ProPublica is expanding its Documenting Hate project, including new partnerships and staff.
Launched in January of 2017, the project tracks hate crimes and bias incidents in the U.S. It includes hundreds of journalists from more than 140 newsrooms nationwide. Documenting Hate has received thousands of tips from all 50 states, and produced more than 100 stories last year.
Participating reporters have used tips to document hate in schools, spikes in bias-related occurrences on public transportation and spates of Islamophobic and anti-Semitic incidents, among many other disturbing patterns and episodes. ProPublica investigated why police do such a poor job at tracking hate crimes and pulled the curtain back on how white supremacists operate both online and off.
We’ve already seen impact from our reporting and this year, we’ll have even more journalists collaborating on the project.
This month, we hired Rahima Nasa as a reporting fellow on the project. She comes to ProPublica from WNYC, and graduated from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in December. She’ll spend the year with us reporting on hate crimes and telling personal stories from the tips we’ve received.
Documenting Hate will also add two broad-ranging partnerships:
The first is with Race/Related, a popular New York Times newsletter and a section on the Times’ site. Their reporters have begun using the Documenting Hate database to source tips for their stories. The Times will host a Facebook Live about the project in March.
The other is with News 21, a national program to train young journalists headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Journalism students in the 2018 News 21 program are working with ProPublica to report stories using tips submitted to the project, as well as analyzing data gathered through ProPublica’s reporting.
Finally, ProPublica is planning an event with another media partner — KPCC, Southern California Public Radio. The Los Angeles event will examine the state of hate in Southern California and will be held in the late spring.
Want to get involved in the project? Here’s how you can help:
Tell us your story or help spread the word about the project. We’re collecting tips from victims and witnesses of hate incidents.
Follow our reporting. We share the latest stories on Facebook and Twitter.
- We’re dedicated to investigating areas of this beat that we haven’t already covered. What have we missed? Let us know at documentinghate@propublica.org.