Mississippi Today, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom, is seeking a reporter to join our Politics Team. Regarded across Mississippi and the South as a vital investigative watchdog and champion of government accountability and transparency, the Politics Team at Mississippi Today goes beyond covering public meetings and legislative committees, digging deep to examine the systems of power in our state. 

The Politics and Government Reporter will be a member of this award-winning team, which serves Mississippians with engaging reporting that leaves readers better informed on critical issues facing our state. 

The ideal journalist will be someone who understands the complexity and history of Mississippi politics; challenges and threats to democratic values; and the concerns of Mississippians of all walks of life. This reporter will focus on daily/breaking news stories with a special focus on investigative projects that involve data, fact finding and in-depth explainer political journalism. 

Mississippi is a gold mine for eager journalists. In this position, you’ll travel the state and meet a diverse range of residents. As a member of Mississippi Today’s Politics Team, you will have an opportunity to work with some of the best reporters in the South and play an important role in fulfilling accountability journalism that will impact the way policy is debated and passed in Mississippi.

Expectations:

• Work with a small team of journalists who are focused on politics and government in Mississippi.
• Develop story ideas as well as collaborate closely with journalists and editors across the newsroom.
• Get people to talk, find willing sources and protect them while telling sensitive and timely stories.
• Build trust. Many Mississippians have for generations been victims of predatory actions from other journalists or media outlets. Mississippi Today seeks to rebuild trust with people across this state, which requires empathy, patience and savvy from our reporters.
• Work with our Audience Team and data and visual journalists to create compelling story presentations.

It’s a plus if you have:

• At least four years of reporting experience — and it’s a plus if you have Mississippi and political reporting experience
• Proficiency with public records requests.
• Experience writing a combination of both longform stories and investigations.
• A demonstrated ability to work quickly under tight deadlines.
• A knowledge and understanding of nonprofit journalism.
• Experience working in a collaborative newsroom setting.

What you’ll get:

• The opportunity to work alongside award-winning journalists and make significant contributions to Mississippi’s only fully staffed, nonprofit, nonpartisan digital news and information source.
• Highly competitive salary with medical insurance, and options for vision and dental insurance.
• 29 days paid time off.
• Up to 12 weeks of parental family leave, with return-to-work flexibility.
• Simple IRA with 3 percent company matching. Group-term life insurance provided to employees ($15,000 policy).
• Support for professional training and attending industry conferences.

How to Apply:

We’re committed to building an inclusive newsroom that represents the people and communities we serve. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply for this position, including women, people of color, LGBTQ people and people who are differently abled.

Please click this link to apply.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Jackson State University has been eying an empty hotel in downtown Jackson as a potential solution to its shortage of student housing. 

President Marcus Thompson pitched the project — a $5 million purchase of the Jackson Marriott at 200 E. Amite St. — to the university’s governing board last month, calling it a forward-thinking win-win for the historically Black university and the capital city. 

“As Jackson grows, Jackson State grows, and vice versa, similar to what I believe and I’ve seen over the years at an Oxford or a Starkville,” Thompson told the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees at its retreat at Mississippi State University’s Riley Center in Meridian. 

The effort comes as the state’s largest HBCU recently received roughly 800 more housing applications than it had room to accommodate, Thompson told trustees. The campus has about 2,000 available beds. In fall 2022, Jackson State had about 4,900 undergraduate students, according to federal data.

Enter the Marriott, a 15-story, 303-bed hotel that has been unused since the pandemic. It has had a number of owners over the years but is currently owned by a limited liability company affiliated with a Florida-based developer named Charles Everhardt. Everhardt could not be reached before press time.

Thompson told trustees some of them likely saw the hotel years ago. The IHL board has a policy that universities are required to seek approval for real estate purchases above $100,000. Jackson State did not respond to inquiries by press time.

“Housing has been a topic and an issue for our university for a number of years,” Thompson said. “We’re really excited about the possibility to bring forward a solution to the issue of housing through this Marriott project.” 

Jackson State hopes to purchase the hotel for $5.25 million, about $2 million below its assessed value, Thompson told trustees. It would provide housing to roughly 500 students, as well as meeting and parking space and leasing revenue. 

The university has already obtained $7 million from the Legislature and conducted several key reports and assessments, Thompson said, adding that Jackson State anticipated the Marriott could be available to students in one to two years if the plan goes forward. 

Originally, Thompson sought to get $68 million in funding to construct a new residence hall, but earlier this year, he asked Al Rankins, the IHL commissioner, for permission to pivot to purchasing an existing space that could be available sooner. 

