In abstract
The awards honor excellence in digital journalism all over the world.
The Markup, now part of CalMatters, has gained first place for basic excellence amongst small newsrooms whereas CalMatters was a finalist for basic excellence amongst medium-sized newsrooms within the 2024 On-line Information Awards.
In every measurement class, ONA’s basic excellence 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.”
Winners had been introduced Friday on the On-line Information Affiliation’s convention in Atlanta.
CalMatters’ excellence honor
CalMatters was a finalist for basic excellence in on-line journalism, medium-sized newsrooms. Congratulations to our fellow finalists, The Marshall Mission and The Texas Tribuneand to the profitable newsroom, ProPublica.
CalMatters was acknowledged for work that features:
Our unprecedented new Digital Democracy venture which deploys AI, bots and information scrapers to demystify state authorities: It collects transcripts and video of each phrase spoken in a public assembly, six classes of economic giving, every invoice launched and vote solid, each supporter and opponent, each lobbyist and curiosity group, and extra. We’re sharing this useful resource with journalists who admire the tales it’s enabling us to provide — of the previous million votes solid by California legislators, Democrats voted “no” lower than 1% of the time. This CBS piece explains why Digital Democracy is a “game changer.”
Our dissection of California’s unparalleled pandemic-era unemployment fiasco: The state despatched tens of billions of {dollars} to scammers whereas denying the claims of determined employees who misplaced stability, houses, even their lives. We discovered employees on Fb, Reddit, Telegram, and from greater than 500 responses to our on-line survey. Our calculator invited readers to see how lengthy they’d have to work to earn what the state misplaced to pandemic unemployment fraud (for somebody incomes $80,000 a mere 250,000 years.)
A California wildfire tracker that tracks real-time flare ups and highlights historic tendencies. The map visualizes lively giant fires utilizing factors and fireplace perimeter shapes, whereas a time-lapse reveals historic wildfire burn areas from 1900 ahead, and illustrates the prices in {dollars} and lives.
When California grew to become the primary state to suggest reparations to Black folks for the harms of slavery and discrimination we responded with a multimedia card deck explainer to resolve debates over info, resembling whether or not slavery had existed in California, and to carry ducking lawmakers accountable. We constructed a customizable software so folks might see what could be owed them, and a Google kind solicited questions for added protection. State fee members cited our work to clarify theirs; the chairperson touted our calculator.
And our reporting documented an accelerating development of California hospitals shuttering or suspending maternity wards. After we initially revealed, in 12 counties, no hospitals delivered infants — and our Census tract evaluation confirmed Latino and low-income communities hit hardest. To boost this story, we interactively mapped hole areas, constructed a sortable desk of ward/hospital closures, and embedded unfurlable playing cards wealthy with Digital Democracy element about key legislators — plus a clickable hyperlink to electronic mail them. Now they’re citing our story as they pursue a legislative repair.
The Markup wins basic excellence, small newsroom
Judges stated The Markup’s work was: “Outstanding, actionable journalism that given the subject manner could not have come at a more consequential moment.”
Sisi Wei, editor-in-chief of The Markup from 2022-24 and now CalMatters chief impression officer, accepted the award.
“The Markup is getting this award for the very first time and it is so exciting. …I am very, very proud of our entire team,” Wei stated.
“We are very well known for how we do our data-driven reporting and our software-driven reporting,” Wei stated. “We’ve managed to turn that technical expertise and marry that with making sure that we’re giving people real, impactful and actionable things to do once they read our investigative journalism. How can they make their lives better, how can they change things, what information do they need in order to do that? And are we giving it to them.”
The Markup additionally gained the Collect award for community-centered journalism and likewise beforehand gained the Excellence in Know-how Reporting awardeach within the small newsroom class.
