Illan Ireland covers environmental threats and challenges facing Mississippi communities at the Mississippi Free Press. Previously, he completed a fellowship at The Futuro Media Group in New York City, taking on projects related to public health, climate change and housing insecurity. Working with Futuro’s investigative unit, he helped uncover significant disparities in mortgage outcomes between white and Latino homebuyers in New Jersey. Ireland holds a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University and a master’s degree from the Columbia Journalism School, where he reported on the escalating drug overdose crisis in New York City and the near collapse of the local shelter system. He’s a native Spanish speaker, a proud Mexican American and a lover of movies, soccer and unreasonably spicy foods.
Beat: Environmental reporting across Mississippi
With the help of this reporter, our newsroom will leverage aggressive, shoe-leather reporting, public-records requests, and open-source intelligence, data and historical analysis to inform our readers about the ever-changing landscape they call home. Coverage of environmental and flooding threats and injustice across Mississippi will provide the public with crucial in-depth reportage on environmental issues in the lower river basin ranging from climate change and severe weather to environmental justice and agriculture while ensuring that members of the public are at the center of our solutions-based reporting.