I can think of very little I enjoy more than singing the praises of the truly remarkable and dedicated Mississippi Free Press team. And, boy, is this their week.
Before I share those details and links, let me lay down how we work at the Mississippi Free Press. We are a tight team. We all believe in the mission of sharing information that improves the lives of all Mississippians, not just the wealthiest and whitest. We work together, respect and support each other no matter where any of us fall on the masthead. We value diversity of background, ethnicity, upbringing and experiences. We actively learn from each other. None of us is here just to become a star; we all want everyone at the MFP to have their chance in the spotlight and win awards.
We have fun, and we work hard (and honor deadlines) with our team members’ live-work balance as a priority. Sadly, this is not true in too many newsrooms, which can be very toxic, cutthroat and cliquey with certain people always getting the best stories. Argh.
Oh, and we don’t invite in prima donnas who are only here to win awards and play savior. This group is kind to each other—including to managers and vice versa—and we know how to apologize because no one is perfect. That’s just our culture, and it’s part of why our teamwork is so strong—and why Publisher and co-founder Kimberly Griffin and I have worked with an increasing number of our 18-member (and growing) team for 10 to almost 20 years.
Often, because we’re mostly Mississippians and women-founded and -run, it can take a while for folks to notice just how good, respected and impactful this lot is here in Mississippi, not to mention across the country.
But then a week like this one rolls around when, suddenly, three national media stories drop, none of which we pitched (we don’t spend your gifts on a national PR agency), about the MFP across several fronts: diversity/representation; fundraising scrappiness; and our success in building audience through smart social-media choices. Meantime, our traffic and engagement are spiking, and our individual donations piling up, and we are getting grants for two new reporter positions, and people across the nation and the world are looking closer at us and our innovative work for Mississippians.
Yes, we feel seen. And in turn, that means more support to increase systemic and pro-democracy journalism and our Mapping Mississippi project, and even deeper staff and reader diversity, and more impactful solutions circles and deep-dive journalism.
I dig it. It’s been a good week.
‘Clear How Badly We Were Being Limited’
Now, the national stories if you haven’t seen them. First, NBC News interviewed Ashton Pittman for a piece about the impact of our exodus from the toxicity (and squelched links) of Twitter/X to Bluesky. “We have posts that are exactly the same on Twitter and on Bluesky, and with those identical posts, Bluesky is getting 20 times the engagement or more than Twitter,” Ashton told Kat Tenbarge. “Seeing a social-media platform that doesn’t throttle links really makes it clear how badly we were being limited.”
The big takeaway here for me is that we are now literally seen on this new social platform, which has proved in a few short weeks that our traffic was artificially limited on the old app. Now with more than 30,000 followers (as of Dec. 6, 2024)—a lot for a “local” newsroom ramping up on a new platform—we surpassed our X following built over five years and are also drawing closer to the nearly 40,000 Jackson Free Press X followers that took like 16 years to build there. Even as many local newsrooms are struggling to get even 5,000 Bluesky followers, Ashton himself has more than 50,000 there, and that number is climbing fast.
Why? Because our pro-democracy, people-focused work is needed for this moment and the new America—even as more and more Mississippians and Americans realize the perils of partisan-obsessed and useless horse-race journalism and punditry and how such out-of-touch clickbait helped lead us here. It’s also because great writing is at the heart of how we’re different. You don’t have to suffer through boring inverted-pyramid openings to get to information here; we train our folks and give them space to tell stories about real people over just lining up facts, figures and dates.
Yes, we are actually nonpartisan and will factcheck one party just like we do the other. We’ve always said we report “beyond partisanship, I’m encouraged to see that more people are understanding why that dedication is vital in a functioning democracy rather than outlets acting like lobbyists to get certain legislation passed (an obnoxious nonprofit media executive director actually scolded me one night at a dinner in Jackson during a regional journalism meetup for not lobbying for legislation as I stared at him with horror).
It’s not a nonprofit newsroom’s job to tell you how to vote, or declare who is guilty or innocent; it is journalism’s job to provide information that other people and authorities can use to better figure these things out and make good moves for society. That is why we exist.
‘They Are a Beacon of Hope in Our Industry’
The second story is really special to me. You may recall that, earlier this year, Kimberly and I won the first Robert G. McGruder Award for Diversity Leadership in the national 2024 Poynter Journalism Prizes contest.
Again, these judges saw the Mississippi Free Press and laid it bare: “There are so many nonprofit newsrooms that have launched and do not take into account diversity and how to build trust in communities that have felt ignored,” the judges wrote. “The Mississippi Free Press built their newsroom with community and its diversity in mind. They are a beacon of hope in our industry and a true example to follow for other news organizations.”
Jennifer Orsi, a vice president and journalist at Poynter, interviewed Kimberly and me, as well as Dr. Beverly Hogan, Randall Pinkston, education reporter Torsheta Jackson and former MFP reporter Kayode Crown about why and how the MFP is different from most outlets that talk a game about inclusion but don’t deliver or just give up when people leave and hope no one notices how white they are.
