Case Study: The Marshall Project accelerates collaborative data journalism with Observable

The Marshall Project builds data tools in hours with Observable

The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system, faced the challenge of moving beyond a siloed data workflow. Their data team wanted to empower reporters and editors to collaboratively explore data, but found tools like Google Docs and Jupyter notebooks were either not built for data or created a barrier with code. They needed a solution from Observable that would make data interaction intuitive and sharing natural for the entire newsroom.

By implementing Observable's notebooks, the team could quickly build and share interactive data tools via a simple URL. This allowed less technical staff to intuitively explore datasets, leading to a shared understanding of complex information and more efficient investigations. Observable enabled The Marshall Project to rapidly develop custom, ephemeral analysis tools, such as an interactive map built in a couple of hours, which saved significant time and effort. The solution also promoted transparency, as the team could publish their notebooks alongside stories to show their methodology.

The Marshall Project