Why The Markup joined CalMatters

Sarah Scire of Nieman Lab writes about CalMatters recent acquisition of tech news site The Markup.

Scire writes, “One specific catalyst was seeing Markup stories resonate locally — especially in California, home to many of the tech companies that The Markup covers. (Syed hailed editor-in-chief Sisi Wei‘s ‘visionary leadership’ in finding partners for The Markup’s stories and publishing ‘story recipes’ that help local outlets find disparities in internet offers by neighborhood, investigate censorship in schools, and see if their city is using flawed homeless vulnerability scoring systems.) The other was finding the right match.

“‘We saw that our work really hit a chord when it was rooted in a local place,’ Syed said. ‘Then the question was, well, intellectually this could make sense — it could definitely make sense on the local level — but who’s the right partner? Who’s innovative, who’s stable, who would be interested?’

“The Markup — which has published tools and investigations into Amazon, Facebook, Uber, health care companies, local governments, and more — was also seeking an organization that was fiercely independent.”

Read more here.