Donna Ladd
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18 years after my first tweet, I'm out. Find me on Substack, B1uesky, Instagram, donnaladd.com and all mississippifreepress.org platforms. It's been real
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Articles by Donna Ladd
Editor’s Note | Real Talk: Lessons I’ve Learned as Free Press CEO & Editor for 24 Years
For me, it was about my mother. Yes, I’d just moved back to Mississippi after an 18-year expat life in Washington, D.C., Colorado Springs, New York City and a silly couple of years in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Oh, and after working as a club DJ on Nantucket and lots of other places for a decade as I trained myself to be a journalist, then writing for the Village Voice while I got my master’s at Columbia Journalism School when I was 40.
Editor’s Note | Playing the Long Game for Mississippi: This Is About Impact on People’s Lives
When investigative reporter Nick Judin turned in a long “soul-crushing” breaking story about the State of Mississippi cancelling colleague scholarships for 170 foster students right before the semester started, it was late on Thursday, and the editorial team had been working really hard on big breaking stories like this one about Trey Reed’s family. Our folks were tired, and that included Nick and all the editors. Ashton was off, and I was bleary-eyed as I edited the long lost-scholarships piece.
Our Elections Are Under Attack | It's The Democracy, Stupid with Edwin Eisendrath & Mississippi Free Press' Donna Ladd
As we inch closer to the midterms this November, voting rights experts across the country are bracing for all sorts of schemes to suppress voter turnout, with potential interference from the federal government all the way down to county clerks. And in the wake of the Callais decision handed down from SCOTUS this past spring gutting the Voting Rights Act, folks in Mississippi have every right to be concerned.
Democracy | Proof Through the Night: Driving America and Scaling Walls on America 250
In that way Todd Stauffer and I disappear on long road trips when we need to stop talking to other people for a while, we found ourselves driving the long way across Texas on the Fourth of July. Yes, that Independence Day as the nation celebratedor at least acknowledged the irony of July 4, 1776, during a tough run for the future of American freedom and democracy.
Editor’s Note | From Trusted Elections to UM Emails, Systemic Journalism Makes Real Change
I was getting a massage when the seed for what we now call the Trusted Elections project was planted eight years ago, give or take. I was lying face down on the table in the old classic YMCA facility just off Interstate 20 in Jackson. My fantastic massage therapist, now retired, is a Black Mississippian who loved to talk about all things Mississippi in the little room in the back of the Y.
Democracy | Women Are Supposed to Be Better Than This
So Kristi Noem is (finally) out of her cosplaying role as the great protector of so-called “homeland security” and to force the nation’s remaining population to be and look more like her and her bossman. Pam Bondi has bent over backward, forward and sideways to keep the nation from really seeing every damn thing in the Epstein files, no matter where the depraved chips fall.
Stuart Stevens, MFP Discuss Voter Diversification
“Voter diversification.” The phrase popped into my head about midnight on the special-election election day, Nov. 5, 2025, for several legislative seats.
Editor’s Note | MFP Changes: I’m Sad, Grateful and Excited at the Same Time for 2026
A lot happened to me in 2019. It was one of those years that both asked questions and then answered as I recovered from breast cancer and worked to stay calm and focus on survival throughout—both of myself and the journalism organization I had worked with our team to build since 2002. The Jackson Free Press was an extremely popular weekly and impactful newspaper in the capital-city region.
Editor’s Note | What I’m Thankful for in 2025: The Rough Cut
There are years that give us a tremendous amount, and there are years that take from us. The former inspire and catapult us forward, and the latter can steal our fire, our hopes and dreams, our optimism and our spirit. We all, or at least most of us, know that challenges build character and tenacity, and with any luck, hope for better and easier times. Well, 2025 has been a year. We all know this.
The Second Best Time to Prevent Violence Is Now
I haven’t talked to him in quite a while so let’s just call him K.Z. He was 15 when he burst into my life one day when I was sitting in a Jackson park interviewing half a dozen teenage boys about their lives growing up amid poverty, hunger, abandoned homes and violence. All the young men were straightforward about their realities, but this one was a character and very funny, as I’d get to know over the next couple years. Also, he was extremely clever and industrious. A born wit.
A Decade of Reporting on Violence Solutions
Since I co-founded the Jackson Free Press as a different kind of newsroom for Mississippi in 2002 and later the Mississippi Youth Media Project, the newsrooms I direct have rejected sensational, episodic, bleeds-it-leads crime coverage, instead committing to deep solutions reporting on evidence-based violence prevention.
