Mississippi Today is marking a milestone this month – our first 10 years of publication.

Now the state’s largest newsroom with more than 30 journalists on staff, the online nonprofit news organization began a decade ago with a few reporters and a mission to provide news coverage that holds officials accountable and keeps the public informed.

This startup happened even as many other news operations in the state and around the U.S. were tightening their belts. Then – as now – Mississippi Today supports other media outlets by allowing free publication of our articles.

Over the coming year under the theme of “All In On Mississippi,” we at Mississippi Today are reminding readers of the work our team has done and are vigorously recommitting ourselves to the goal of providing detailed, in-depth reporting on important issues.

Here’s a look at some of Mississippi Today’s accountability-focused reporting:

– Anna Wolfe won a 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for The Backchannel, her series of investigative reports about how Mississippi misused welfare money that was intended to help some of the poorest residents in one of the poorest states in the nation.

– Wolfe and Michelle Liu spent 14 months investigating how Mississippi was running debtors’ prisons, making it nearly impossible for inmates to earn enough money while incarcerated to pay off the fines, fees or restitution they owe. Wolfe and Liu collaborated with other news organizations, including the Marshall Project, the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, The Clarion-Ledger and USA Today Network. The work was awarded the 2021 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.

– When the state was forced to close dangerous bridges in 2018 and 2019, Mississippi Today journalists created an interactive map, interviewed people whose lives were affected and followed the process of how politicians were spending money to fix the problem.

– Photographer Eric Shelton in 2019 documented how Mississippians’ lives are affected when rural hospitals close or are at risk of closing.

– Reporters Aallyah Wright and Kelsey Davis wrote a series in 2019 about Mississippi’s longstanding teacher shortage problem.

– Mississippi Today covered the 2020 legislative struggle over retiring the state flag that prominently featured the Confederate battle emblem and replacing it with a flag that features a magnolia and the slogan, “In God We Trust.”

– Alex Rozier, Molly Minta and other journalists documented the near-collapse of Jackson’s water system in 2022 and the ongoing battles over water rates and control of the system.

– In a 2023-2024 series called Committed to Jail, journalists from Mississippi Today and Pro Publica collaborated on articles that exposed how Mississippi jails people who have mental illness.

– Rozier and Devna Bose examined how Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Mississippi reimbursed the University of Mississippi Medical Center at lower rates than other major insurers for many common procedures, including emergency room visits and X-rays.

– Mississippi Today reporters including Mukta Joshi, Jerry Mitchell, Brian Howey, Nate Rosenfield and Steph Quinn worked with The New York Times on investigative reporting that exposed longstanding problems of the abuse of power in the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department and violence inside the county jail. 

As Mississippi Today journalists focus on the future, we will continue to examine and challenge systems that need to be changed. And, yes, we will also celebrate the culture of this place we call home, by birth or by choice.