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The Marshall Project
The Marshall Project
Available inEnglish
Created byNeil Barsky
EditorBill Keller (2014–2019)
Susan Chira (2019–present)
PresidentCarroll Bogert
URLwww.themarshallproject.org
RegistrationNon-profit
LaunchedNovember 2014; 10 years ago (2014-11)

The Marshall Project is a nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about inequities within the U.S. criminal justice system. The Marshall Project has been described as an advocacy group by some,[citation needed] and works to impact the system through journalism.

It was founded by former hedge fund manager and prison abolitionist Neil Barsky with former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller as its first editor-in-chief.[1][2][3][4][5] It has won the Pulitzer Prize twice.[6][7]

The organization's name honors Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP's civil rights activist and attorney whose arguments won the landmark U.S. Supreme Court school desegregation case, Brown vs. Board of Education, who later became the first African-American justice of that Court.[8]

History

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The Marshall Project began as an idea of Neil Barsky, a former hedge-fund manager, in November 2013. When writing an op-ed in The New York Times, Barsky thought it might be a good opportunity to plug the idea, so he included a brief description of the project and the website URL in his byline.[9][10] In February 2014, The New York Times reported that Bill Keller, who had been executive editor at The New York Times from July 2003 to September 2011, was going to work for the Marshall Project.[10][11] Barsky continued to work for The Marshall Project for seven years, and announced in October of 2021 that he would step down as chairman of the organization.[12][13]

The Marshall Project publishes journalistic and opinion pieces on its own website, and also collaborates with news organizations and magazines to publish investigations. Its first two investigations were published in August 2014 (on its own website and in The Washington Post together) and in October 2014 (on its own website and in Slate).[5][14] It also publishes a weekly feature called "Life Inside," where people who work or live in the criminal justice system tell their stories in first-person essays.[15] Until October 2018, Life Inside was co-published with VICE.[16]

The project officially launched in November 2014.[3][4][14] Its first editor-in-chief was former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller.[2][4] The outlet's reporting in its first five years garnered it a Pulitzer Prize and other journalism awards, with reporting focused on various issues, including prison abuse and rape, privatized prisons, and the treatment of incarcerated youth and mentally ill people.[17] Keller retired in 2019 and was succeeded as editor-in-chief by Susan Chira.[17][18]

On February 29, 2024, The Marshall Project newsroom staff announced publicly that it was unionizing under the NewsGuild of New York.[19]

Organization and funding

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As of August 2021, The Marshall Project had a staff of 48, with eight additional contributing writers, five of whom are currently incarcerated.[20]

The Marshall Project is funded by donations and grants from foundations and individuals.[21]

Critical reception

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Joe Pompeo wrote of The Marshall Project that it had had a great start due to a mix of good initial publicity and association with high-profile names.[10]

The Marshall Project has also been identified as part of a new and experimental non-profit journalism format.[2][22] It has been compared with the non-profit ProPublica, the Center for Investigative Reporting, Inside Climate News, and The Texas Tribune,[5][22] and also with recent for-profit journalistic experiments such as Vox and FiveThirtyEight.[2]

The Marshall Project has also been praised for its timely launch given current bipartisan interest in criminal justice reform in the United States.[5]

The Marshall Project has been compared with the Innocence Project, but distinguishes itself because its focus is not merely on innocent people ensnared by the criminal justice system but also on guilty people whose rights to due process, fair trial, and proportionate punishment are violated,[3] and is considered an advocacy group by some.[23]

Awards and honors

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In 2016, The Marshall Project and partner ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for "An Unbelievable Story of Rape" described as "a startling examination and exposé of law enforcement's enduring failures to investigate reports of rape properly and to comprehend the traumatic effects on its victims".[24] In 2019, this piece was adapted into the Netflix series Unbelievable.[25]

Also in 2017, it was named as a collaborator (alongside ProPublica) when This American Life won a Peabody Award for "Anatomy of Doubt".[26]

In 2018, The Marshall Project was awarded a national Edward R. Murrow Award for "Overall Excellence" for a small digital newsroom.[27] It also won the award for General Excellence in Online Journalism from Online News Association.[28] Its 2017 documentary series "We Are Witnesses"[29] was nominated for the 39th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Award.[30] Its 2019 installment of the "We Are Witnesses" series was nominated for the 41st Annual News & Documentary Emmy Award for "Outstanding New Approaches" in the documentary category.[31]

