Thread by @THECITYNY

1/ By the time journalists from @THECITYNY and @ColumbiaJourn started discussing an idea to memorialize every New Yorker that died due to the coronavirus, about 3,000 lives had already been lost.

That was early April.

2/ It was a number — even at an early stage — that made the project seem too ambitious for a single newsroom to execute.

As the numbers grew daily, it became clear that remembering every New Yorker who died would mean embracing collaboration at all levels.

3/ That idea is now called MISSING THEM — an ambitious collaborative journalism project working with @columbiajourn’s Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, Columbia Journalism Investigations, @newmarkjschool and @THECITYNY.

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4/ COVID-19 has now killed more than 23,000 New Yorkers. Few names — and even fewer faces and stories — have been shared publicly.

Fewer than 5% have been remembered with a paid or staff-written news outlet obituary or other death notice.

5/ The publicized deaths skew male and younger. They also disproportionately come from wealthier areas of the city.

The deaths of groups hardest hit by coronavirus — including recent immigrants living in poorer and more crowded conditions — often go publicly unnoticed.

6/ MISSING THEM seeks to change that.

What we’re doing and how we’re doing it:
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7/ More than a dozen graduate students and recent graduates have worked to confirm the deaths of 1,277 New Yorkers so far, and remember their lives through pictures and stories from those who knew them best.

8/ We’re scouring obituaries on Legacy.com, as well as publications like @nytimes, @NYDailyNews and @SIAdvance.

We’re also reaching out to organizations across the city that are commemorating, both publicly and privately, members who have died from COVID-19.

9/ For example: The Bronx Borough President’s Office maintains a public page of Bronxites who died of the coronavirus.

We’ve also identified names and stories through unions representing teachers, nurses, transportation workers and other civil servants. bronxboropres.nyc.gov/covidmemorial/

10/ In addition, we’ve gathered lists from dozens of city agencies, social media pages and other memorial projects, including @FacesOfCOVID and #NamingTheLost.

11/ A key part of MISSING THEM is community engagement. We’re asking individuals who have lost someone to share their story. Nearly 300 people have reached out to us so far. They are calling our hotline, texting us, emailing or filling out our short form: buff.ly/3eTHWTD

12/ So far, nearly 500 people have reached out with stories of loved ones. That number could reach thousands and perhaps tens of thousands before we’re through.

Here are some of those New Yorkers:

https://twitter.com/THECITYNY/status/1273706672503078913

13/ We know that to reach some of the hardest hit communities, the project needs to be accessible in other languages. With the help of @QPLNYC, we are translating our form and text bot into multiple languages — including Spanish and Chinese. We hope to have those launched soon.

14/ All of the above is flowing into our digital memorial page. This is the first iteration of what this page will look like. We update it a few times a week.

You can search the database by last name or sort by name, age, borough and date of death.

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15/ We’ve also written a few stories along the way.

One story we wrote remembers 48 veterans who died from coronavirus at the New York State Veterans Home in St. Albans’s Queens.

We confirmed 25 of the fatalities—now a part of our memorial.
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16/ We also looked at how expensive obituaries are. For example: The New York Times charges at least $236.34 for a one-day publication in its national edition and online. The New York Daily News said its average obituary rate is nearly $600.

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17/ From the moment we launched this project, we started getting emails from journalists, researchers and others who want to help us find families and write stories about their lost loved ones.

18/ So far, 100 folks have reached out, volunteering their time to help us track down families and write these stories.

Over the next month, we’ll be contacting these folks to vet them and get them started on the project. If you’d like to help, email: [e-mail].

19/ At our meetings, we often say that this isn’t a project about death, but a project about life. Still, we are dealing with some grim material, grieving families and a crisis with no real end in sight. This is tough, emotional work, no matter how you frame it.

20/ But working together helps and it lets us know we’re all in this together.

This is just a snapshot of some of what we’re doing to find all the New Yorkers by working together. There’s so much more to do. Read more about our collaborative effort here: buff.ly/2ZNs1Qg

21/ Finally, if you do know someone who died due to the coronavirus, please let us know. Here’s how to share a story:

Call our hotline: [phone]
Text “remember” to 73224
Email us at [e-mail]
Fill out our short form: buff.ly/3dUlxoF