I was utterly floored when a media colleague tagged me in a group chat to congratulate our team on winning the Robert McGruder Diversity Leadership Award. I recalled a February day when Ashton or Donna, or maybe both, said we should enter, and so we did. We enter a lot of awards. We win some, and we lose some. The Poynter Journalism Prizes had more than 600 entries, so there’s that.
It’s easy to slip into journalism jargon, so let me break it down for you. The Poynter Institute is critical to journalism. It’s one of the world’s most important training grounds for newsrooms, journalists, and news entrepreneurs. I’m currently part of the Media Transformation Challenge at Poynter with everyone from other statewide media to folks from the BBC. I was surprised that they didn’t have journalism awards before this year. If you ever walk through their headquarters in St. Petersburg, Fla., with folks bustling from one training to another, you’ll see they might have been a little busy before now.
So get this. We are the inaugural winners of a diversity award given by one of the most important journalism institutions in the world. Right now, our country is fighting for its life with attacks on liberal arts education; accurate history; and the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion at the heart of what some call the “culture wars.” I have other names for them, but this is a happy piece. Donna and I talk to people across the country when we’re trying to raise money, participating in or leading cohorts or conversations. So many people get so much wrong about Mississippi. One of my favorite things is showing people a picture of our incredible team. Usually, they stare for a bit and say, “Wow, that’s your team?”
We talk to a lot of good people around the country about recruiting staff that reflects their communities because they want to know how we do it. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. You have to extend an invitation. Journalism and media are historically a hostile environment for Black, Brown, rural and LGBTQ folks. Cover these communities fairly, and you’re extending an invitation.
I like to say that we give you some facts about our fellow Mississippians, but we also tell the truth because we look at the historical context and the systemic issues that don’t plague just us, but the nation. We extend an invitation by building networks with initiatives like our signature Solutions Circles, where our team listens to communities as they uncover solutions to systemic issues that affect them.
I laugh when people tell me they can’t find a Black reporter in the South because the South is home to almost every HBCU in the country. For over 20 years, Donna has built strong connections with our Jackson HBCUs, Jackson State University and Tougaloo College. We’re continuing this trend statewide, not just with HBCUs, but with other institutions and community groups at the heart of every underserved population.
Second, you have to let people be themselves. One cannot ask a young journalist or an old journalist, for that matter, to work in a hostile environment. They might come for the check, but they won’t stay. We’ve lost exactly one reporter from our original team since we started in 2020 because their spouse got a job in a different state.
There’s not a lot of code-switching in our newsroom. Instead, we listen and ask questions. When I’m confused about something in the Choctaw culture, I ask Roger Amos, our Choctaw writer. Our editorial team does the same, which is how we make fewer cultural mistakes than other newsrooms. It’s why our team looks like Mississippi.
All in all, April has been pretty great. Folks like you are helping us expand our newsroom with your gifts and kind words and letting us take up a little room on your social media feed and in your inbox. This week, Report for America announced the newest member of our newsroom, Illan Ireland, who will join us this summer to cover Mississippi’s environment. Cheers to spring and cheers to giving Mississippi the best we have.
