The Markup’s investigative series on internet disparities, “Still Loading,” has won the Scripps Howard Excellence in Innovation award.
\ “The Markup story was an innovative project from start to finish,” the announcement said. “The final product illuminated the effects of systemic racism and ultimately will have a wide-ranging impact.”
\ Our investigation found that four internet service providers—AT&T, Verizon, EarthLink, and CenturyLink—disproportionately offered lower-income, least-White, and historically redlined neighborhoods slow internet service for the same price as for speedy connections in other parts of town. The Markup was the first to show where inequitable effects of tier flattening (charging internet customers the same rate for differing levels of service) have occurred, and we published multiple resources that allow anyone to look into internet disparities in their own area.
\ The Markup has continued to cover the disparate impact created by tier flattening in 2023, and has created more resources for anyone to look into internet price and speed disparities in their neighborhood, along with a guide for how you can report discrepancies between what an internet company advertised to the public and what it reported to the Federal Communications Commission.
Resources for the public
Our original series
\ You can read our entire Still Loading series here.
\ Congratulations to the team for the recognition of their hard work across our original investigation and entire series. Congratulations, too, to all of this year’s Scripps Howard Award winners.
Credits: The Markup
\ Also published here
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