The Markup


The Markup is an American nonprofit organization based in New York City, founded in 2018 with the goal of focusing on data-driven journalism, covering the ethics and impact of technology on society.

History

The Markup was co-founded by two former ProPublica journalists Julia Angwin and Jeff Larson, and executive and journalist Sue Gardner. The project was announced in April 2018, with an expected launch in early 2019. Like ProPublica, all of their content will be licensed under a Creative Commons license.
According to Angwin, in 2018, the portal planned to collect and create public datasets through public records requests, automated data collection, crowdsourcing information, and creating tools.
In April 2019, Gardner fired Angwin as editor-in-chief. Larson was named as her replacement. In a letter to Craig Newmark, The Markup's largest donor, Angwin asked him to intervene, claiming she was pushed out after resisting Gardner's attempts to change The Markup's mission to "one based on advocacy against the tech companies." Six out of seven journalists on staff resigned following Angwin's ouster. Gardner denied changing the mission, telling The New York Times, "We are, pure and simple, a news outlet, we always have been and always will be. Our goals and purpose haven’t changed.". According to Larson and Gardner, the reasons for Angwin's ouster had instead included disagreements over the non-journalistic responsibilities of Angwin's role as an executive, such as the organization falling behind in its hiring plans and the launch timeline. A month later, Newmark announced that Gardner and Larson had left The Markup, and there were reports about plans to bring back Angwin as editor-in-chief.
On August 6, 2019, The Markup announced that Julia Angwin would return as editor-in-chief, along Nabiha Syed as president and much of the original team – but without Larson or Gardner. Syed was previously BuzzFeed’s general counsel and vice president.

Funding

The Markup received a $20 million gift from Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. They also raised $2 million from the Knight Foundation and an additional $1 million from the Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and The Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Initiative.