Mississippi

Amy Schafer

Prior to joining The Mississippi Free Press, Schafer worked as a freelance reporter for The Washington Post where she covered the extradition hearings for Luigi Mangione. She also served as editor-in-chief and business manager of Penn State's student newspaper The Daily Collegian. During her time as a student journalist she also completed an independent reporting project where she covered the criminalization of domestic and sexual violence in Almaty, Kazakhstan. She is graduating from Penn State Schreyer Honors College with degrees in public relations, global and international studies and women's, gender and sexuality studies as well as a minor in spanish.

Mississippi Free Press

The Mississippi Free Press is a statewide nonprofit news organization founded in March 2020 to “publish deep public-interest reporting into causes of and solutions to the social, political and structural challenges facing all Mississippians and their communities.” Reporters produce what we call “systemic journalism,” which investigates the underlying racial, historic and current structures that create and sustain challenges such as poverty, health disparities and education inequities. The MFP centers people, connecting personal stories to larger systems and actions by the powerful. Reporters go beyond documenting problems to explore and interrogate solutions.

Gerard Edic

Gerard Edic covers the effects of gun violence on LeFlore County in the Mississippi Delta at The Greenwood Commonwealth. This marks his second stint at the newspaper, where he began his journalism career as a general assignment reporter. Most recently, Edic worked at PBS News, where he assisted with research and editorial production for PBS News Weekend and Washington Week with The Atlantic. He also co-produced various segments for PBS News Weekend, including tensions in the South China Sea, gang violence in Haiti, and school lunch junk fees. Edic has also edited pieces submitted by incarcerated writers for Prison Journalism Project and wrote about policy issues at The American Prospect. Edic earned his master’s degree in journalism, focusing on business and economics reporting, at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Edic has won several awards from the Mississippi Press Association’s Better Newspaper Media Contest, including the Bill Minor Prize for General News Reporting for a piece assessing the community impact of record-high homicides in Leflore County in 2020. Edic is an avid runner and loves to cook.

Jaylin R. Smith

Making funny videos and engaging audiences for prospects were skills Jaylin Smith learned from her graduate experience at the University of Mississippi in Journalism and New Media. While receiving her Master’s degree, the scholar worked as a graduate assistant for the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics. There, Smith started her career as a multimedia journalist and researcher, presenting her work at conferences for the Broadcast Education Association and the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Her love for diversity and passion for representation and visibility of Black culture allowed her to be chosen as a 2024 TEDx Speaker, giving a talk about the importance of respecting Black women’s hair. Smith’s strong foundation for journalistic excellence and community involvement began at her beloved HBCU, Mississippi Valley State University. Leading up to her role as the Delta reporter at the Mississippi Free Press, Smith worked as a car saleswoman at Cannon Chevrolet in her hometown of Greenwood, Miss.

Katherine Lin

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.

Mississippi Today

Mississippi Today aims to be the authoritative voice on politics and policy in Mississippi, producing robust coverage of elected officials, government offices and legislative action. Our team produces a mix of daily and enterprise reporting, with award-winning investigations on justice, race and equity. Education coverage is essential to our newsroom and includes K-12, as well as a higher education beat. We continue to expand coverage on issues facing women and girls, our many neighbors living in poverty and the ongoing environmental challenges in our region.

Mississippi Free Press

The mission of the Mississippi Free Press, a nonprofit statewide newsroom, is to publish deep public-interest reporting into causes of and solutions to the social, political, and systemic challenges facing all Mississippians and their communities. We interrogate and report the systems that cause inequities on the road to lasting solutions through a mixture of narrative storytelling, data reporting, historic context and community dialogue through solution circles in under-reported communities to discover report causes and roots of inequities, followed by solutions journalism.

The Greenwood Commonwealth

The Greenwood Commonwealth was founded in 1896 by James K. Vardaman, who later became the governor of Mississippi running as a white supremacist. Although the newspaper became more moderate under subsequent ownership, it wasn't until 1973, when it was purchased by John O. Emmerich Jr., that it became the community daily newspaper it is today. The Commonwealth continues the standards Emmerich set by covering the entire community in a fair, comprehensive and aggressive manner.

Illan Ireland

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.

Mississippi Free Press

The mission of the Mississippi Free Press, a nonprofit statewide newsroom, is to publish deep public-interest reporting into causes of and solutions to the social, political, and systemic challenges facing all Mississippians and their communities. We interrogate and report the systems that cause inequities on the road to lasting solutions through a mixture of narrative storytelling, data reporting, historic context and community dialogue through solution circles in under-reported communities to discover report causes and roots of inequities, followed by solutions journalism.