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Press
Releases
07/28/06
AP
coverage of Katrina wins deadline reporting, news photography,
state reporting awards from APME
NEW YORK (AP) -- News accounts and
photographs of Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans
and the Gulf Coast dominated awards given annually by the
Associated Press Managing Editors association to AP staff.
Stories from the dozens of reporters in New Orleans and elsewhere
who scrambled to report the hurricane's catastrophic aftermath
were honored with the APME prize for deadline reporting. A
dramatic package of Katrina images from 16 photographers was
recognized with the news photography prize.
Rukmini Callimachi, assigned to New Orleans for a year to
help report the recovery from Katrina's aftermath, received
the Charles Rowe award for distinguished state bureau reporting
for a portfolio of "sophisticated stories that break
news and are beautifully written."
Richmond, Va., newswoman Kristen Gelineau won the feature
writing award for her story "Saved from the Grave,"
a look at how evidence saved by a reclusive forensic scientist
before DNA testing existed managed to clear Virginia prison
inmates wrongly convicted of crimes.
Dirk Lammers, a newsman in Sioux Falls, S.D., and Frank Bass,
AP's director of computer-assisted reporting, combined to
win the enterprise reporting award for an investigation showing
that only a very small percentage of thousands of Sept. 11
relief loans went to companies located in the two cities hit
by the terrorist attacks _ New York and Washington.
The feature photography award was won by Rodrigo Abd for gripping
images of gangs in Guatemala. Matt Sedensky, a newsman in
the Kansas City bureau, was selected for the John L. Dougherty
Award given to a staffer who has been in the news business
for no more than five years and with AP for no more than three.
APME, an association of editors at 1,500 AP member newspapers
in the U.S. and the Canadian Press in Canada, recognizes top
performance by AP reporters, editors and photographers. This
year's winners were selected during a meeting of the association's
board of directors that concluded Monday in New York. The
awards will be presented during the APME conference Oct. 25-28
in New Orleans.
In selecting AP's Katrina stories for the award recognizing
the rollout of a major story, the judges credited the "quick,
credible, contextual coverage of an immense story."
"On the ground in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast,
AP showed an amazing ability to anticipate where the news
was heading. ... As issues and angles developed, AP got them
on the wire immediately."
In addition to the rapidly unfolding breaking news, the judges
said, "AP national and international beat reporters explored
the political, scientific, religious, environmental, economic
and cultural aspects of the story, bringing it home to readers
across the nation all in the first day after the levee break.
"This story epitomizes a news organization's efforts
to anticipate and exceed the expectations of what people want
and need to know."
On the photo side, the judges cited a package of images, many
showing the Gulf Coast devastation and flooding from the air
and on the ground.
"These photographs tell it all: Iconic photographs from
the front lines ... depict the faces of horror, grief and
humanity; a breadth of aerial photography captures the sweep
of devastation and desperation; and images that show everything
from the masses crowded at the Superdome, to a woman standing
in the ruins in rural Mississippi, to the president peering
out of Air Force One. This is AP at its finest," the
judges said.
Callimachi transferred to New Orleans from the AP's Portland,
Ore., bureau, to help report the hurricane's aftermath and
the region's struggle to get back on its feet. In six months,
she has written major insurance stories that received wide
use, including one breaking the news that homeowners as far
away as New York and Cape Cod were seeing their policies canceled
because insurers were limiting their exposure to catastrophes.
The judges applauded another "deeply reported" piece
examined Katrina's lasting effect on children.
Gelineau won the feature category for an "extremely vivid
story, rich with detail, made more so impressive because her
primary subject was dead," the judges said. "She
artfully layered different tales of her main characters. This
was a great example of natural storytelling that draws readers."
Working out of Sioux Falls, Lammers, co-winner of the enterprise
reporting award, came across an odd notation about a Small
Business Administration loan to a South Dakota country radio
station. "Hit-Kickin Country" had received money
from a 9/11 loan fund. The judges noted that was the start
of his story with Bass that led to a congressional inquiry
and contributed to the resignation of the SBA's administrator.
Abd's winning feature photographs vividly portray the life
of gang members in Guatemala, including some behind bars.
"Every one of these 12 photographs is powerful in its
composition, its content and its intimacy. Abd clearly lived
this story, capturing an almost anthropological look at nature
and effects of gang culture," the judges said.
The judges said they selected Sedensky for the Dougherty award
for "a strong body of work" that included a story
about Kansas pastor who practices a ministry of hate, a hoax
about sextuplets and crime in New Orleans.
The judges also awarded honorable mentions:
-- Deadline reporting: AP staff in Islamabad, on the Pakistan
earthquake; and Robert H. Reid, an AP correspondent-at-large,
on the suicide bombing at Baghdad's Palestine hotel.
-- Feature photography: David Guttenfelder, chief Asia photographer,
for a package from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting
in Korea; Charles Dharapak, Washington, for a photo of President
Bush trying to open a locked door in China; and Vahid Salemi,
Iran, on Iranian women paramilitary volunteers at target practice.
-- News photography: David Guttenfelder, for an image of a
9-year-old amputee and his father in a Pakistan earthquake
zone; and AP staff, Iraq insurgency.
-- Enterprise reporting: Ted Bridis, Washington, on possible
U.S. security implications of the sale of a British shipping
firm to a state-owned company in the United Arab Emirates.
-- Feature Writing: Allen Breed, national writer in Raleigh,
N.C., for a narrative on Hurricane Katrina flooding; Antonio
Castaneda, newsman in Iraq, on the roiling emotions of Marine
survivors of a roadside bombing; and Angie Wagner, AP Western
regional writer, writing about a 75-year-old international
jewel thief.
-- Rowe: John O'Connor, Springfield, Ill., on corruption in
hiring and contracting practices with links to the Illinois
governor's office.
-- Dougherty: Jonathan Drew, AP's asap staff; Benjamin Harvey,
a newsman in Istanbul, Turkey.
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On the Net:
http://www.apme.com
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