Mississippi Today
Conservative groups to launch nonprofit news outlet
Conservative groups to launch nonprofit news outlet
Two conservative groups active in state politics — advocacy group Empower Mississippi and blog Y’all Politics — are joining forces to launch a new nonprofit news organization in 2023.
Russ Latino, president of Empower, wrote in a Dec. 27 email to his friends and family that he will run the new venture, called Magnolia Tribune, which is being launched in response to “a significant gap in the current (media) marketplace.”
“Mississippi has a positive story to tell. We will tell it,” Latino wrote. “Faith in traditional media has been undermined by blatant bias and often by careless reporting of complex issues. We will work to restore trust.”
Organizers of the new organization have been developing the concept for months, pitching it to their allies across the political spectrum and in nonprofit circles since the fall. Latino, an attorney who previously worked for the Koch Brothers-funded conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, has never worked in professional journalism.
Latino has long served as a conservative voice at the Capitol and in Jackson. He has advocated for conservative causes at numerous press conferences at the Capitol over the years. In 2021, he was selected by Republican legislative leaders to testify at a hearing in favor of eliminating the individual income tax. He has also served as a fill-in host on SuperTalk Radio, a conservative network that broadcasts across the state.
On a webpage soliciting donations for the news outlet, Latino writes that Magnolia Tribune will be a “non-profit, non-partisan newsroom.” In his Tuesday email to colleagues, he writes that “our commentary will often appeal to conservatives.” Latino did not clarify in his email whether the newsroom will be a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit under IRS guidelines, which bar partisanship.
“The concept is to be an in-state Wall Street Journal, with reliable straight news, unique business and culture coverage, and thoughtful perspective,” Latino wrote to his friends on Tuesday. “Our goal will be to balance the media ecosystem to ensure that all points of view are heard. While our commentary will often appeal to conservatives, we will not shy from providing a platform for divergent viewpoints. We believe that people benefit from hearing the whole story and being able to make their own decisions with good information.”
The new outfit will absorb the assets and work of Y’all Politics, a political blog founded in 2004 by Alan Lange. Lange has boasted his cozy relationships with Republican elected officials, long amplifying their perspectives and even attacking traditional media in the state seen as too critical of his colleagues.
Y’all Politics employs a small staff of reporters who closely cover legislative sessions and major statewide political interest stories. Y’all Politics, Latino wrote on Tuesday, will cease operation in January 2023. While Y’all Politics staff will reportedly move over to the new organization, Lange has told people he’s close with that he will not be directly involved with Magnolia Tribune.
Empower Mississippi actively lobbies lawmakers at the state Capitol for conservative causes and champions specific legislation. In recent years, Empower has pushed for increased funding for charter schools and other “school choice” initiatives, tax reforms like eliminating the individual income tax, and criminal justice reforms.
Latino said he is raising money for Magnolia Tribune and will build the team “over the next several months and beyond.”
“The news media serves a vital function in a thriving democracy,” Latino wrote on the fundraiser page. “When healthy, it informs citizens, presents a robust marketplace of diverse ideas, and holds leaders accountable. Unfortunately, upheaval in the media landscape has resulted in news that is often agenda-driven, intentionally negative, and hostile to alternate viewpoints. Mississippi is not immune from this trend. It doesn’t have to be this way, though.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
On this day in 1906
Jan. 22, 1906
Pioneer aviator and civil rights activist Willa Beatrice Brown was born in Glasgow, Kentucky.
While working in Chicago, she learned how to fly and became the first Black female to earn a commercial pilot’s license. A journalist said that when she entered the newsroom, “she made such a stunning appearance that all the typewriters suddenly went silent. … She had a confident bearing and there was an undercurrent of determination in her husky voice as she announced, not asked, that she wanted to see me.”
In 1939, she married her former flight instructor, Cornelius Coffey, and they co-founded the Cornelius Coffey School of Aeronautics, the first Black-owned private flight training academy in the U.S.
She succeeded in convincing the U.S. Army Air Corps to let them train Black pilots. Hundreds of men and women trained under them, including nearly 200 future Tuskegee Airmen.
In 1942, she became the first Black officer in the U.S. Civil Air Patrol. After World War II ended, she became the first Black woman to run for Congress. Although she lost, she remained politically active and worked in Chicago, teaching business and aeronautics.
After she retired, she served on an advisory board to the Federal Aviation Administration. She died in 1992. A historical marker in her hometown now recognizes her as the first Black woman to earn a pilot’s license in the U.S., and Women in Aviation International named her one of the 100 most influential women in aviation and space.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Stories Videos
Mississippi Stories: Michael May of Lazy Acres
In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey takes a trip to Lazy Acres. In 1980, Lazy Acres Christmas tree farm was founded in Chunky, Mississippi by Raburn and Shirley May. Twenty-one years later, Michael and Cathy May purchased Lazy Acres. Today, the farm has grown into a multi seasonal business offering a Bunny Patch at Easter, Pumpkin Patch in the fall, Christmas trees and an spectacular Christmas light show. It’s also a masterclass in family business entrepreneurship and agricultural tourism.
For more videos, subscribe to Mississippi Today’s YouTube channel.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1921
Jan. 21, 1921
George Washington Carver became one of the first Black experts to testify before Congress.
His unlikely road to Washington began after his birth in Missouri, just before the Civil War ended. When he was a week old, he and his mother and his sister were kidnapped by night raiders. The slaveholder hired a man to track them down, but the only one the man could locate was George, and the slaveholder exchanged a race horse for George’s safe return. George and his brother were raised by the slaveholder and his wife.
The couple taught them to read and write. George wound up attending a school for Black children 10 miles away and later tried to attend Highland University in Kansas, only to get turned away because of the color of his skin. Then he attended Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, before becoming the first Black student at what is now Iowa State University, where he received a Master’s of Science degree and became the first Black faculty member.
Booker T. Washington then invited Carver to head the Tuskegee Institute’s Agriculture Department, where he found new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans and other crops.
In the past, segregation would have barred Carver’s testimony before Congress, but white peanut farmers, desperate to convince lawmakers about the need for a tariff on peanuts because of cheap Chinese imports, believed Carver could captivate them — and captivate he did, detailing how the nut could be transformed into candy, milk, livestock feed, even ink.
“I have just begun with the peanut,” he told lawmakers.
Impressed, they passed the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922.
In addition to this work, Carver promoted racial harmony. From 1923 to 1933, he traveled to white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. Time magazine referred to him as a “Black Leonardo,” and he died in 1943.
That same year, the George Washington Carver Monument complex, the first national park honoring a Black American, was founded in Joplin, Missouri.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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