After viral videos surfaced showing two Black women being denied or delayed care in the final minutes before giving birth, AP’s Race and Ethnicity team moved quickly to provide context — anchoring the incidents within the long, painful history of disparities in Black maternal health care.
While many outlets focused solely on the viral outrage, Fernanda Figueroa and Jaylen Green went deeper. Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, they secured an exclusive sit-down interview with the Wells family of Dolton, Illinois — one of the cases at the center of the story.
Minnesota-based videojournalist Mark VanCleave conducted the interview, producing an emotional, intimate conversation with the family. He also incorporated user-generated content from the family’s experience in an Indiana hospital to enhance the storytelling. Meanwhile, Figueroa and Green broadened the piece by speaking with a range of experts, including leaders of Black medical professional organizations who explained how these incidents could reinforce existing distrust in the U.S. health system.
The result was one of the most comprehensive stories on the issue, blending exclusive access, sharp analysis and cross-format execution to amplify a crisis long documented but often underreported.
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