The Thread named 2026 Online Journalism Awards finalist for Excellence in AI Innovation
HEATDRAWN Media’s independent, one-year obituary project is one of three finalists in the Small/Medium Newsroom division
LOS ANGELES — HEATDRAWN Media’s The Thread has been named a finalist for Excellence in AI Innovation in the 2026 Online Journalism Awards, the Online News Association’s global awards for digital journalism.
Published from December 2024 through December 2025, The Thread was a yearlong journalism experiment that used generative AI to identify patterns across 100 to 200 obituaries of ordinary people each week. Those patterns became the foundation for curated digital exhibitions examining work, family, migration, grief, joy, memory and the ways people are remembered after death.
The project addressed a problem of scale. A single journalist could not manually read and cross-reference hundreds of obituaries each week for connections across geography, profession, age and life experience. AI surfaced those connections. Human editorial judgment governed the reporting.
Founder and executive producer Ethan Ward produced all 39 issues. Ward verified AI-generated observations against original obituary sources, conducted original reporting, hyperlinked the primary obituaries in each exhibition and made every final editorial and publishing decision.
The Thread also drew explicit lines around what AI would not do. It was never used to write exhibitions autonomously, and never used to generate likenesses of the people it covered. Echo Weaver, the project’s host and curatorial voice, was an AI editorial persona, and was disclosed as one on the project’s About page. When readers began writing in with questions about the project’s use of AI in its first weeks, Ward published a Member’s Guide and FAQ page documenting the project’s methods and its AI-generated art policy. That page remains live.
The Thread began as an idea Ward developed for a newsroom AI role he interviewed for and did not get. He built the project independently instead.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about the idea after the interview, so I decided to find out whether it worked without the job or the infrastructure that came with it,” Ward said. “I gave it one year and 39 issues.”
“The question was whether AI could help one journalist notice something across hundreds of lives that would otherwise go unseen, even though there were people who warned me away from this idea because it involved obituaries. I couldn’t get anyone to fund it or hire me to do it, so I tested it myself for a year. I was in shock when the finalists came out.”
The Excellence in AI Innovation award recognizes newsrooms and journalists using generative artificial intelligence in innovative ways to advance newsgathering, accessibility, productivity or audience engagement. Entries are evaluated on whether their use of AI addresses an identified need, creatively applies the technology, preserves human agency in its design and improves the human experience.
The Thread is recognized alongside “Decoding Climate Discourse: AI-Driven Analysis of Editorials,” from Clif, and a translation project from Enlace Latino NC in the Small/Medium Newsroom division. Finalists in the Large Newsroom division include The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Industry Group and UC Berkeley School of Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program.
Launched in 2000, the Online Journalism Awards recognize work across major international media organizations, independent newsrooms and individual journalists. Finalists and winners are selected through a two-stage review that begins with screening by journalism and digital media professionals and concludes with deliberations by panels of senior-level journalism professionals.
The finalist recognition follows The Thread’s 2026 Communicator Award and adds to a growing body of honors for HEATDRAWN projects. The studio’s work has also been recognized by the LA Press Club and the Housing Narrative Lab, and has received support from the Omidyar Network Tech Journalism Fund.
The Online News Association will announce winners in 16 of the 28 OJA categories during a virtual event Sept. 3. The remaining winners will be honored at the 2026 Online Journalism Awards Gala on Oct. 1 at City Winery in New York City.
The Thread’s complete 39-issue archive remains available at followthethread.beehiiv.com.
View the 2026 Online Journalism Awards finalists
About HEATDRAWN Media
HEATDRAWN was founded in 2020 by award-winning journalist and executive producer Ethan Ward. The studio develops original reporting and narrative projects examining power, culture, and belonging across publishing, audio, screen, and digital platforms. Its projects include INHERITANCE, a magazine about race, culture, money, power, and what gets passed down, recognized by the LA Press Club and the Communicator Awards; REPUTATION, an award-winning limited series podcast on homelessness and housing policy; and THE THREAD, an AI-powered digital museum exploring obituary data, memory, and legacy. HEATDRAWN has been supported by the Omidyar Network Tech Journalism Fund.
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