Leadership in Diversity & Solidarity: Sisi Wei
Sisi Wei is Chief Impact Officer at CalMatters and The Markup, where she is forging new ways for journalism to restore readers' sense of agency, serve communities, and drive real-world impact. Sisi was Editor-in-Chief of The Markup from 2022-2024. During that time, The Markup's journalism had an incredible impact, including dozens of companies removing the privacy-invading Meta Pixel from their websites, local and state governments across the country ending or fixing their usage of biased algorithms, and the filing of multiple class action lawsuits. Under Sisi's tenure, for the first time, The Markup published a citizen-science guide for the public, story recipes for journalists, a digital zine, and service pieces directed by community needs. Previously, Sisi was co-executive director of OpenNews, and assistant managing editor at ProPublica. In 2024, Sisi won the Freedom of the Press Rising Star Award. In 2021, the International Women’s Media Foundation awarded Sisi the Gwen Ifill Award.
ABOUT THE RECIPIENT: Sisi Wei is a transformative leader who has turned The Markup into a diverse organization dedicated to having a real-world impact on people’s lives.
During her first year as editor-in-chief, she redefined The Markup’s hiring practices to be among the most respectful and equitable in the industry. As a result, over the course of 12 months, The Markup’s newsroom staff has gone from 39% to 65% journalists of color. Wei’s team of investigative editors, all hired after she started at The Markup, is 50% women of color — which also means that the Markup masthead is 60% women of color.
The Markup’s journalism, under Wei’s guidance, has also transformed. Previously, The Markup’s mission was to report on how technology shapes our lives and to watch Big Tech. Now, The Markup’s mission is to challenge technology to serve the public good, and for its journalism to have a real-world impact and serve historically marginalized communities.
The Markup has tackled multiple investigations highlighting how technology and algorithms have perpetuated racist stereotypes in ways that are directly harming students, unhoused people, and anyone suffering from the digital divide. For the first time, The Markup has published stories by community members themselves, amplifying their voice, their perspectives, and the solutions they’ve come up with as a part of multiple investigative packages. Her reporters have visited communities to deliver workshops on misinformation firsthand, after reporting on the community’s misinformation needs. To make sure the newsroom’s work has an impact, its journalism has had a renewed focus on reporting on solutions, not just problems.
Throughout her career, Wei has valued helping fellow journalists of color succeed. She is a longtime mentor of multiple AAJA members—often those who are struggling to find a way to combine journalism, data, and technology—because she wants to pass forward the extraordinary mentorship she received from AAJA past president Paul Cheung.
Wei’s deep advocacy for more inclusive newsrooms, especially within tech media, is fueled by her own experience. She was frequently the only woman of color in past leadership roles, reflecting gender inequality that persists across the industry. Also, growing up as a Chinese American immigrant, she had to navigate two worlds, being one of the few students of color in predominantly white schools in the U.S., and was labeled "American" during summers spent with her grandparents in China.
Wei is motivated to make a lasting impact on society and strengthen people’s abilities to make decisions for themselves and their communities.