Before joining Mississippi Today, Katherine Lin graduated with her master’s in journalism from Columbia Journalism School reporting on business, housing and economics. She attended UC Davis where she worked at the student paper, The California Aggie. After graduating with a degree in history, she spent four years working in the biotech industry. She then returned to journalism through an internship at The Palo Alto Weekly on their editorial and audience engagement desks. Five generations of her family have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Beat: Economic Development disparity in Mississippi
Mississippi’s crushing, generational poverty and other socioeconomic ills have many root and continuing causes, but chief is the continued inequitable way state leaders divvy resources and development efforts. The state focuses its scant resources and efforts primarily on areas that are already relatively affluent. This creates a vicious economic cycle for areas such as the Mississippi Delta, Jackson, the southwest and other rural areas statewide. This reporter will shed light on this cycle, and highlight solutions and policy reform.