Today, The Marshall Project is launching a new initiative called Investigate This! to empower criminal justice journalism in local communities. We want to connect journalists and media professionals with resources and data to help with their creation of strong, original stories that have the potential for significant local impact.
Our team of reporters and editors has created story toolkits filled with reporting resources, data downloads, multimedia assets, shareable illustrations, FOIA guidance, expert sources, style guidance and more. Each toolkit includes a live webinar and video demos to help reporters gain insights into the nuances and opportunities around covering the criminal justice system, incarcerated people and their loved ones.
Investigate This! is launching with three story toolkits that can help local newsrooms examine:
Sharing our work has long been a guiding principle of The Marshall Project and the organization has partnered with hundreds of media outlets since its founding a decade ago. Investigate This! builds on that philosophy, and our experience localizing national datasets on FBI crime statistics, American Rescue Plan Act funding and books banned in prisons. These reporting resources are also designed to be useful for all journalistic mediums, and our team is piloting audio content, including spots for newscasts, that we’ll be sharing with local radio stations.
“We are eager to meet the evolving needs of local newsrooms during this critical time for our nation’s democracy in order to expand access to nuanced criminal justice reporting at the local level where there’s the potential for significant impact,” said Michelle Billman, partnership and engagement associate for The Marshall Project who is helping to lead Investigate This!.
Alongside the toolkits, The Marshall Project is building out a robust resource center for journalists covering criminal justice, which will include style guidance on using people-first language when covering stories about incarceration. One overarching goal is to help newsrooms regularly incorporate the voices of people in prison or who were formerly incarcerated, along with their friends and family members. There will also be templates for public records requests and tips from our reporters on how to track down the people most familiar with the criminal justice system, including background experts who can contextualize complex data.
Ahead of the national election, we plan to release new toolkits on analyzing FBI crime data to combat election disinformation and localizing the results of our political survey of more than 30,000 incarcerated people across the country. Beyond that, The Marshall Project will be regularly releasing new toolkits.
We’re also building a collection of videos and articles on the style, standards, and sourcing considerations we make while covering the criminal justice beat.
The project is overseen by a team with deep experience in local news, community engagement reporting, data journalism and media partnerships, including:
Michelle Billman is a former public radio news director, who managed small local newsrooms with limited resources for more than a decade.
Ruth Baldwin is our editorial director whose experience creating and overseeing The Marshall Project’s partnership strategy helped to conceive of and inform this project.
David Eads, our data editor, led key contributions from data team members Weihua Li and Andrew Rodriguez Calderón. Their experiments in generative journalism highlighted the potential of this effort.
Nicole Lewis is our engagement editor who oversees The Marshall Project’s national and local engagement reporting initiatives. She works to ensure our reporting is resonant and accessible to people most affected by the justice system
Learn more:
Visit https://www.themarshallproject.org/investigate-this to check out the project and sign up for our newsletter, which will announce each new story toolkit. You can also contact Michelle Billman with any questions or to schedule a call at investigatethis@themarshallproject.org.
What exactly will a story toolkit entail?
Each toolkit will include: an introductory webinar, video tutorials, suggested story angles, downloadable data, methodology and data documentation, sourcing tips, FOIA request templates, style guidance and an original illustration for your newsroom to use. Some toolkits will include radio spots that can be adapted with local statistics. Let us know if you’re interested in airing radio spots and if there are other assets we should consider providing!
What is the goal of the Investigate This! Initiative and what problems are you trying to solve?
These toolkits aim to reduce the effort required to produce accountability reporting. We want to give journalists the tools, evidence, leads and data they need to go to affected sources and powerful players and ask, "What's going on here?" At the same time, our goal is to provide assets that help their work build and sustain engaged audiences.
What if a newsroom or journalist has limited resources and time to devote to criminal justice reporting?
These resources provide an accessible entryway into criminal justice and accountability reporting at the local level. We invite newsrooms of all sizes to scale this localized coverage in whatever way works best. You can produce many formats on each topic, from a lengthy local investigation to a one-minute newscast story breaking down your state’s specific data points. Another option is republishing the original story as a way to start offering this coverage to your audience and producing additional localized stories if and when resources allow. Email us at investigatethis@themarshallproject.org to brainstorm your approach.
We wholeheartedly subscribe to the notion of breaking complex tasks into small, manageable pieces, accomplishing ambitious feats with a step-by-step approach. Let’s take that first step together and build up from there!
Why is this project focused on growing criminal justice reporting at the local level?
Research shows that the U.S. criminal justice system affects over one hundred million people and that contact with the criminal justice system decreases civic participation. The impact of this decreased participation is most acutely felt at the local level, where most criminal justice decisions are made.
The criminal justice system differs in every state and city, so there are major variations in how the levers of justice work or don’t work depending on your locale. Regional journalists are best equipped to hold the powerful to account as they may be cited by policymakers and elected officials. Local reporting has the potential to jumpstart meaningful community dialogue that can lead to significant impacts.
Who else can make use of the data downloads?
Anyone can use our data to investigate their community.
College and high school journalists can use these resources to produce accountability reporting as we know student journalists are stepping up to fill the gaps in many news deserts nationwide. Journalism instructors are welcome to incorporate these toolkits into their syllabi and to request virtual guest speakers from TMP’s editorial staff.
Academics, policymakers, elected officials and open source communities can use our data downloads to inform their research and policy while faith leaders and community influencers can reference locally relevant data points in their information-sharing and community engagement efforts.
What kind of feedback are you looking to receive from early users?
We would love to hear what’s helpful in these toolkits and what else you would like to see us create and share. No toolkit is set in stone. We’re planning for many rounds of iteration to best meet your needs. As you start engaging with the toolkits, please email us at investigatethis@themarshallproject.org to share your feedback–no comments are too big or too small.
