Mary Margaret White
Chief executive officer
Mary Margaret is the CEO of Mississippi Today. She works closely with the Mississippi Today leadership team to ensure collaboration and mission alignment throughout our nonprofit newsroom. Mary Margaret builds relationships with foundations, grant makers and impact donors to ensure reporters have the financial support they need to do their work.
Adam Ganucheau
Editor-in-Chief
Adam, named Mississippi Today’s editor-in-chief April 2020, has covered politics and state government for Mississippi Today since February 2016. Adam oversees the newsroom and works with the editorial team to produce high-quality journalism in the public interest.
Michael Guidry
MANAGING EDITOR
Michael was named Mississippi Today’s managing editor in February 2024, following four years in the news division at Mississippi Public Broadcasting where he developed skills in audio storytelling as a producer, writer and editor.
Marshall Ramsey
Editor-at-Large
Marshall, a nationally recognized editorial cartoonist, shares his cartoons and travels the state as Mississippi Today’s Editor-At-Large. Marshall can often be found in communities across Mississippi, promoting public conversations about the news and inspiring audiences to engage in civic life.
Mina Corpuz
JUSTICE REPORTER
Mina, a California native, covers the criminal justice system. Before joining Mississippi Today, she was a reporter for the Clarion Ledger and newspapers in Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe and USA Today.
Rick Cleveland
Sports Columnist
Rick, a native of Hattiesburg and resident of Jackson, has been Mississippi Today’s sports columnist since 2016. A graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi with a bachelor’s in journalism, Rick has worked for the Hattiesburg American, Monroe (La.) News Star World, Jackson Daily News and Clarion Ledger as a reporter, editor and columnist. He was executive director of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. His work as a syndicated columnist and celebrated sports writer has appeared in numerous magazines, periodicals and newspapers. Rick has authored four books and has been recognized 13 times as Mississippi Sports Writer of the Year.
Bobby Harrison
Senior Political Reporter
Bobby, Mississippi Today’s senior capitol reporter, covers politics, government and the Mississippi State Legislature. He also writes a weekly analysis.
Vickie D. King
Photojournalist
Vickie has experience as a professional photographer spanning 35 years. She is the former photographer, Special Projects Officer IV, Staff Officer I, videographer and online content producer for the Mississippi Department of Corrections and a former photojournalist. She is also a Pulitzer Prize nominee for Spot News.
Molly Minta
HIGHER EDUCATION REPORTER
Molly covers higher education for Mississippi Today. She works in partnership with Open Campus, a nonprofit news organization focused on investigating higher education. Originally from Melbourne Beach, Florida, Molly reported on public housing and prosecutors in her home state and worked as a fact-checker at The Nation before joining Mississippi Today in 2021. Her story on Mississippi’s only class on critical race theory was a finalist for the Education Writers Association National Awards for Education Reporting in 2023 in the feature reporting category. Molly’s work at Mississippi Today has been honored by The Green Eyeshades and the Mississippi Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest.
Jerry Mitchell
INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER
The stories of investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell have helped put four Klansmen and a serial killer behind bars. His stories have also helped free two people from death row, exposed injustices and corruption, prompting investigations and reforms as well as the firings of boards and officials. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a longtime member of Investigative Reporters & Editors, and a winner of more than 30 other national awards, including a $500,000 MacArthur “genius” grant.
After working for three decades for the statewide Clarion-Ledger, Mitchell left in 2019 and founded the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit that exposed injustices, investigated cold cases, gave voice to the voiceless and raiseds up the next generation of investigative reporters. Mitchell and MCIR have joined forces with Mississippi Today to continue shining a light through watchdog and investigative reporting.
Sophia Paffenroth
COMMUNITY HEALTH REPORTER
Sophia, a New York native, covers community health with a focus on women’s and family health care. In 2023, she graduated with a master’s in journalism from Northeastern University, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Boston Scope. Her multimedia work has been recognized by the National Press Photographers Association and the New England chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. She has also worked for the global nonprofit, Girl Rising, and the documentary group, The Disability Justice Project.