Our Haley Barbour Reporting Centers People, Not Power
As I walked the streets of Bay St. Louis and Waveland nine days after Hurricane Katrina dumped her wrath on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and changed our state forever, I kept thinking one thing: “It looks like it’s been carpet bombed.” It was such a glut of horrifying details everywhere I looked that I had a hard time focusing, at first, on the beaten-down, exhausted local people still there, or back from where they’d fled, with blank looks on their faces.
Overcoming assumptions: How to facilitate successful multi-generational collaboration
Solutions Circles, an initiative by Mississippi Free Press and the Mississippi Youth Media Project, unites a vibrant mix of community members to openly share, listen and tackle common pressing challenges. Facilitating these circles has taught us invaluable lessons on communicating across differences — especially across generational divides. Take Hart, for example.
The Epstein Saga Is Not a Game. It’s About Protecting Women.
NOTE: The following column talks about both suicide and sexual assault. The teenage photographs of Virginia Louise Roberts Giuffre now cropping back up during the current Epstein-Trump news cycle are haunting and near-triggering for me because I see a bit of myself and my past mistakes in her.
‘Whiteness’ Is an Ancient Con. We Can Defeat It.
In early May, my brother and I drove over to Neshoba County to visit family on Fork Road, the winding country byway of my childhood. Sitting with him and my sister-in-law, both older, parsing family stories, I picked their memories to figure out how many different houses my dirt-poor family had cycled through by the time I turned 6 and was finally living in a house with an indoor toilet.
What Exactly Is ‘Statewide’ Journalism?
I’ve been starting and leading local journalism outlets for a long time—and for the last 23 years back here in my home state of Mississippi. My return-home-whether-or-I-wanted-to-or-not homing device had started buzzing when I was finishing up my mid-career master’s degree in journalism at Columbia in early 2001.
Little Makes Me Angrier Than Lies About History
Women aren’t supposed to get angry, no matter what people do or say to us. We’re supposed to be feminine, compliant and silent about what insults us, hurts us or gets under our skin. Our lovely lips are supposed to be continually stiff, and for God’s sake it’s not ladylike to talk back, even to call out lies told about us, our loved ones, or even our state and our history. This women’s curse of compliance bounced through my brain last week when I read Torsheta Jackson’s Feb.
In This Putrid Hell, Connection Is the Antidote
“This week has completely drained me. I am failing at seeing how to move forward. Failing at seeing how I can protect my family. Y’all, it’s been tough.” I saw those words in a social-media post this morning by a lovely woman I met years ago in Jackson—a Mississippian engaged in her community and a loving wife and mother who lives in service and drinks up life.
Three National Media Stories Herald MFP Team Original
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.
Democracy | Keep Calm and Carry On … for Democracy
First, I want to acknowledge the pain and worry many of you are experiencing this week—about your rights, your livelihoods, your safety, your children and your nation. It is a difficult and uncertain time, and each of us owes ourselves, loved ones and colleagues kindness and grace. The Mississippi Free Press newsroom has the 1939 British motivational phrase “Keep Calm and Carry On” on a purple poster in our newsroom, and I carry it on my keychain in red.
JD Vance’s Birth Rate, Immigration Obsessions Have Shared History
A beardless JD Vance seemed nervous as he stepped to the microphone at the chichi Ritz-Carlton Hotel a few blocks from the White House in Washington, D.C., on the last day of the inaugural “National Conservatism” conference on July 16, 2019, a few months before Donald Trump would lose the presidency to Joe Biden.
As Fascism Looms, A Free Press Must Stand Up
It was a cool, dark night in Berlin on May 10, 1933, as a mob of white Nazi college students pulled thousands of “subversive” books off a large truck bed and threw them into the middle of the Opernplatz, a large public square to the west of the State Opera building.
Democracy Archives - Mississippi Free Press
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U.S. Bigots Have Long Abused Hard-Working Immigrants
It was a haunting twilight illuminating enormous mountain peaks as my partner Todd and I drove on Interstate 80 from Evanston, Wyo., back toward Utah last month. We were finishing a long day of exploring the east-west Uinta mountain range, then entering the expansive land and sky of Wyoming’s southwest corner on a dirt road with a ghost town and a partial rainbow over rows of distant windmills.
Fighting the Worthy Scrap Across Generations
Today is July 3, and I just said goodbye for a long weekend to a remarkable group of Youth Media Project students (age 15 to 17) from high schools throughout the Jackson metro and as far afield as Simpson Academy.
