Mississippi Today was founded in 2016 by former Netscape president and CEO Jim Barksdale and his wife, Donna, alongside former NBC chairman Andrew Lack.[2][3]
Its owner and parent nonprofit, Deep South Today,[5] was formerly called Mississippi News and Information Corporation.[1] It incorporated in 2014 and received 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in 2015.[1] Its founders aimed to compensate for dwindling local news coverage in the state.[5] Jim and Donna Barksdale, alongside former NBC chairman Andrew Lack, a longtime journalist, founded the organization; he is a New Yorker, but his mother was raised in Mississippi.[5]
Deep South Today formed a second newsroom, New Orleans–based Verite,[5] in 2022.[7]
Personnel
The organization's staff includes editor-in-chief Adam Ganucheau, a former reporter at the Clarion-Ledger, and CEO Mary Margaret White.[8] Marshall Ramsey, an editorial cartoonist, is the publication's editor-at-large.[8] In early 2023, Jerry Mitchell's Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting merged with Mississippi Today, and has since produced reporting that has been named a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize.[citation needed] In 2023, the staffers unionized through the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, and management agreed to recognize the union.[5]
