Undark Magazine
Undark logo
Type of site
data magazine
Available inEnglish
Founder(s)Deborah Blum and Tom Zeller Jr.
IndustryMedia
URLwww.undark.org
CommercialNo
LaunchedMarch 2016; 7 years ago (2016-03)

Undark Magazine is a nonprofit online publication exploring science as a "frequently wondrous, sometimes contentious, and occasionally troubling byproduct of human culture."[1] The name Undark is a deliberate reference[2] to a radium-based luminous paint product called Undark that ultimately proved toxic if not deadly for those who handled it.[3][4]

The publication's tag line is "Truth, Beauty, Science."[5][6]

The magazine is published under the auspices of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[7]

Undark publishes a mix of long-form journalism, shorter features, essays, op-eds, questions and answers, and book excerpts and reviews. All content is freely available to read, and most is available for republishing by other publications and websites.[8][9] Many large national and international publications, including Scientific American,[10] The Atlantic,[11] Smithsonian,[12] NPR,[13] and Outside [14] have republishing relationships with Undark.

Undark was jointly founded in 2016 by Pulitzer Prize-winning science author Deborah Blum and former New York Times journalist Tom Zeller Jr., who serves as editor-in-chief of the magazine.[15][16][17]

Awards

Undark has earned numerous awards for its journalism, including being named a finalist for a 2022 National Magazine Award in the Reporting category.[18]

On February 19, 2019, Undark was awarded a George Polk Award for Environmental Reporting. The award honored photojournalist Larry C. Price and contributing reporters for the magazine's multinational, multipart exposé on global air pollution, called "Breathtaking".[19][20] The series also won the 2019 Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award from the Online News Association.[21]

The magazine's work has been anthologized in The Best American Science & Nature Writing book series.[22]

In 2017, Undark was a finalist for an Online Journalism Award in the Feature category for its series "Wear & Tear",[23] which explored the global impacts of the leather tanning and textile industries.[24] In 2018, three Undark contributors were named as finalists in the National Association of Science Writers' Science and Society Awards.[25]

References

  1. ^ "About Undark Magazine". Undark Magazine. Knight Science Journalism Fellowships.
  2. ^ "About Us - Undark". Undark. Retrieved 2018-05-02.
  3. ^ Blum, Deborah. "Life in the Undark". WIRED. Retrieved 2018-05-02.
  4. ^ "Can Undark go where no other online science mag has gone before?". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved 2022-10-13.
  5. ^ "About Us". Undark Magazine. Retrieved 2019-11-06.
  6. ^ "Connecting science with society, Undark hopes to help elevate the standards for science journalism". Nieman Lab. Retrieved 2022-10-13.
  7. ^ Horgan, Richard (May 3, 2016). "A New Twist for MIT's Knight Science Journalism Program". Adweek. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  8. ^ "Submissions". Undark Magazine. Knight Science Journalism Fellowships.
  9. ^ "Republishing Guidelines". Undark Magazine. Retrieved 9 February 2018.
  10. ^ "Stories by Undark Magazine". Scientific American. Retrieved 9 February 2018.
  11. ^ "Articles republished from Undark Magazine". The Atlantic. Retrieved 9 February 2018.
  12. ^ "When a Medical "Cure" Makes Things Much, Much Worse". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 9 February 2018.
  13. ^ "Why We Should Say Someone Is A 'Person With An Addiction,' Not An Addict". NPR.org. Retrieved 2018-05-02.
  14. ^ "The Allure and Perils of Hydropower". Outside Magazine. Retrieved 9 February 2018.
  15. ^ "Connecting science with society, Undark hopes to help elevate the standards for science journalism". Nieman Labs. Retrieved 9 February 2018.
  16. ^ "Can Undark go where no other online science mag has gone before?". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved 9 February 2018.
  17. ^ "Recent and archived work by Tom Zeller Jr. for The New York Times". New York Times. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
  18. ^ "All the Stories Nominated for the 2022 National Magazine Awards". Longreads. 2022-02-25. Retrieved 2022-07-08.
  19. ^ Undark Magazine "Breathtaking"
  20. ^ "Winners | LIU". Long Island University. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  21. ^ "Breathtaking". Online Journalism Awards. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  22. ^ "The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2019". HMH Books. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  23. ^ Undark Magazine "Wear & Tear"
  24. ^ "Wear and Tear". Online Journalism Awards. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  25. ^ "2018 Science in Society Journalism Award winners". National Association of Science Writers. Retrieved 21 February 2019.

External links


Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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