Amplifying the power of investigative journalism

When The Markup, an organization that challenges technology to serve the public good,  hired Inkhouse in 2021, the focus was bringing awareness to CEO Nabiha Syed. There was a need to change public perception and establish credibility for their work to attract donor/investor interest to continue to scale the organization. Since then, their goals and our strategies have evolved to further amplify the organization’s investigations to reach more people—the community (general public), industry (other news organizations and the news industry in general) and, importantly, policymakers.

We first focused on building customized thought leadership programs for each spokesperson— their CEO (award and speaking opportunities and top-tier profile stories with major local and national publications. Nabiha is a First Amendment attorney, so we were able to offer her unique point of view on hot and relevant themes in the news cycle, including tech regulation); their EIC (media commentary opportunities) and their editors (speaking engagements). For all,  we leveraged each of their expertise for rapid response media opportunities.

Additionally, in order to elevate the brand as a policymaking champion and generate more widespread awareness, Inkhouse’s program amplifies The Markup’s published  investigations. Again, we develop a unique media strategy for each major investigation to ultimately get more eyes on the data and insight within the piece. To then take brand awareness to the next level, we submit for key industry awards in both the media and tech sectors and, to appeal to the consumer audience, we build relationships with social influencers who typically share “tech impact” information to extend the reach of the investigations’ content. Our integrated approach has also included design and video creation to build buzz, define the brand and translate complex ideas into easily digestible, dynamic content.

Prior to our engagement, The Markup appeared mostly at journalism-focused events. Today, we have put the organization  in front of new audiences in order to attract donors, investors and new networking opportunities. Our results include securing  top-tier pieces and regular feature coverage in Fast Company, Fortune, The New York Times, PBS, TechCrunch, NPR and more. The Markup has been named winner of Fast Company’s 2022 World Changing Ideas award and 2022 Most Innovative Companies award. We also secured multiple speaking opportunities at big name tech conferences for Nabiha,  including SXSW and The Next Web, Women in Tech.

Our strategy and approach has supported incredible results for the brand from the regulatory standpoint. The Markup has sparked or been cited in more than 20 Congressional investigations since we began working with them, making a major long-term impact on how the tech industry operates.