The Marshall Project was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting in 2021 for a yearlong investigation into injuries caused by police dog bites. The prize was shared with AL.com, IndyStar and the Invisible Institute.[32]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Mission Statement". The Marshall Project. Retrieved May 8, 2015.
  2. ^ a b c d Ellis, Justin (February 10, 2014). "Bill Keller, The Marshall Project, and making single-focus nonprofit news sites work. The former New York Times executive editor explains why he's jumping to a nonprofit news organization focused on criminal justice issues". Nieman Lab. Retrieved May 7, 2015.
  3. ^ a b c Calderone, Michael (November 16, 2014). "The Marshall Project Aims Spotlight On 'Abysmal Status' Of Criminal Justice". The Huffington Post. Retrieved May 7, 2015.
  4. ^ a b c "Marshall Project Kicks Off With Look at Legal Delays". The New York Times. November 16, 2014. Retrieved May 7, 2015.
  5. ^ a b c d Doctor, Ken (February 12, 2015). "Newsonomics: Bill Keller's Marshall Project finds its legs covering criminal justice. The Marshall Project is trying to get beyond the narrow newsroom focus on "cops and courts" and tackle the bigger systemic issues". Newsonomics. Retrieved May 7, 2015.
  6. ^ "T. Christian Miller of ProPublica and Ken Armstrong of The Marshall Project". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2021-08-09.
  7. ^ Sneddon, Ross (2021-06-11). "The Marshall Project Wins The Pulitzer Prize". The Marshall Project. Retrieved 2021-08-09.
  8. ^ "Why The 'Marshall' Project?". The Marshall Project. Retrieved September 16, 2017.
  9. ^ Barsky, Neil (November 15, 2013). "Chill Out, 1 Percenters". The New York Times. Retrieved May 8, 2015.
  10. ^ a b c Pompeo, Joe (July 1, 2014). "The Marshall Project's charmed launch". Capital New York. Retrieved May 7, 2015.
  11. ^ Somaiya, Ravi (February 9, 2014). "Bill Keller, Former Editor of The Times, Is Leaving for News Nonprofit". The New York Times. Retrieved May 8, 2015.
  12. ^ Grynbaum, Michael M. (7 October 2021). "Marshall Project Founder Neil Barsky Is Stepping Down". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 14 July 2022. Retrieved 22 September 2023.
  13. ^ Edmonds, Rick (7 December 2021). "Mission accomplished at the Marshall Project? Why founder Neil Barsky is moving on after 7 years". Poynter. Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Retrieved 22 September 2023.
  14. ^ a b "The Marshall Project to launch in November". Capital New York. October 23, 2014. Retrieved May 7, 2015.
  15. ^ "Life Inside". The Marshall Project. Retrieved Jul 18, 2019.
  16. ^ "Life Inside". Vice. Retrieved Jul 18, 2019.
  17. ^ a b Zainab Sultan, Exit Interview: Bill Keller on his time at The Marshall Project, Columbia Journalism Review (April 1, 2019).
  18. ^ Bill Keller to retire from The Marshall Project, The Marshall Project (November 1, 2018).
  19. ^ Bellware, Kim (2024-02-29). "The Marshall Project, Pulitzer-winning nonprofit newsroom, to unionize". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2024-03-01.
  20. ^ "Our People". The Marshall Project. Retrieved 2017-05-04.
  21. ^ "Funders". The Marshall Project. Retrieved May 8, 2015.
  22. ^ a b Pompeo, Joe (July 1, 2014). "Journalism's Nonprofit Surge". Capital New York. Retrieved May 8, 2015.
  23. ^ Ph.D, Peter N. Novalis, M. D.; DNP, Virginia Singer; M.A, Carol M. Novalis (2022-09-13). Psychotherapy in Corrections: A Supportive Approach. American Psychiatric Pub. ISBN 978-1-61537-332-1. we have adopted the practice of the advocacy group The Marshall Project of continuing to use the word prisoner but attempting to eliminate the term inmate (Solomon 2021){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  24. ^ "The 2016 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Explanatory Reporting". Pulitzer Prize. April 18, 2016.
  25. ^ Colburn, Randall (July 18, 2019). "Netflix unveils trailer for Unbelievable, a limited series based on Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on January 3, 2020. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
  26. ^ "This American Life: Anatomy of Doubt". Retrieved 2017-05-14.
  27. ^ "RTDNA Announces 2018 National Edward R. Murrow Awards". rtdna.org. Archived from the original on October 11, 2018. Retrieved Jul 18, 2019.
  28. ^ "2018 Online Journalism Awards Finalists". Retrieved Jul 18, 2019.
  29. ^ "We are Witnesses". The Marshall Project. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
  30. ^ "NOMINEES FOR THE 39th ANNUAL NEWS & DOCUMENTARY EMMY® AWARDS ANNOUNCED" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-09-16. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
  31. ^ "NOMINEES ANNOUNCED FOR THE 41ST ANNUAL NEWS & DOCUMENTARY EMMY® AWARDS – The Emmys". theemmys.tv. 6 August 2020. Retrieved 2020-08-09.
  32. ^ "Abbie VanSickle '11 Key Part of Team Awarded Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting". Berkeley Law. 11 June 2021. Retrieved 2021-08-09.
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