East Central Mississippi Bureau Reporter

The Mississippi Free Press, a thriving, award-winning nonprofit digital newsroom with national impact run by the nonprofit Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, is seeking a full-time East Central Mississippi Bureau Reporter to join our diverse team of reporters and freelance contributors as we continue to grow our mission to cover Mississippi in a deeply contextual, inclusive and solutions-based fashion that challenges the old ways of the state’s traditional media environment.

The East Central Mississippi Bureau Reporter will work with the news editor to pitch, identify and pursue story assignments covering the diverse counties of the region (Attala, Clarke, Kemper, Lauderdale, Leake, Neshoba, Newton, Scott, Smith and Jasper counties), with strong attention to the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and other tribal communities and the issues that affect them. We are particularly interested in candidates who have personal or cultural connections to Native or tribal communities and possess a deep understanding of community dynamics, as well as a commitment to inclusive and ethical reporting. This reporter will produce in-depth, people-centered stories that illuminate how history, policy, and systems shape daily life across the region—with reporting that goes far beyond typical Black-white narratives about Mississippi.

The reporter must live in or be willing to relocate to the East Central Mississippi coverage region. The reporter will primarily work from their home office in the coverage region and out in the field for on-the-ground reporting exercises. There will be some required work days in our downtown Jackson office, including for staff meetups and workshops. The reporter will be responsible for pitching and producing multiple news stories a week, with a mix of short, quick-turnaround hard and breaking news stories as well as medium-length and longer, more in-depth stories. The reporter will also work on longer-term, systemic stories that interrogate the roots of the issues people in the East Central Mississippi region face, as well as possible solutions.

The East Central Mississippi Bureau Reporter will collaborate with editors, other reporters, our senior photojournalist and the creative director on selecting photography, art and multimedia for stories and with the digital editor on posting stories and promoting them across various social media networks, including Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Instagram. In some cases, the reporter will be expected to shoot and provide photos when covering events on the ground; the MFP provides camera equipment if needed and we have members of our staff who can assist with photojournalism training, including workshops. Reporters will be asked at times to take part in making videos, including short-form videos, to promote stories, in collaboration with State Reporter Heather Harrison, who leads our video team. The reporter will join the editorial team for weekly digital editorial scrums over Google Meet to plan assignments for the week and to brainstorm ideas.

The East Central Mississippi Bureau Reporter should have good writing skills, reporting skills, be familiar with AP Style and have at least one-to-three years’ experience reporting and writing news stories for substance, readability, accuracy, fairness, sensitivity, storytelling and context. While traditional “inverted pyramid” style formats can be important for breaking news stories, the Mississippi Free Press seeks reporters who can (or want to learn to) write compelling narratives that tell readers not only the most essential facts of a story, but also communicate why they should care about a story on a human level.

Applicants should be inquisitive and skilled at asking probing questions that go beyond the information public officials provide at City Hall meetings, through press releases or statements. The ideal candidate will be passionate about pursuing truth for the public good, reporting on issues that affect marginalized communities, holding the powerful to account and reporting on solutions. We are eager to hire journalists who care about and have institutional knowledge of Mississippi, particularly the east central region, or who are willing to learn.

The reporter will be under the direct supervision of Mississippi Free Press News Editor Ashton Pittman and Systemic and Solutions Editor Torsheta Jackson. The job will include learning opportunities to grow journalistic skills. We encourage our reporters to hone their craft with classes, webinars, mentorships and peer-training opportunities. We ask all MFP team members to embrace and seek learning experiences daily from each other and from people across Mississippi. Reporters at the Mississippi Free Press who do excellent work will, at times, encounter opportunities to share and discuss their work with other state and national news outlets, including occasional television and radio interviews.

A Skilled Human Touch, Not AI

While we allow the use of limited non-generative tools that fall under the “AI” umbrella (such as transcription tools for transcribing interviews) with editorial approval, we do not allow our reporters to use generative AI to write stories or to create images. The ideal East Central Mississippi Bureau Reporter must have excellent writing skills (and a desire to grow those skills and a unique voice). Our reporters must be skilled at conducting research and fact-checking information in a journalistic fashion; reporters cannot use LLMs like ChatGPT or Gemini (which have high error rates) to conduct research for their stories.

From the process of gathering information, to finding and interviewing sources, to writing a story, our journalism requires the work of a skilled human, with only limited supplementation from approved tools allowed. The kind of work we do simply cannot be done by a machine or algorithm. The ideal candidate is one with a love of researching, writing, storytelling and human interaction, and a passion for the practice of high-level and impactful journalism.

Strong, Cohesive Team of Professionals

This East Central Mississippi Bureau Reporter will join a strong, cohesive, and mutually supportive and respectful team of journalism professionals who, in most cases, have worked together for years. Executive Editor Donna Ladd co-founded the Mississippi Free Press with Publisher Emeritus Kimberly Griffin in 2020 and led a team that has steadily grown to include a diverse cross-section of Mississippi talent that now includes MFP’s new publisher and director of revenues, Tami Jones, who brings deep roots in Mississippi newsrooms.

