St. Louis’ media landscape is set to expand with a national investigative outlet.
The Marshall Project is opening a St. Louis operation. The nonprofit newsroom covers stories that aim to expose problems in the criminal justice system.
The Marshall Project-St. Louis will cover the metro area and surrounding communities, including parts of Illinois and across Missouri. Reporters on the team are Jesse Bogan, recently from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Katie Moore from the Kansas City Star, and Ivy Scott from the Boston Globe.
Marlon A. Walker, the managing editor of local for the Marshall Project, leads the development of new newsrooms — including the St. Louis outfit.
St. Louis Public Radio spoke with him over the phone to learn more about the new effort.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Jessica Rogen: What need will the St. Louis office aim to serve?
Marlon Walker: We had people tell us overwhelmingly that there's a dissatisfaction with in-depth local news on criminal justice and a sense of no real priority from a news organization in town to take a lead.
Many have turned to national organizations, including investigative outlets, to rely on telling stories locally. A lot of people are relying on social media for their news consumption and really looking to alternative media in terms of podcasts and, I hate to say, things that are not broadcast television and traditional newspapers.
Rogen: What is the Marshall Project model?
Walker: We're wanting to be additive. And so we work off of a partnership model. We'll be co-publishing with other organizations around the region and around the state, but we're also going to be co-reporting with organizations. Because with the cuts that the news industry has taken, not every newsroom is able to do the same level of work that they still want to do.
This is work that they may have put off. This is work that they may have not been thinking about. Because again, we're taking a holistic approach to covering news, and we're going into communities, and we're really talking to people about what it is that they are dealing with in their everyday lives, and how we can really shine a light on some of the harms that exist and some of those things that people have really just gotten used to.
Rogen: What does impact look like for you?
Walker: Traditionally, people see impact as the action that's taken from a story. People see impact as the number of people who have responded to a story. We see impact in the way we partnered on a story, and we've shown an organization that there's a way that they can do this work without being overwhelmed because of the lack of resources that they have. Because we agree with them that the story is important, and we find a way to do a lot of that work, or to take that story off their hands and just give them an opportunity to publish it with us. We see impact in so many different ways: building awareness, showing up to meetings.
There's something about knowing that someone is watching you as an organization or as an agency, state, local, whatever it is, that really affords people a chance to be held accountable.
This story has been updated.