‘One Lake’ Not Best Pearl River Flooding Plan
A U.S. Corps of Engineers report on Friday dealt what could be a fatal blow to a decades-long strategy to build lakefront development along the Pearl River between Jackson and Rankin County with the often-disputed promise of it being the top flood-control solution. Supporters of One Lake, the larger Two Lakes plan before being forced to scale it back, have long maintained that a lake/development strategy is the best and affordable form of mitigating flooding effects along the Pearl River.
Crystal Welch Drank Up Life
We were just a few months into the pandemic, and into publishing the Mississippi Free Press, when Crystal Welch called me in early June 2020. It was a time in history most of us won’t ever forget: We were hiding from COVID-19 in our homes, wiping counters down with peroxide, learning to have every damn thing delivered. And all around us, the waves of long-overdue racial reckoning were beating at our gates after the May 25, 2020, police murder of George Floyd up north.
Democracy Is the Superstructure We Must Protect
“Fascism is an ultranationalist, authoritarian political philosophy. It combines elements of nationalism, militarism, economic self-sufficiency, and totalitarianism.
Democracy Is the Superstructure We Must Protect
“Fascism is an ultranationalist, authoritarian political philosophy. It combines elements of nationalism, militarism, economic self-sufficiency, and totalitarianism.
Women News Founders Deserve Respect, All the Flowers
I’ve been noting the fantastic and outspoken tweets of Baltimore Beat founder Lisa Snowden-McCray before she got into a Twitter/X fight with David Simon of “The Wire” fame. Put simply, she had gently chided the cussy, outspoken Baltimorean for only lifting up the much-richer and, let’s be honest, much-whiter nonprofit Baltimore Banner and not her popular and unapologetically Black newsroom for donations.
Government Secrecy Leads to Brain Drain
We hear so much hand-wringing in Mississippi about why so many people who grew up here leave the state and take their talents and initiative with them. But what we don’t talk about nearly enough is government secrecy. I’ve been thinking all week—between fundraising and editing and board prep, oh my—about Sunshine Week, an annual and needed tradition in journalism to bring attention to the lack of transparency in government.
Labors of Love and Truth in Local Journalism
OXFORD, Miss.—Last night, I hosted a heartwarming fundraising event at a friend’s lovely, art-filled home here in Oxford with locally based Director of Giving Cristen Hemmins. A big and inquisitive crowd showed up, including a former governor, some professors, entrepreneurs and a whole lot of women of various ages.
Labors of Love and Truth in Local Journalism
OXFORD, Miss.—Last night, I hosted a heartwarming fundraising event at a friend’s lovely, art-filled home here in Oxford with locally based Director of Giving Cristen Hemmins. A big and inquisitive crowd showed up, including a former governor, some professors, entrepreneurs and a whole lot of women of various ages.
Editor’s Note | Defining Journalism Forward: Don’t ‘Save’ Local Media. Build it.
Sometimes publisher Kimberly Griffin and I are asked how we’re different from other “local” or “statewide” media, and my first thought is always that someone is not paying very close attention to see the obvious for themselves.
Little White Girls Like Me Need to Know Real History. We Report It.
When I stopped running from my home state of Mississippi and returned home in 2001, I couldn’t foresee what lay ahead. I did know that I was fed up with the lies so many people had told me during my childhood in Neshoba County to keep me ignorant of horrors and discrimination committed supposedly to protect the honor and future of little white girls like me (and more honestly, the power of racists doing it).
Threat to Beth Israel A Reminder of 1967 KKK Bombings
JACKSON, Miss.—Worshippers at Beth Israel Congregation, Mississippi’s largest Jewish synagogue, are looking to move forward after someone emailed a bomb threat to the temple on Sunday, Dec. 17, 2023. Beth Israel Congregation Rabbi Joseph Rosen said on Dec. 18 that he suspected the threat was tied to heightened anti-Semitism stemming from the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. Rosen said he was headed to the synagogue the morning of Dec.
Editor’s Note | Joy of Asking and Learning: A Media Organization Is Only As Good As Its People
I just returned from a two-week road trip in Europe—Lyon, France, to Bern, Switzerland for Thanksgiving, and back to Paris for several days of exploring, art and Christmas Markets. It was awe-inspiring for Todd and me, and I finally saw the Alps, which was top of my bucket list for decades, and I learned vital history like detailed stories of the French Resistance to the Nazis and their own horrific appeasing Vichy government (ahem) at a Lyon museum in the old Gestapo headquarters. It was very us.
EDITOR’S NOTE | Solutions Circles and Unpredictable ‘Circlers’ Perfect Antidote to Political Silly Season
I love Mississippi and being from Mississippi. I love the work I and those around me and many of you do daily to help our state reach its full potential and become equitable and inviting for all our people. I have honestly never lived a more vibrant, engaged, colorful, fast-paced or exciting life amid more determined people anywhere than I have since I returned to Mississippi in 2001. But damn, our elections are demoralizing.
