Candice Wilder, Mississippi Today’s higher education reporter, is among 10 journalists selected for the Ida B. Wells Society’s 2026 investigative reporting fellowship program. 

The six-month fellowship includes a series of training sessions on topics such as public records, data evaluation, web research and fact-checking. The program includes in-person training in Atlanta led by top investigative journalists.

“The higher education beat not only has implications for the lives of students enrolled at colleges and universities across Mississippi — tens of thousands of them at the public universities alone — but it also touches on the state’s workforce and economic future. Candice is on track to learn tools and methods to deepen and enrich her reporting on such an important beat,” said Marquita Brown, Mississippi Today’s education editor. “I look forward to seeing how she puts that learning and those resources to use in her reporting. ”

Wilder, an Ohio native, joined the Mississippi Today team in April 2025 and works in partnership with Open Campus. 

Wilder is a member of Open Campus’s Local Network, a group of newsrooms in 18 places where the nonprofit news organization has helped put reporters on the higher education beat full time. Open Campus and Mississippi Today have partnered together on higher education coverage since 2021.

The Ida B. Wells Society is named in honor of the muckraking Black journalist and activist who was born into slavery in Holly Springs. The journalism organization launched in 2015 with the mission to increase and retain journalists of color in investigative reporting, and its membership is open to journalists of all races and backgrounds.