 Undark logo | |
Type of site | data magazine |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Founder(s) | Deborah Blum andTom Zeller Jr. |
| Industry | Media |
| URL | www |
| Commercial | No |
| Launched | March 2016; 9 years ago (2016-03) |
Undark Magazine is a nonprofitonline publication exploringscience 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 calledUndark 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 theKnight Science Journalism Fellowships program at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology.[7]
Undark publishes a mix oflong-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, includingScientific American,[10]The Atlantic,[11]Smithsonian,[12]NPR,[13] andOutside[14] have republishing relationships withUndark.
Undark was jointly founded in 2016 byPulitzer Prize-winning science authorDeborah Blum and formerNew York Times journalistTom Zeller Jr., who serves aseditor-in-chief of the magazine.[6][4][15]
Undark has earned numerous awards for its journalism, including being named a finalist for a 2022National Magazine Award in the Reporting category.[16]
On February 19, 2019,Undark was awarded aGeorge Polk Award for Environmental Reporting. The award honored photojournalistLarry C. Price and contributing reporters for the magazine's multinational, multipart exposé on global air pollution, called "Breathtaking".[17][18] The series also won the 2019 Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award from theOnline News Association.[19]
The magazine's work has been anthologized inThe Best American Science & Nature Writing book series.[20]
In 2017,Undark was a finalist for anOnline Journalism Award in the Feature category for its series "Wear & Tear",[21] which explored the global impacts of the leather tanning and textile industries.[22] In 2018, threeUndark contributors were named as finalists in theNational Association of Science Writers' Science and Society Awards.[23]