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. Within a few weeks, he was contacted by several criminal justice organizations that offered funding support. 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 and in October 2014. 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. Until October 2018, Life Inside was co-published with VICE. 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 prison abuse and rape, 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.
Organization and funding
As of October 2018, The Marshall Project had a staff of 37, with eight additional contributing writers, five of whom are currently incarcerated. The Marshall Project is funded by donations and grants from foundations and individuals. In July 2014, Capital New York quoted Barsky as saying that the project would have an annual budget of $5 million, the budget was close to half-committed for the first two years, including three major institutional commitments that Barsky declined to specify, plus individual donors including himself. In November 2014, The Huffington Post reported that Barsky was responsible for 20% of the project's funding. As of May 2017, the foundations and individuals listed on the website as supporters include the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies, Charles K. Edmondson, Jr. Foundation, Ford Foundation, David Greenspan, the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Neil Barsky and Joan S. Davidson Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Rockefeller Family Fund, and Timothy and Michele Barakett Foundation.
Critical reception
Joe Pompeo wrote of The Marshall Project that it had had a great start due to a mix of good initial publicity and association with high-profile names. The Marshall Project has also been identified as part of a new and experimental non-profit journalism format. It has been compared with the non-profit ProPublica, the Center for Investigative Reporting, InsideClimate News, and The Texas Tribune, and also with recent for-profit journalistic experiments such as Vox and FiveThirtyEight. The Marshall Project has also been praised for its timely launch given current bipartisan interest in criminal justice reform in the United States. The Marshall Project has been compared with the Innocence Project, but distinguishes itself because its focus is not merely on innocent people ensnared by the criminal justice system but also on guilty people whose rights to due process, fair trial, and proportionate punishment are violated.
Awards and honors
In 2016, The Marshall Project and partner ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for "An Unbelievable Story of Rape" described as "a startling examination and exposé of law enforcement's enduring failures to investigate reports of rape properly and to comprehend the traumatic effects on its victims", as well as a George Polk Award for the same piece. In 2019, this piece was adapted into the Netflix series Unbelievable. In 2017, The Marshall Project won a National Magazine Award for general excellence in the category of Literature, Science and Politics. This was the website's first National Magazine Award. Also in 2017, The Marshall Project was named as a collaborator when This American Life won a Peabody Award for "Anatomy of Doubt". In 2018, The Marshall Project was awarded a national Edward R. Murrow Award for "Overall Excellence" for a small digital newsroom. It also won the award for General Excellence in Online Journalism from Online News Association. Its 2017 documentary series "We Are Witnesses" was nominated for the 39th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Award.
