‘Documenting COVID-19’ Project Wins First Place in National Headliners Awards

The Brown Institute is pleased to announce that our Impact Grant ‘Documenting COVID-19‘ has won first place in the 2022 National Headliners Awards for their “Uncounted: The hidden death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic” investigation. This ongoing collaboration with MuckRock and USA Today found that death certificates, long prone to error, have gotten worse during the pandemic, resulting in thousands of uncounted COVID-19 deaths.

The award judges commented:

“Accurate reporting of deaths in a community is an important indicator of regional health and has legal and historic significance. Either from shame, fear or for political reasons, COVID deaths are going unreported in significant numbers in multiple jurisdictions. Kudos to the Documenting COVID-19 project at MuckRock and Columbia University’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation — working with the USA TODAY network — for bringing this practice to light through text, video, links and graphics.”

See the full scope of the “Uncounted” investigation on MuckRock.