Best of the AP

Best of the Week - First Winner Feb. 02, 2024

AP scores with the kiss seen around the world

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Hail Mary? Hail Julio. As swarms of players and media surrounded Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce after the Kansas City Chiefs’ AFC championship win, photographer Julio Cortez captured the perfect shot: the couple kissing on the field, Swift’s hand pressed against Kelce’s cheek. It was an intimate moment amid chaos, one that only Cortez — AP’s chief photographer for Texas and Oklahoma, temporarily returned to Baltimore — got. Other outlets made photos of the couple embracing, but Cortez had the singular — and viral — angle.

Before Sunday’s game, the only photos of Swift’s football attendee era were made in tunnels or from afar as she watched in luxury suites. But Cortez knew that if the Chiefs punched their ticket to another Super Bowl, players’ friends and families would end up on the field. With AP’s Matt Slocum, Alex Brandon and Nick Wass in their assigned on-field positions, Cortez called an audible, walking around the stage to find Swift. A believer in being “pushy but professional,” Cortez “sweet-talked” bodyguards to get into unique position. Swift and Kelce’s reunion was, well, swift. As Kelce “gave her the fastest kiss,” Cortez jumped in front of the NFL Films camera, raising his own over a guard’s head. About a minute after the photo was made, photo editor Mike Stewart knew it was the shot of the game, affixing the golden APTOPIX stamp. It was immediately picked up by hundreds, rocketing around the world with usage by customers ranging from The New York Times, People to India’s Hindustan Times and Argentina’s La Voz.

For an image that’s assuredly a first-ballot Hall of Famer, Cortez is Best of the Week — First Winner.

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Best of the Week - Second Winner Feb. 02, 2024

AP reporter witnesses first state execution using nitrogen gas

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Over the last two decades, AP reporter Kim Chandler has seen more than a dozen executions in Alabama and has closely followed the state’s struggles to administer capital punishment, making her a leading expert when corrections officials decided to be the first in the nation to adopt a previously untested execution method.

Alabama officials opted to use nitrogen gas to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith, a prisoner who had been convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, a preacher’s wife.

Chandler was ideally suited to explain the story and its implication to a global audience. Her two decades of covering executions have allowed her to cultivate valuable sources and develop deep knowledge of the subject.

Although state officials said everything had gone according to plan, the invaluable accounts provided by Kim and other media witnesses informed the world that Smith had convulsed for several minutes in an execution that took 22 minutes to complete.

Critics around the world cited those accounts in their reactions to the execution, with a White House spokesperson calling it “very troubling” during a press briefing the next day.

For bravely serving as a witness and describing and explaining in detail a new execution method and its implications for the future, Chandler earns Best of the Week — Second Winner.

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