An AP team, anchored by Charlotte-based video journalist Erik Verduzco, provided fast live video and compelling eyewitness accounts after the deadliest attack on U.S. law enforcement since 2016.
With little information other than that officers had been shot during a standoff in a Charlotte, North Carolina neighborhood, video journalist Verduzco headed to the site with his LiveU to capture the scene and talk to neighbors. Though journalists were encouraged to meet at a staging area far from the scene, Verduzco forged into the neighborhood. But even as he was handling the live shot, Verduzco took his iPhone and started interviewing eyewitnesses and neighbors, which he fed back to producers for additional edits. Religion writer Peter Smith, who happened to be in Charlotte covering a United Methodist gathering, broke away from his assignment to cover the shooting, working in tandem with Verduzco to cover news conferences and interviewing neighbors. Verduzco was secured permissions to use user-generated content, including from a neighbor who was locked outside his home as the SWAT team took shelter from gunfire on his property. Verduzco anchored the AP’s multiformat report all week, notching five text bylines in addition to his visual work. Verduzco’s first live shot of the police and emergency officials responding to the scene was watched by 61,000 viewers on AP’s YouTube page. A double-bylined story by Smith and Verduzco was AP’s most-viewed story of the day on April 29, with 293,000 page views.
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