Julia Angwin, the editor in chief of new tech news site The Markup, explains its method to covering stories.
Angwin writes, “The Markup is here to help you sort that out. We are a nonprofit newsroom with an unparalleled roster of quantitative journalists who are committed to finding the true meaning in large amounts of data. Our programmers use the latest computational methods—from large-scale data collection to artificial intelligence—to pierce the veil of secrecy around tech used by big businesses and the government.
“The Markup uses these and other cutting edge methods to collect and analyze evidence showing how technology is being used and how it affects you, your family, and your community. Our goal is simple: We want to rebuild trust in journalism, one dataset at a time.
“We pursue stories through what we’re calling The Markup Method, an approach rooted in the scientific method. It’s a three-step process:
“Build. We ask questions and collect or build the datasets we need to test our hypotheses.
“Bulletproof. We bulletproof our stories through a rigorous review process, inviting external experts and even the subjects of investigations to challenge our findings.
“Show our work. We share our research methods by publishing our datasets and our code. And we explain our approach in detailed methodological write-ups.”
Read more here.
