Start spreading the news! There’s a new website in town. Those two sentences were brought to you by your favorite Gen X publisher. You’ll probably need to Google those references if you’re under, say 45. This week, you should have noticed that our website has a new look. We’re excited to have a site with increased functionality that’s easier for our readers to navigate.
We launched the Mississippi Free Press in March 2020 with a temporary site to ensure our fellow Mississippians had accurate and factual information on COVID-19. Todd Stauffer, our tech consultant and my old boss from the Jackson Free Press, quickly transitioned us to the site with which you’re familiar.
Because those first critical stories helped folks navigate the pandemic and because the journalism our entire team gives Mississippi and the nation has had such an impact, we outgrew our site earlier than expected. This is an incredible problem to have, and we’re grateful to each of you for reading, subscribing, and donating—helping us grow our team and our tech. It’s incredible when you think about it. We’re just over four years old.
Over the last year, Kristin Brenemen, our creative director, whom we refer to as the most organized person on our team, kept the old website in decent shape and project-managed the launch of our current site effortlessly. Kristin, who, like many of our team, started as an intern at the Jackson Free Press, has worked with Donna and me for more than a decade. She’s a terrific graphic designer who can do just about anything she puts her mind to. She learned the tech side because that’s what the times require.
An in-house tech person is more critical than ever as a digital-first publication. Like all of the team, Kristin never said, “That’s not my job.” Instead, she said, “I’ll figure it out.” It’s not often that you can launch a new website without dire warnings to your readers and supporters that you’ll be offline for an hour or, in some cases, days, but we were able to do it. And for that, I say, “Thank you, Kristin.” By the way, if you run into any issues with our new site, simply reply to this email and let me know.
We were able to make a significant investment in the new site because of a generous grant from Google News Initiative by way of the Tech Tranformation, a program we were able to take advantage of as members of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia—a terrific journalism association. I happen to be on the board. That grant, along with your contributions, made our news website possible.
The next phase of our project will include the Jackson Free Press archives. As a reminder, most of our team worked together at the Jackson Free Press, which was a separate publication, until we acquired the journalism archives and intellectual property in 2022. The Jackson Free Press website wasn’t in the best shape when we stopped publishing, yet many of you still visit it. Soon, you’ll be able to access the incredible Jackson Free Press journalism from the Mississippi Free Press website, putting all the Free Press journalism in one place.
To that, I say cheers to growth. Onward and upward.
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 azia@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.
