Author: Sapna Maheshwari / Source: New York Times
Bryan Derballa for The New York Times
For the past year, the investigative journalist Julia Angwin has been busy building The Markup, a nonprofit news site dedicated to scrutinizing technology and its effects on society.
The Markup raised more than $23 million in funding, a testament to the reputation that Ms.
Angwin, the site’s editor in chief, and another of its founders, Jeff Larson, had established through their work at ProPublica, which they left last year. But on Monday evening, Ms. Angwin was fired from The Markup via email, just months before the site’s planned July start date. On Tuesday, five of the site’s seven editorial staff members resigned, citing her dismissal as the reason.Ms. Angwin said in a letter to Craig Newmark, the Craigslist founder and the site’s biggest donor, that she was being pushed out by Sue Gardner, The Markup’s third founder, who is also its executive director and was the head of the Wikimedia Foundation until 2014.
Ms. Gardner wanted to change the site’s mission to “one based on advocacy against the tech companies” instead of “producing meaningful data-centered journalism about the impact of technology on society,” Ms. Angwin wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times.
Ms. Gardner disputed that characterization.
“There is no change in the mission or purpose of The Markup,” she said in response to questions from The Times. “We are, pure and simple, a news outlet. We always have been and always will be. Our goals and purpose haven’t changed.
”Ms. Gardner said Tuesday afternoon that the site had issues with Ms. Angwin involving “leadership, management and willingness to accept feedback and training to grow as an editor in chief.”
Mr. Larson, who will succeed Ms. Angwin, added that The Markup had hoped to have almost 36 reporters in place and begin publishing by early 2019. He said it wanted to see more progress in areas like recruitment, a process that would allow journalists to pitch story ideas to the site and the amount of publishable work ready to go on the site when it went live.
Asked to respond to the criticism from Ms. Gardner and Mr. Larson, Ms. Angwin pointed to the exodus of the editorial staff after her dismissal. “I feel like the support of the newsroom for my leadership is all the testimony that anyone could ever ask for as a leader,” she said.
Ms. Angwin’s credentials and vision for the site helped attract interest from journalists, other media outlets and donors, including a $20 million gift from Mr. Newmark.
“I’m devastated to be forced out of the organization I conceived to pursue rigorous, evidence-based tech accountability journalism,” Ms. Angwin said in an emailed statement. “I will continue to pursue that mission and hope to find other ways to help build this field.”
While Ms. Angwin was at ProPublica, the site became known as “big tech’s scariest watchdog.” Before joining ProPublica, she worked…
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