The Marshall Project facts for kids
 |
|
| Available in | English |
|---|---|
| Created by | Neil Barsky |
| Editor | Bill Keller (2014–2019) Susan Chira (2019–present) |
| Commercial | No |
| Launched | November 2014 |
The Marshall Project is a nonprofit, online journalism organization focusing on issues related to criminal justice in the United States. It was founded by former hedge fund manager Neil Barsky with former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller as its first editor-in-chief. Its website states that it aims to "create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system." Susan Chira has been editor-in-chief since 2019. It has won the Pulitzer Prize twice.
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.
History
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. 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.
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). 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. The Marshall Project also now publishes News Inside, a print publication distributed in hundreds of prisons and jails across the United States.
The project officially launched in November 2014. Its first editor-in-chief was former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller. 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 privatized prisons and the treatment of incarcerated youth and mentally ill people. Keller retired in 2019 and was succeeded as editor-in-chief by Susan Chira.
The Marshall Project and the Associated Press partnered for 15 months to track the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths in federal prisons. Other recent partners include USA Today and National Public Radio. Reporter Keri Blakinger has a regular column with NBC News.
Organization and funding
As of August 2021, The Marshall Project had a staff of 48, with eight additional contributing writers, five of whom are currently incarcerated.
The Marshall Project is funded by donations and grants from foundations and individuals. As of August 2021, the foundations and individuals listed on the website as supporters include the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Arnold Ventures, Ford Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Maverick Capital Foundation, Neil Barsky, Open Society Foundations, Propel, Rockefeller Family Fund, Timothy and Michele Barakett, the Tow Foundation and Trinity Wall Street.
See also
- Public criminology