In January, the administration had to relocate students after discovering mold in its University Pointe apartment complex, which was purchased in 2015. Another dorm for female students, McAllister Whiteside, has been offline since 2021 due to mechanical, electrical and utility failures and broken equipment.

The housing shortage is a particular issue for out-of-state students who make up about a quarter of the university’s enrollment, Thompson said. During his presidential tour, he talked with parents in cities like Memphis and Chicago who told him it was a struggle to find off-campus housing. And, Thompson added that students with federal student loans may also not be able to afford off-campus housing. 

“Our students come from a population who, perhaps, mostly aren’t able to go out and secure leases on their own,” he said. About 65% of the student population comes from a low-income family that receives federal tuition assistance, according to the College Scorecard.

The Marriott also fulfills one of Thompson’s goals to see Jackson State further expand into downtown, where the university already has a satellite campus and a number of apartment leases for student housing.

It’s unclear how much it will cost to renovate the Marriott or what that would entail. Thompson said that figures in a comprehensive assessment conducted over the summer reflected a “complete gut renovation” that wouldn’t be necessary, and the university can use certain federal funds to renovate academic spaces.

“Many of those things are cosmetic things that don’t necessarily have to be replaced, and we can speak to those things later,” he said. 

After Thompson finished his presentation, he asked the board for questions. Trustees immediately voted to go into executive session, citing a section of the Open Meetings Act that permits closing a meeting to discuss the “transaction of business and discussion regarding the prospective purchase, sale or leasing of lands.” 

Trustees deliberated for about an hour before calling Thompson and his administration into the room, where they spoke for about another hour.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

A post-Roe agenda should include paid maternity leave for state employees, Attorney General Lynn Fitch said to lawmakers Wednesday. 

This recommendation is part of her office’s Empowerment Project, which was launched in 2023 after abortion in Mississippi became illegal – a “game changer,” Fitch told members of the Senate Study Group on Women, Children and Families. 

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann tasked the Senate group with reviewing the needs of Mississippi families and children from birth to age 3, following the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that allowed the state’s near-total abortion ban to take effect.

Mississippi has no paid family leave on the books. Currently state employees may take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act.

There are around 85,000 state employees – including public school teachers and staff and faculty from public universities and colleges – and tens of thousands of Mississippi women could benefit from legislation offering paid maternity leave. 

It’s a critical workforce issue, Fitch said in response to a question from Sen. Nicole Boyd, R-Oxford, and it could be the deciding factor for someone choosing between a private sector job and a public sector job. 

“This is a great tool, a great resource, to have these women in public service and to keep them there,” she said. 

Mississippi has the nation’s lowest workforce participation rate. Despite the fact there are more working-age women than men, women have a lower rate at 48.5%. 

Last year, a bill authored by Boyd to give state employees six weeks of paid maternity leave died in the Public Health committee, chaired by Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory. Bryan did not respond to a request for comment from Mississippi Today by the time this story published. 

Fitch urged lawmakers to reconsider their decision this year.

“Coming up in this session I’d like for you to consider paid maternity leave for state employees … I know many times here we look at who else has done that, and I just want to tell you that Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina, Louisiana and Virginia have all passed these laws. And so I would encourage you to take a hard look at this.”

Fitch, who petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the Dobbs case that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, has faced pressure to advocate for policies that would benefit low-income women in the state with the highest maternal mortality and poverty rates. 

The five pillars of her Empowerment Project, Fitch said, are making quality child care affordable and accessible; promoting workforce flexibility; improving child support enforcement; fixing the state’s broken foster care and adoption systems; and giving women the opportunities and resources to “upscale and educate.”

Mississippi is one of only 10 states not to expand Medicaid to the working poor under the Affordable Care Act. And while pregnant women making less than 194% of the federal poverty level – roughly $30,000 annually for a single mother – are eligible for Medicaid, a policy that would streamline the application process and provide timely prenatal care only just became law in Mississippi and is currently awaiting federal approval. 

Fitch lauded lawmakers for several measures passed in the last two years, including 12 months postpartum coverage for mothers on Medicaid, tax credits for crisis pregnancy centers and Safe Haven Baby Boxes. 

Fitch said the baby boxes are “a very safe, anonymous way for a very courageous young mother to place her child in the care of others,” and that the state will increase the number of them. 

Committee members weren’t able to ask follow-up questions to Fitch, who also addressed child support enforcement and the foster care system, due to her schedule. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.