Hello world,

Friends — it’s been awhile. As you already know, The Markup joined CalMatters this summer, and a few months later at the end of September, we paused Hello World to give ourselves time to think about what it could look like in 2025. 

As a combined newsroom, we now have triple the reporters, compared to when we were on our own. You may have seen some of their work already, like Wendy Fry’s reporting on how landlords are using AI to raise rents, or Alex Shultz’s piece on how President-elect Donald Trump wants looser AI guardrails and why California, despite passing over 20 AI bills this year, might not push back. In November, we also published The Markup’s guide to abortion privacy, by Tomas Apodaca (who so poignantly wrote about AI ethics earlier this year) with additional reporting from Kristen Hwang, who has covered abortion and reproductive health at CalMatters for the last three years.

As we plan for 2025, I wanted to share with you, some of whom have been with us since the beginning, examples of the incredible impact The Markup’s coverage has had in 2024:

• After we exposed racial bias in LA’s housing intake system, local politicians passed reforms pressing for a more equitable approach.
  
• After we uncovered Instagram suppression of content on the Israel-Hamas war, the tech company restored content that had not violated their policies.
  
• After we revealed how the Department of Education shared sensitive student information with Facebook, groups that defend students and advocate against online surveillance filed a federal lawsuit.
  
• After we reported that mortgage brokers were sending people’s estimated credit, address, and veteran status to Facebook, some companies immediately stopped doing so.
  
• After we brought to light that NYC’s AI chatbot was frequently advising businesses to break the law, the chatbot was quietly updated to tell users that it “may occasionally produce incorrect, harmful or biased content” and provide “inaccurate or incomplete” responses.

We pride ourselves on our journalism being actionable and having real-world impact. In 2024, we continued to do exactly that. Thank you for being here alongside us.

One more thing, since it’s December: We have less than three weeks in our year-end fundraiser when all gifts are tripled. I hope you’ll consider supporting our journalism today.

Thanks for reading,

Soo Oh
Deputy Managing Editor
The Markup + CalMatters