Best of AP — Honorable Mention

AP’s global footprint produces a unique take on ‘spooky season stories’

A ghost mannequin at Goosebump market as a part of Halloween festival in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit
Thailand Halloween

Editor Donna Edwards in Bangkok had an idea: How could AP’s global footprint bring out some of the lesser-known scary stories and legends around the world that might not have anything to do with Halloween but could be centered for “spooky season”?

They proposed canvassing colleagues for those unusual stories and then compiling them into an online storybook ahead of Halloween. This unorthodox approach — using AP crowdsourcing not to gather news but to find legends and tell them in compelling fashion — made for a cultural story that few other organizations could do.

From Brazil to Kenya, Nigeria to Mongolia to Hungary, stories of ghosts and creatures and haunted places abounded. Vivid, unsettling photos from points around the world added texture and spookiness to the proceedings. The story highlighting tales of corpse walkers in China and the death worm in Mongolia was showcased on AP News for most of a day and won more than 40,000 pageviews.

Visit AP.org to request a trial subscription to AP’s video, photo and text services.

For breaking news, visit apnews.com.

Contact us
FOLLOW AP