The Markup is a finalist for three Online Journalism Awards, which honor excellence in digital journalism around the world.
For the second year in a row, The Markup is a finalist for the General Excellence in Journalism award, in the small newsroom category. This award honors a digitally focused news organization that successfully fulfills its editorial mission, effectively serves its audience, maximizes the use of digital tools and platforms, and represents the highest journalistic standards.
“L.A.’s Scoring System for Subsidized Housing Gives Black and Latino People Experiencing Homelessness Lower Priority Scores” is a finalist for the Excellence in Social Justice Reporting award in a single story format. This Markup investigation, copublished with the Los Angeles Times, pulled back the curtain on a scoring system used in Los Angeles, confirming something that advocates for the unhoused had long suspected: The system has for years rated Black people experiencing homelessness as less vulnerable than White people, making them a lower priority for permanent housing.
The Markup’s investigative series on internet disparities, “Still Loading,” is a finalist for the Excellence in Technology Reporting award, small/medium newsroom category. The Markup found that four internet service providers—AT&T, Verizon, Earthlink, and CenturyLink—disproportionately offered lower-income, least-White, and historically redlined neighborhoods slow internet service for the same price as for speedy connections in other parts of town. Our investigation produced the first nationwide disparate impact analysis of the speeds and prices internet service providers offered directly to consumers and was the first to show where inequitable effects of tier flattening (charging internet customers the same rate for differing levels of service) have occurred. The series also included a story recipe local journalists used to write their own articles using our data, an interactive map readers can use to see the data we collected in 45 major cities, and a step-by-step guide to how anyone can test for internet speed disparities in their neighborhood.
A big congratulations to the entire newsroom for their incredible work, and congratulations to all of this year’s ONA award finalists.
