ProPublica has selected Isabelle Taft, Mississippi Today’s community health reporter, as a Local Reporting Network fellow for 2023. Taft will spend the next year in collaboration with the award-winning, nonprofit investigative newsroom on a special project.

She will begin her investigative project on Jan. 3.

While at Mississippi Today, Taft has covered abortion, maternal and infant health, mental health and the operations of the state Division of Medicaid. She previously reported on the Mississippi Gulf Coast at the Biloxi Sun Herald, where she won the 2020 Bill Minor Prize for Investigative Journalism from the Mississippi Press Association.

Taft and Mississippi Today will join four other partner newsrooms and local journalists from New Mexico, Louisiana and Mississippi in the network next year.

“Isabelle is an incredibly talented, passionate and hard-working reporter who has worked in the state for several years,” said Community Health Editor Kate Royals. “We at Mississippi Today are thrilled to partner with ProPublica on Isabelle’s important and impactful project, and we are looking forward to a year of close collaboration with one of the best newsrooms in the nation.”

ProPublica launched the Local Reporting Network at the beginning of 2018 to boost investigative journalism in local newsrooms. It has since worked with nearly 60 news organizations. The network is part of ProPublica’s local initiative, which includes offices in the Midwest, South and Southwest, plus an investigative unit in partnership with The Texas Tribune.

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