It is vital to our mission that we continue building our team with people who are collaborative, support one another, work well with one another and are open to learning together—including from each other in the field and at team workshops in our downtown Jackson newsroom. We are not a newsroom for unchecked ego or intra-workplace rivalry. Our work culture thrives on mutual respect and consideration. You don’t have to be outgoing or a gregarious extrovert, but we do expect our employees to make an effort to build amiable, cooperative relationships with their coworkers and attend and contribute to team meetings and trainings.

East Central Mississippi Bureau Reporter finalists will have the opportunity for one-on-one conversations with team members during the interview process about our culture, systems and any other questions. Finalists for the position will be asked to demonstrate their writing skills using a computer in our office. We also invite candidates to visit our Board of Directors/Advisory Board page to read about the people who support our work, our team and our mission on a daily basis.

If this sounds like a job that fits your skills and experience, please reach out. The MFP team’s work culture has long focused on excellence; journalism that can move needles for all Mississippians while attracting national attention, awards and exposure; and a collaborative, mutually supportive team of professionals who believe in our mission deeply. We have an equitable, respectful, and deeply inclusive work culture that reporters can enjoy, help grow and maintain daily, as well as help improve.

We have fun while working hard for our state every day in ways that support each other’s life-work balance. The successful candidate for our newsroom will join a current and growing full-time editorial and revenue team of 19 members, in addition to part-time team members, and freelance writers, artists and photographers.

Primary responsibilities include:

• Daily reporting work with one to three written published stories in a normal week, including short news, quick-turn-around breaking news, in-depth stories and investigative projects; some weeks and big-story coverage may require more short pieces in a week
• Keeping track of events, stories and sources in Rankin, Hinds and Madison counties, including in Jackson and other cities and rural areas
• Active source development throughout the East Central Mississippi Bureau region
• Working with editors to pitch and identify stories to pursue and make requested changes or additions to stories
• Planning and executing daily reporting work, including researching, conducting interviews, making public records requests and writing
• Managing work on short-term, medium-term and long-term reporting projects
• Holding powerful people and institutions accountable with contextual, fair, fact-based reporting
• Identifying problems and interviewing experts and community leaders about potential solutions

Knowledge/experience required:

• At least 1-3 years of experience in reporting and writing news copy
• An understanding of basic journalistic ethics and standards
• Research skills that do not rely on AI tools
• Familiarity with using social-media platforms to share stories and content to reach and grow our audience

Knowledge/experience (or willingness to learn) desired:

• Familiarity with using Google Drive and Google Docs to write stories and collaborate with editors
• Narrative-writing techniques
• Knowledge of AP Style
• Using WordPress to edit and update stories
• Willingness to speak or appear in public, virtually or on various media formats (TV, radio, podcasts, et al.) to discuss and promote reported work in order to reach a wider audience
• Use of communications and project-management systems like Basecamp, GroupMe, Highrise, Google Drive, Zoom, Google Meet and more to make work more efficient for the full team and to support a healthy work-life balance for all
• Basic photography skills for shooting photos at events, whether with a smartphone, a DSLR, a mirrorless or other style of camera, along with the ability to shoot video
• Fluency (or competency) in languages spoken by various Mississippi communities, such as Spanish
• Experience working with diverse communities to bring their stories to light

Salary and Benefits:

• The starting salary for the East Central Mississippi Bureau Reporter is $48,000 with funds available to help establish a home-office bureau presence. The position also has tremendous growth potential for promotion from within, either on the reporter or editor track, which is very common for long-time MFP/JFP team members.
• MFP currently offers to pay the full amount of the employee’s medical, vision and dental benefits through our group plan; family members can be covered through employee contributions.
• The reporter must have a reliable vehicle and current driver’s license and insurance. The MFP’s office is in downtown Jackson and is open to those wishing to work onsite. We host meetings, brainstorm sessions and other activities in the office and virtually. We have occasional all-hands retreats and other gatherings planned in advance that require everyone to attend.
• This position will receive a total of 24 days of PTO and nine holidays for 33 total paid days off a year for the first three years, after which it increases to 30 days of PTO. We are closed on seven non-religious holidays and provide two floater days for staff members to use for either religious or non-religious days off due to their personal preference and needs.

Application process:

To apply for this immediate hire, please send a resume and a cover letter describing your experience and what excites you about the possibility of reporting for the Mississippi Free Press. We will not respond to applications that do not include a cover letter, nor to AI-generated cover letters or resumés (and trust us, we can tell).

If you have many of the requested skills and experiences, but not all of them, feel free to apply. Send resume and cover letter to News Editor Ashton Pittman at ashton@mississippifreepress.org or Systemic and Solutions Editor Torsheta Jackson at torsheta@mississippifreepress.org. Please also provide at least three links or attachments to examples of any prior relevant work.

You can also email questions before you apply to Editor-in-Chief Donna Ladd at donna@mississippifreepress.org, News Editor Ashton Pittman at ashton@mississippifreepress.org or Systemic and Solutions Editor Torsheta Jackson at torsheta@mississippifreepress.org. Please put “MFP East Central Mississippi Bureau Reporter” in the subject line.