The Current, a nonprofit news organization serving Lafayette and South Louisiana, is joining Deep South Today, a nonprofit network of local newsrooms that serves communities in Louisiana and Mississippi.

“We are tremendously excited to bring The Current into the Deep South Today network of newsrooms,” said Warwick Sabin, President and CEO of Deep South Today. “The Current is already doing an outstanding job of providing Lafayette with essential local journalism, and they have a lot of room to grow. We intend to use the resources and infrastructure at Deep South Today to support that growth and meet the need for critical news and information in Louisiana.”

“We launched The Current to serve Lafayette with vigorous, in-depth journalism,” said Christiaan Mader, The Current’s co-founder and executive editor. “Joining Deep South Today will amplify what we do with more reporting, more programming and more innovation.”

The Current will become the third newsroom in the Deep South Today network, alongside Mississippi Today and Verite News in New Orleans. Along with its staff, The Current will retain its mission, identity, community focus and editorial independence. Mader will serve as The Current’s executive director and editor-in-chief, remaining the local executive in charge of the newsroom.

Deep South Today will make investments in the coming year to expand editorial capacity at The Current through additional reporting staff, new topical coverage, and other support. The Current will leverage the centralized infrastructure at Deep South Today to enhance its technology, improve its audience engagement, add multimedia content, and achieve greater operational sustainability.

Deep South Today also looks forward to enhancing The Current’s suite of events and accelerating the growth of Big Towns, a summit created by The Current that brings leaders from around the country to Lafayette over two days for focused discussions about ideas that can advance mid-sized cities.

The Current is joining the Deep South Today network as it continues to develop extensive national and regional collaborations with partners that include the New York Times, ProPublica, Associated Press, Grist, The Trace, Open Campus, The Marshall Project, The Hechinger Report, KFF Health News, AJI/NOTUS, CatchLight, Gulf States Newsroom, and others.

“This merger helps Deep South Today as much as it helps The Current, because increased scale will bring more impact, more audience, and more efficiencies in our operations,” Sabin said. “Deep South Today is determined to meet the need for local news wherever it exists in our region, and the addition of The Current is an important step toward that goal.”

ABOUT DEEP SOUTH TODAY

Deep South Today is a nonprofit network of local newsrooms that includes Mississippi Today, Verite News, and The Current.

Founded in 2016, Mississippi Today is now one of the largest newsrooms in the state, and in 2023 it won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. Verite News launched in 2022 in New Orleans, where it covers inequities facing communities of color. The Current is a nonprofit news organization founded in 2018 serving Lafayette and southern Louisiana.

With its regional scale and scope, Deep South Today is rebuilding and re-energizing local journalism in communities where it had previously eroded, and ensuring its long-term growth and sustainability.

ABOUT THE CURRENT

The Current is a nonprofit news organization serving Lafayette and South Louisiana.

Founded in 2018 by local journalists, The Current’s in-depth reporting connects Lafayette to stories that matter and helps readers understand how our community works — and how we can make it better.