Bottom line: I’ve always been a talent hunter and spotter and then trainer, what Jennifer called our “out-of-the-box approach” to building a team that looks like Mississippi. And I’ve always done it while wearing the necessity for team members representative of our state on my forehead, not just my sleeve, as I told her. Why? Not to just be able to say “look, we’re diverse!” or to get grant dollars—but because Mississippians deserve reporters who look like, understand and respect them.
That is too often not the case with folks coming into Mississippi looking for personal recognition and awards for reporting on “poverty” and other negative narratives about our people—but often not our culture, arts and people making a difference daily, such as the outstanding culture work of Aliyah Veal and Sherry Lucas—which helps tell the whole story of Mississippi rather than feed into national stereotypes. Our dedication to cultural reporting is practically non-existent here outside our Jackson-based newsroom. You can’t manufacture this respect and need to avoid one-dimensional journalism. It needs to be organic. People on the ground in our states know it when they see it, or when they don’t.
I loved what Dr. Hogan, a good friend and adviser of the MFP, told Poynter about us: “They are striking in bringing people together in all walks of life. When readers see “journalists who look like them, whether they are male, female, white or Black … it gives you a more trusting kind of sense that they are really practicing what they are advocating and presenting. That means a lot.”
And I smiled at what Torsheta said about me spending three years recruiting her—not just because she’s a Black Mississippian, but because she is a brilliant writer, thinker and leader who I want advising me and the team. She called me “very persistent,” adding, “And when she gets an idea in her head and she believes it’s a great one, she is not going to let it go.”
That is certainly true from the Jackson Free Press to the MFP to solutions circles to the Youth Media Project—all started for me as ideas that a team of us then brought to fruition. But here’s the thing: Kimberly and I are doing this together—and we can’t and won’t do it without this amazing team of Mississippians or our readers’ passionate support.
‘Take the Hits and Keep Going’
The third national story this week was in the Chronicle of Philanthropy about our very successful approach to raising individual donations since we launched in March 2020 with a $50,000 donation.
Reporter Stephanie Beasley starts out talking about many outlets’ hesitation to raise money after facing advertising downturns. “Mississippi Free Press, on the other hand, has been gaining readers and recognition by working to correct misinformation and reporting on both barriers and solutions to systemic issues like racism and poverty. And it’s done it all while winning big grants from regional and national funders,” she writes.
What we’ve learned is that the more individual donors you line up, the better your chances for attracting larger philanthropy; foundations, that is, want to know we won’t need them forever due to our continually growing individual-donor base. It makes sense. That is, sustainable donor bases should be firmly bottom-up, so to speak, rather than top-down from outside the state. That means a lot of work to build that local trust and support base, but we’re here for it.
Kimberly was direct with her advice for newsrooms—which are even more vital to democracy now than a month ago, or at least the good ones. “[It] takes an hour for me to ask for $10,000, and it takes an hour for me to ask for a $1,000 ad contract,” she said. “It’s the same hour.” She admitted that we were kind of terrified to ask for money—and it can still be demoralizing as women so good at what we do to be belittled and dismissed by some when you do ask. But, we’ve learned, you just keep moving to the next potential donor and tell your story about why good journalism matters so much.
That is, take the hits and keep going, or as we’ve long believed: “Do the right thing and wait.” What inspired me the most to get past the fear of raising money, of course, is taking care of this amazing team and growing it to help us better cover and reach these 82 counties. We’re known for our stellar Jackson reporting at the MFP (yay, Shaunicy Muhammad!) and for 20-plus years at the Jackson Free Press. (Watch for JFP archives soon joining this MFP website to become the best source of current and historic info about our capital city in the state!)
I also love that Stephanie told the full story of Free Press journalism in Mississippi; it’s not like we’re the new kids on the block, as Mississippians well know. She quotes me here about reporting on systemic racism: “We wanted to talk to everybody and really do the kinds of historically informed, honest reporting that was talking about systems rather than buying into the crime obsessions that fed racism. … Jackson Free Press was rejecting that kind of coverage and going deeply into the history of segregation and race violence and terrorism that had caused white flight and led things to being the way that they were. As a result of that, we really attracted very fast a very inclusive audience.”
That is, our special sauce at the Mississippi Free Press, is engaging readers across Mississippi, the nation and the world about what is happening in our state, a microcosm of both the U.S.’ history and current challenges. We do this through a very talented, smart, loving and inclusive team—and through direct engagement on social media and in solutions circles. As a result, so many of you step up to support our work time and time again. We see you, too.
The three pieces this week really tie together who we are and our unexpected success (at least to those who don’t know us and our cheeky temerity well). We value these articles, and we appreciate each of you for reading and supporting the MFP and YMP in whatever ways you can.
We’ve got this, together.
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This MFP Voices essay does not necessarily represent the views of the Mississippi Free Press, its staff or board members. To submit an opinion for the MFP Voices section, send up to 1,200 words and sources fact-checking the included information to voices@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.