Opinion | Stop Ignoring Black Families Who Lose Loved Ones to Violence
This is Part 3 in the MFP’s Mitchell family series for the Rural News Network. Read Part 1 and Part 3. Warning: This essay contains detailed descriptions of violence, including murder, substance abuse and associated trauma. I was sitting next to Ollie Mitchell in her son Dennis’ garage in September as she talked about her late husband Harry’s alcoholism and vicious mood swings when he was drunk. He could become violent, she made clear, and it was continual chaos for her and her children.
Studying Whiteness, Poli Sci and Humanity Changed My Path, Shaped Publications
You may know that I grew up in Mississippi, but left the day after I got my political-science degree from Mississippi State University. I hightailed it north, vowing to never again live in my racist, misogynistic state that tried to kill the spirit of smart young people like me. I thought, naively, that I’d left all that ugly behind. Well, the lessons about bigotry and sexism being a 50-state strategy were still ahead of me. Good Lord, there was so much I didn’t know.
Ashton Pittman vs. Jason Aldean, et al: Everyone Is Innocent Until Proven Guilty
Jason Aldean probably wishes that Ashton Pittman wasn’t so dedicated to truth-telling in places that, let’s be honest, most white journalists don’t dare to go. A bit over a week ago, Ashton noticed the controversy over Aldean’s shocking “Try That In a Small Town” lyrics, which goes much further than glorifying gun culture or using guns for self-defense.
Introducing Mississippians in D.C. to Each Other
If you happened to have been in Jackson, Miss., back in 2001 and 2002, you probably know that the Jackson Free Press, the first news publication I co-founded in Mississippi, really grew out of a monthly gathering, then at Hal’s & Mal’s, that my partner Todd Stauffer and I hosted to gather up folks for a bit of fellowship and refreshments.
Hodding Carter III: Hellraiser, Journalist, Mentor, 1935-2023
The first place I met Hodding Carter III was far from Mississippi, the state we have in common.
‘One Lake’ Opponents, Backers Share Views on Anti-Flood Project
JACKSON, Miss.—It wasn’t the first rodeo for many who back or oppose the dominant flood-mitigation proposal for Mississippi’s capital-city area when they gathered, again, in the cavernous Sparkman Auditorium at the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum on May 24. They were there to speak their piece about how the area needs to deal with a perpetual Pearl River flooding threat while protecting the environment and livelihoods in Mississippi and Louisiana.
‘One Lake’ Opponents, Backers Share Views on Anti-Flood Project
JACKSON, Miss.—It wasn’t the first rodeo for many who back or oppose the dominant flood-mitigation proposal for Mississippi’s capital-city area when they gathered, again, in the cavernous Sparkman Auditorium at the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum on May 24. They were there to speak their piece about how the area needs to deal with a perpetual Pearl River flooding threat while protecting the environment and livelihoods in Mississippi and Louisiana.
An ‘Inch Wide, Mile Deep’ Journalism Roadmap
A beautiful thing happened in downtown Jackson ast week. A group of leaders and team members from newsrooms in states across the Deep South came to our building, Capital Towers, on May 18 to talk about the future of journalism for local, independent media outlets. LION Publishers had asked us to host the first Deep South Media Sustainability meetup months ago. I quickly suggested holding it in our building with our sweeping views of Mississippi’s capital city.
Meet Torsheta Jackson: A Reporter Mississippians Need, Deserve
One of my favorite reporting trips ever was touring around Noxubee County with then-freelance writer Torsheta Jackson in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because she grew up in East Mississippi county, over on the Alabama border, Torsheta was the tour guide, driving us around in her big truck I had to lift myself into. First, she showed me where she grew up in Shuqualak, the child of educators.
#TennesseeThree: Two Black Men And A White Woman
Watching racist members of the Tennessee Legislature bring all their power to silence who will now go into the history books as the #TennesseeThree is infuriating, familiar and exhilarating all at the same time. It is infuriating because this is what happens when people other than white men step up to exercise their First Amendment right to be loud and protest government decisions (or the lack of them when it comes to gun safety).
Most Mississippians Crave Transparent Government
JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – City Engineer Robert Lee was named interim Public Works Director for the City of Jackson. City officials said the role of the public works department was re-envisioned following the appointment of third-party administrator, Ted Henifin, who will continue to oversee water and water billing operations. After graduating from Mississippi State University, […]
Most Mississippians Crave Transparent Government
Whoa, what a month of journalism in Mississippi.
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