage their own work and their kids’ remote learning during the pandemic, AP business reporters Alexandra Olson and Cathy Bussewitz wanted to know how that shift impacted the careers of mothers and fathers. 

They dug into the data, finding that in order to tend to their children, working mothers were giving up their careers more so than working fathers. And they tapped into parenting networks to find families in this situation. What emerged was evidence of a trend that threatens decades of hard-fought gains by working women, who are still far from achieving labor force parity with men.

For timely reporting that documents a disturbing social and economic trend brought on by the pandemic, Olson and Bussewitz win this week’s Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Women make big gains in state capitols; men still wield power

for leading an AP review across 50 state capitols showing that even though women made historic gains in state legislatures in 2018, men still hold the vast majority of top leadership roles. https://bit.ly/2MIgafu

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

AP reveals lack of coaching diversity in women’s college hoops

took a deep look into a diversity issue in women’s college basketball that has been mostly overlooked — of the 65 Power Five head coaches, only 13 are Black women.Walker, who is helping cover the tournament remotely, stepped away from the action on the court to highlight the low number of Black women in the top coaching jobs. She interviewed coaches and administrators to get answers as to why so few and what needs to happen for that to change. And she led off the story with a telling anecdote -- when Dawn Staley and Joni Taylor met up in the Southeastern Conference Championship, it was the first time in 41 years that teams led by Black women had faced off in a tournament championship. After the story was published, a Vanderbilt official summed up the responses to the article in a note to Teresa saying, “Crushed it!” https://bit.ly/3wfqMc3

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Sourcing, viral video sets AP apart on women’s NCAA tournament

used his access to newsmakers in women’s basketball to deliver powerful multiplatform coverage of AP’s coach and player of the year, including video that has topped a half-million views and counting.Feinberg, the preeminent sports writer in women’s hoops, continues to separate AP’s coverage from the competition. While anchoring coverage of the women’s NCAA Tournament, Feinberg was able to get the parents of University of Maryland’s Brenda Frese to surprise her with the coach of the year news via a Zoom call during a team practice, with AP video recording the moment. And he arranged for UConn coach Geno Auriemma to surprise Bueckers, presenting her with the player of the year award in front of the team. Said AP Global Sports Editor Michael Giarrusso: “It’s (Doug’s) source-building that gets us this kind of access. Everyone is sharing the video ... including some of our biggest customers and competitors.”https://bit.ly/3uKVEQjhttps://bit.ly/3t0PISEhttps://bit.ly/2Q3vvguhttps://bit.ly/3mr6acq

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Renewed hope: Stunning package on women fish processors in Africa

launched AP’s grant-funded year-long series on the pandemic’s impact on women in Africa's least developed nations with this ambitious multiformat project. They tell the uplifting story of the women fish processors of Bargny, Senegal, and their tale of survival amid the economic hardships imposed by the pandemic.The package exemplified the very best in AP all-formats storytelling: stunning visual journalism complementing the reporting and driving readers and viewers deeper into the story of the women’s cooperative work to support a community through the toughest of times.The Dakar-based West Africa team of photographer Leo Correa, correspondent Carley Petesch and senior producer Yesica Fisch initially spent weeks working tirelessly to make contacts and gain the trust of the women as they waited for the fishing season to finally begin. Their reporting let the women's voices tell their story — and the visuals put you on the beach as they work laying out the catch, smoking the fish under smoldering peanut shells.Deep storytelling like this also took a team of editors and producers to make the work sing. Digital storytelling producer Nat Castañeda, deputy news director/U.S. South Janelle Cogan, Beirut-based producer Hend Kortam and chief photographer/Africa Jerome Delay collaborated across continents and were essential to the success of the package, delivering video edits, photo galleries, digital production and text tailored to meet client needs.Major European client France24's Journal d'Afrique editor wrote: “The visuals of the Senegal story are among the best I’ve seen in recent years from one of the main agencies.”https://aplink.news/h5bhttps://aplink.photos/4zohttps://aplink.video/gj1

Best of the States

How 65 women came to Kavanaugh's defense in a matter of hours

Within hours of their high school friend being accused publicly of sexual assault against a young woman 36 years ago, 65 women stepped forward to sign a letter supporting Brett Kavanaugh, whose nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court was now at risk.

Many in newsrooms asked themselves, how was it possible that 65 people could be marshalled so quickly to attest to someone’s moral character, including people who may not have seen Kavanaugh in decades. Reporters in four states, Jennifer Peltz in New York, Michael Kunzelman in Baltimore, Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston and Dan Sewell in Ohio, set out to reach every single one.

They learned that the campaign had started with phone calls among several high-school friends of Kavanaugh, and organizers used social media to expand their search.

The story, demonstrating AP's ability to marshal staffers across state lines on a tight timeline, was the top non-spot story of the week.

For their efforts, Shafner, Peltz, Kunzelman, Richer and Sewell share this week's Best of the States award.

Beat of the Week

(Honorable Mention)

Intimate all-formats package: Malawian women forgo prenatal care

reported in all formats over several months to tell the important story of women in Malawi going without prenatal care during the pandemic, undoing progress in improving maternal health in one of the world’s poorest nations.The freelance trio’s commitment earned them access to birthing rooms, nursing colleges, and, most challengingly, to camera-averse traditional (and officially illegal) midwives to create a visually powerful, character-driven package. The story was anchored by powerful detail — bus fare to the hospital is more expensive than medical care — and brought to life by intimate photos, including a mother and her newborn minutes after giving birth. In a country where hospitals are so bare that women are expected to bring their own razor blades for cutting their babies’ umbilical cords, the AP showed how deepening poverty brought on by the pandemic is further imperiling women’s lives.The tender, deeply reported package was initiated by photographer Chikondi, with text reporting by Gondwe and video by Jali, the team supported in all formats by AP staffers internationally.https://aplink.news/5ryhttps://aplink.video/8sh