A Truly Free Press in Mississippi Is Vital to American Democracy
“We believe every Mississippian deserves access to a free and fair press regardless of their economic circumstance,” Kimberly Griffin writes.
“We believe every Mississippian deserves access to a free and fair press regardless of their economic circumstance,” Kimberly Griffin writes.
“So many people tell us that we represent the kind of excellence and honesty they didn’t quite think is possible in Mississippi,” Kimberly Griffin writes. “Myth-making and half-truths serve the powerful and encourage the powerless to lobby against themselves or just plain give up. I’m asking you not to give up on Mississippi.”
Violence issues are complex, mired in years of intentional systemic attacks. There are solutions, just not easy ones. Join our second “Beyond Policing: A Conversation about Violence Solutions in Mississippi” on Tuesday, March 1, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. central. Register now at mfp.ms/circles or email azia@mississippifreepress.org.
There’s so much happening at the Mississippi Free Press I hardly know where to start. Our first donor event is Tuesday, March 26, at 6 p.m. I’ll sit down with editor Donna Ladd and reporter Ashton Pittman to talk about their nationally recognized University of Mississippi email series to go deeper into the conversation about how they started at the Ancil Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism ceremony. (Watch them here at 40:00.) It’s a terrific opportunity to learn how deep investigative reporting works and ask questions about the tough decisions involved.
We love that our readers appreciate the groundbreaking work of our editorial team. You deserve meaningful, rich, and dare I say fun member experiences. Our supporters are a vital part of our team. That cup of coffee a reader gives up every week or the cost of one takeout lunch shores up MFP’s truth-telling journalism financially, but also mentally. When folks are willing to put skin in the game, it energizes us in ways that are hard to describe. Most days of reporting and growing nonprofit media in Mississippi are long and challenging.
In last week’s episode of MFP Live, Mississippi Free Press publisher Kimberly Griffin and I had what many people sadly might see as a traitorous conversation with Mount Olive, Miss., native and author Ralph Eubanks. We’re supposed to be “patriotic,” we’re told, and that means just talk about the good and honorable parts of Mississippi’s and the nation’s history. We’re not supposed to “probe the silences,” as Ralph puts it in his wonderful new book, “A Place Like Mississippi: A Journey Through a Real and Imagined Literary Landscape.”
Pipes froze and burst all over the city starting Feb. 15. We got hit with another set of freezing temps on Feb. 17. The crisis escalated quickly. Most of Jackson either lost water pressure or had no water at all for days. The City issued a boil-water notice on Feb. 18. That notice lasted until March 10. Jackson had no drinkable water for 24 days. Read that again. The capital city in a first-world country had no drinking water for 24 days.
Mississippi Journalism and Education Group is a a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization (EIN 85-1403937) for the state, devoted to going beyond partisanship and publishing solutions journalism for the Magnolia State and all of its people.
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