For nearly nine years, Mississippi Today’s team of dedicated journalists has provided impactful, nationally-renowned accountability journalism at the statewide level on behalf of every Mississippian.
We’re proud to announce this week that we’re adding a new aim to our newsroom’s mission: We’re launching a team of journalists focused solely on the city of Jackson.
For the past several months, we’ve been meeting with and listening to stakeholders across Jackson to determine how, exactly, we can best serve. It has become clear to us during this process that our capital city needs responsible and focused journalism now more than ever, and our journey officially begins today.
READ MORE: Mississippi Today’s full coverage of Jackson
Depending on who you know, your personal experiences, the classes or churches you attend, the media you consume, or the route you take to work, Jacksonians carry very different perceptions of this wonderfully weird city. In this way, there become multiple — all very real — Jacksons. Ideally, the storytelling by Mississippi Today’s new desk will help readers understand one Jackson, in all its complexities.
When we’re doing it well, our reporting presents solutions and results in tangible impact — every proper journalist’s goal. Just as worthy is our mission to produce stories that delight, astound, inspire, haunt, instruct, excite, gobsmack, galvanize and advance more social connectedness in our city.
Rarely in our city’s 203-year existence has there been a more critical time to launch such an endeavor.
In the coming weeks and months, Jacksonians will be hiring a mayor, the executive in charge of managing the city and its $335 million budget, as well as seven city council members tasked with representing the interests of their wards. We hope the comprehensive 2025 Jackson Election Guide we published today, with words directly from all of the 54 candidates vying for public office, encourages better-informed civic engagement across the city during this historic election.
We’ll also be watching how Jackson’s interests play out during the legislative session — where funding requests for needs across the city are often overlooked by state leaders. And with so much tumult in Washington, we will closely cover the effects of the new administration on the critical federal resources Jackson is able to access.
Jacksonians deserve strong storytelling and deeper accountability reporting, and we are ready to provide just that.
This will include person-centered stories about housing, like Jackson Reporter Maya Miller’s report published today about the challenges facing homeless Jacksonians and efforts from state leaders to penalize them. (It’s the very definition of shoe leather reporting… she came back to the office recently with debris on her combat boots and the knees of her blue jeans.)
READ MORE: Maya Miller joins new Mississippi Today team covering Jackson
And tomorrow, a piece from me about predatory unlicensed care homes that have long plagued the city — a situation that has rattled me since my earliest days of reporting in 2014 when I first arrived in Jackson.
Our team’s coverage of safety will include stories on policing, of course, but as my reporter colleague Molly Minta sharply observed to me recently, examining the safety of Jacksonians can take many forms: taking stock of the public parks where our children play; code enforcement in the apartment buildings and houses where we live; accessibility to things like energy and rental assistance for those homes; and the care and regard that Jackson schools offer to our young people, many of whom are affected by trauma.
Other areas of focus for our team will include public education and schools, economic opportunities and civic engagement, and the effects of distrust in institutions.
Expect to see pieces that highlight Jacksonians, some in government, business, or one of thousands of registered nonprofits across the city, and some working independently, often creatively with few resources, to affect positive change in their communities.
And we will, of course, bring you stories about what your leaders are up to at City Hall (and elsewhere), always asking how their actions affect you.
We’ll be asking ourselves a lot of questions, too, about our role in helping Jacksonians stay informed and about the value and ramifications of the stories we choose to tackle.
Firstly, we want to continue to hear from you. Tell us what questions you need answered, which stories have been overlooked or deserve deeper coverage, and what information you need to feel empowered and more connected.
Can’t wait to hear from you.
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