The Mississippi Free Press continued to add to its ever-growing list of awards this month, with two members of our team chosen for highly distinguished honors in the state and nationally.
Kimberly Griffin, MFP’s co-founder, publisher and chief revenue officer, was named to the 2023 cohort of the Mississippi Business Journal’s annual 50 Distinguished Leading Business Women. The Mississippi Business Journal, a statewide publication, annually recognizes 50 women business leaders in the state.
Kimberly was further honored when, at the luncheon honoring these women, she was named a top 10 finalist to Business Woman of the Year for Mississippi. Kimberly is no stranger to this kind of acclaim. Last year the Institute for Nonprofit News recognized her as the Emerging Nonprofit Leader of the Year, and in 2021 she, along with co-founder Donna Ladd, accepted the INN’s Start-up of the Year award for the Mississippi Free Press, the nonprofit newsroom they had started only a year before.
Our news editor, Ashton Pittman, was one of 25 young journalists from around the country included in the 2023 class of the national magazine Editor & Publisher’s “25 Under 35.” The journalists chosen for this honor represent something of a who’s who of the next generation of American journalism. Ashton’s work has been cited continually in national media and recognized with award after award (18 so far since 2020), including the 2021 Diamond SPJ Journalist of the Year, and his viral Twitter threads have more than once turned a local story into a national one.
The team at the MFP, largely Mississippi natives, continues to bring home awards and honors because they believe in the solutions-focused, truth-to-power work they are doing on behalf of our state and all its people.
We applaud Kimberly and Ashton, both of whom helped launch the Mississippi Free Press in March 2020, for their hard work, leadership and love for our state.
