FAQ: How The Marshall Project Is Covering the 2024 Election

Crime and felony justice are as soon as once more widespread themes on this 12 months’s presidential campaigns, leaving voters to kind via misinformation and deceptive claims. We all know it may be difficult for anybody to sift via the election noise to search out what’s true.

All through this political season, The Marshall Venture is concentrated on offering readers and viewers such as you with correct, well timed context and evaluation about related felony justice and immigration tales, from the presidential stage to some state and native races and poll initiatives.

Right here’s extra about who’re and the way we’re protecting the 2024 election:

What’s The Marshall Venture?

We’re a nonpartisan, nonprofit information group that seeks to create and maintain a way of nationwide urgency in regards to the U.S. felony justice system. We have an effect on the system via journalism, rendering it extra truthful, efficient, clear and humane.

Since our founding in 2014, our reporting has spurred new laws, prompted official investigations, improved situations in particular prisons and jails, gotten individuals out of detention and been cited by everybody from Supreme Court docket justices to jailhouse attorneys.

Prison justice is primarily a neighborhood concern, ruled by state and native legal guidelines which might be enforced by native authorities. That’s why we’re constructing information groups that cowl native felony justice points for native audiences, together with in Cleveland, Ohio, and Jackson, Mississippi.

What ought to I anticipate from The Marshall Venture’s election protection?

Political campaigns typically function deceptive claims and debates about crime, felony justice and immigration. By means of our deeply researched tales on key felony justice subjects, we’ll present necessary context and historical past that will help you assess what the candidates are saying and what their data present. We’ll publish clear, accessible explanations of complicated subjects that come up this 12 months.

And we’ll discover how crime and felony justice weigh on the minds of voters. It will embody our landmark survey of the political beliefs of individuals behind bars, who’re extra politically numerous as a gaggle than many may suppose.

How do you select tales to report on?

We have a tendency to decide on tales that aren’t being coated robustly by different information organizations — or we establish angles of a high-profile story which have but to be explored. In terms of a narrative as huge and sprawling as a presidential marketing campaign, each U.S. information outlet is protecting it not directly. We’ll zero in on an important felony justice and immigration points within the marketing campaign that will help you make knowledgeable choices as voters, residents and neighborhood members.

What aren’t you going to cowl?

Our important focus is felony justice reporting, so we received’t cowl the final ups and downs of every candidate — aka “horse race” protection — and we received’t write about different insurance policies or points. You may not often discover us protecting breaking information. We all know fast-paced political information cycles may be overwhelming — we hope to earn your consideration with considerate, bigger-picture tales.

We are able to’t cowl each single story or angle that touches on felony justice or immigration and the election. We’ll remember what individuals marvel or must know as our journalists uncover info via authentic reporting, analyzing knowledge and extra.

How do you make sure that your journalism is just not biased?

The Marshall Venture is a journalism outlet, not an advocacy group. We don’t promote or endorse any political events or candidates, insurance policies or opinions, and we don’t strategy any concern with an final result in thoughts. We discuss to sources who’ve a spread of beliefs and positions, and our reporters observe the info the place they lead.

We purpose to provide journalism that’s correct in its info, truthful in its interpretation and presentation and impartial in its judgments — in a phrase, reliable. Learn our Code of Ethics.

Why aren’t you calling Donald Trump a “felon”?

We don’t use phrases similar to “felon” to explain anybody, together with former President Trump. Right here’s why: We purpose to be as clear as attainable, and truthful to the individuals we cowl. Phrases similar to “felon” or “inmate” could also be generally utilized in different information tales, however they don’t seem to be impartial descriptors. Many individuals who’ve been convicted of crimes or have served time in jail expertise these phrases as demeaning and degrading. And such labels can have lasting, damaging results, following individuals round for all times, typically lengthy after they full their sentences.

Years in the past, we developed a coverage primarily based on the precept of “people-first” language; this strategy avoids turning one side of an individual’s life into an all-encompassing label. Our coverage is just not an try and exonerate anybody or decrease victims’ experiences. It’s designed to advertise precision and accuracy and to convey the humanity of people who find themselves routinely dehumanized by the media and society. Learn extra in our “Language Venture” from 2021.

How can I discover your election protection?

You’ll be able to view our web site’s election web page or obtain tales by subscribing to our free newsletters and by following us on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Fb. We routinely co-publish our work with native and nationwide information shops throughout the nation, so that you’ll discover us of their newsprint, TV and radio exhibits and web sites.

How do you get information to individuals behind bars?

Our award-winning print publication Information Inside circulates freed from cost in additional than 1,000 prisons and jails throughout america. Our video sequence Inside Story — written, directed and produced by previously incarcerated employees of The Marshall Venture — examines the realities of the U.S. felony justice system and has been considered by greater than 1,000,000 individuals in prisons and jails.

Who funds The Marshall Venture?

We rely on many companions to assist our work, together with these beneficiant donors, in addition to many members whose contributions make us stronger. For those who imagine in what we do, right here’s how you can donate.

How can I ship you a narrative concept or information tip?

Right here’s how you can attain us for basic inquiries, to contact a particular employees member or to ship a narrative concept.