The MISSING THEM project has been named a finalist for the 2021 Knight Award for Public Service, hosted by the Online Journalism Awards. The Online Journalism Awards awards five projects to honor general excellence, engaged journalism, immersive storytelling, public service and climate change reporting. The previous winner of the Knight Award for Public Service was the 1619 Project and other finalists in 2021 include The Plunder of West Papau as part of Al Jazeera’s 101 East and Tracking Covid-19 in American Nursing Homes by The New York Times.
More than 30,000 New Yorkers have died of COVID-19. Yet Black and Latino New Yorkers as well as immigrants living in low-income neighborhoods are rarely reflected in the obituary pages. MISSING THEM is a journalism project aiming to close the gap in representation through a new hyper-local crowdsourcing and storytelling project focused on a handful of New York City neighborhoods hit hardest by COVID-19.
Congratulations to the MISSING THEM team and The City for their excellent reporting and service!