In summary
The awards honor the accomplishments of news and legal leaders whose work embodies the values of the First Amendment.
Sisi Wei was honored as the 2024 Freedom of the Press Rising Star by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Wednesday.
The award honors a rising journalist, media lawyer, or organization that has made great strides in defending freedom of the press or who has conquered significant roadblocks in the course of telling an important story. Sisi was editor-in-chief of The Markup and is now chief impact officer of the newly combined organization of CalMatters and The Markup.
“This year’s honorees embody the tenacity, commitment, and courage that underpin a free press,” said Stephen J. Adler, chair of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “Across journalism and the law, their work shows us the true power of the First Amendment to make informed democracy a reality.”
The committee noted Sisi’s ability for “empowering her journalism colleagues for years, whether it was overseeing editorial teams at ProPublica to produce investigations that served the public interest; her leadership at OpenNews and the DEI Coalition to foster a more anti-racist and equitable journalism industry; or her current role at CalMatters and The Markup, where she is developing new ways for journalism to drive positive change.” Sisi accepted the award at the Oct. 16 ceremony at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City.
“Joining The Markup two years ago gave me the opportunity to try and build out a journalistic mission that’s centered deliberately and clearly around impact,” Sisi said. “Impact, which we define as tangible improvements in people’s quality of life, and as journalism that restores people’s sense of agency, and does not further feelings of hopelessness. In the last two years, we did just that.”
“I think Sisi is a quiet revolutionary. She’s not a person who will be out there championing her own work. The way she affects change is by equipping other people to do it,” Nabiha Syed, The Markup’s former CEO, said when the committee asked her about Sisi’s honor. “[Her] work is about amplifying the best of what is around to tell the truth in the most comprehensive way.” Nabiha was the committee’s inaugural Rising Star Award recipient in 2018 when she was a media lawyer at Buzzfeed News. She is now executive director of the Mozilla Foundation.
The Markup, under Sisi’s leadership, was recognized as the best small digital newsroom in the world by the Online News Association earlier this year. And Sisi’s role as the chief impact officer of the CalMatters and The Markup allows her to now bring her impact strategy to the nearly 100-person organization, and forge new ways for journalism to be actionable, serve communities and drive real-world impact.
“Earlier this year, CalMatters and The Markup joined forces — becoming one newsroom, doing work that holds the powerful accountable, whether ‘the powerful’ means California legislators or tech companies,” Sisi said. “Now, as the Chief Impact Officer, I get the privilege of focusing even more on how our work as journalists can have greater impact. I really can’t wait to see what we’ll have done in a year.”
This impact model pioneered by Sisi helps “people understand how to take action,” said Jeremy Gilbert, Medill’s Knight Professor in Digital Media Strategy.
“It’s a very different kind of journalism, but it’s not at all surprising given the nature of Sisi’s character. About her desire to change things for the better, not just tell the stories, but help the community improve itself.”
Previously, Sisi was co-executive director of OpenNews and founder of the DEI Coalition, a journalism community dedicated to sharing knowledge and taking concrete action in service of a more anti-racist, equitable and just journalism industry. She was assistant managing editor at ProPublica from 2018 to 2020, where she oversaw three editorial teams focused on news apps, interactive storytelling and visual investigations. She also managed large, interdisciplinary investigations across the newsroom, one of which won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 2020. In 2021, the International Women’s Media Foundation awarded Sisi the Gwen Ifill Award, which recognizes an outstanding woman journalist of color whose work carries forward Ifill’s legacy, especially by serving as a role model and mentor for young journalists.
The other 2024 Freedom of the Press award recipients include: Stephen Paul Engelberg, Editor-in-Chief at ProPublica; Maria Hinojosa, Founder and President at Futuro Media; Josie Huang, Reporter at LAist; and Mazin Sidahmed, Co-Founder at Documented.