Gwen Dilworth
COMMUNITY HEALTH REPORTER
Gwen covers community health for Mississippi Today. Originally from North Carolina, she previously reported for The Times-Independent and The Salt Lake Tribune in Moab, Utah, where she covered local government and Southeast Utah’s mining industry. Prior to her career in journalism, Gwen worked in non-profit criminal defense in New Orleans and attended the University of Virginia.
Geoff Pender
POLITICAL & GOVERNMENT EDITOR
Geoff serves as Politics and Government Editor, working closely with Mississippi Today leadership on editorial strategy and investigations. Pender joined the Mississippi Today team in 2020, bringing 30 years of political and government reporting experience to the newsroom.
Previously, Pender served as Politics and Investigative Editor at The Clarion Ledger, where he also penned a popular political column. While at The Clarion Ledger, Pender helped lead digital transformation for the legacy publication, while overseeing watchdog news teams and government reporting.
Kate Royals
COMMUNITY HEALTH EDITOR
Kate is a Jackson native and returned to Mississippi Today as the lead education reporter after serving in the same capacity from 2016 to 2018. Prior to that, she was a reporter for The Clarion-Ledger covering education and state government. Kate became Mississippi Today’s first community health editor in January 2022.
Alex Rozier
Data Reporter
Alex, from New York City, is Mississippi Today’s data and environment reporter. His work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Open Secrets, and on NBC.com. In 2019, Alex was a grantee through the Pulitzer Center’s Connected Coastlines program, which supported his coverage around the impact of climate change on Mississippi fisheries.
Eric J. Shelton
COMMUNITY HEALTH PHOTOJOURNALIST
Eric, a native of Columbia, is a photojournalist focused on healthcare in Mississippi. Eric’s journalism career started with an internship at the Associated Press in Boston. He later worked for daily newspapers as a photojournalist in Central and East Texas. He also worked for the Hattiesburg American and the Clarion Ledger in Mississippi. Eric was a 2018 corps member in Report for America, and joined the team as our first photojournalist. He rejoined Mississippi Today as our community health photojournalist in January 2022.
Debbie Skipper
JUSTICE TEAM EDITOR
Debbie is a veteran journalist, who worked over 30 years at the Clarion Ledger, first as a reporter and then as an editor overseeing breaking news, business and investigative projects. She left the CL as news director in 2018 to become managing editor of the nonprofit Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and joined Mississippi Today in October 2022 to become its first justice team editor.
Taylor Vance
POLITICAL REPORTER
Taylor, a native of Grenada, covers state government and statewide elections. He is a graduate of the University of Mississippi and Holmes Community College. Before joining Mississippi Today, Taylor reported on state and local government for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, where he received an award for his coverage of the federal government’s lawsuit against the state’s mental health system.
Anna Wolfe
INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER
Anna Wolfe is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who covers inequity and corruption in government safety net programs, nonprofit service providers and institutions affecting the marginalized. She began reporting for Mississippi Today in 2018, after she approached the editor with the idea of starting a poverty beat, the first of its kind in the state. Wolfe has received national recognition for her years-long coverage of Mississippi’s welfare program, in which she exposed new details about how officials funneled tens of millions of federal public assistance funds away from needy families and instead to their friends, families and the pet projects of famous athletes.
Interns & Fellows
Chelsea Long
SUMMER FELLOW
Chelsea Long, a Florida native, is an investigative reporting summer fellow for the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today where she’ll be covering the criminal justice system. She’s currently pursuing a master’s degree at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Simeon Gates
REPORTING INTERN
Simeon Gates is a general assignment reporting intern at Mississippi Today. She previously worked at Southern Miss Student Media and attended the University of Southern Mississippi. As a student journalist, she received several awards including first place for the “Best Use of Video” in the college division of the Mississippi Press Association’s 2024 Better Newspaper Contest. Simeon is interested in political reporting and local government.
Violet Jira
REPORTING INTERN
Violet Jira is a native of Cleveland, Mississippi, and a graduate of The University of Mississippi where she majored in journalism and philosophy. In her senior year, she served as the Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Mississippian. She loves writing, finding stories in numbers, and using her journalism to tell underrepresented stories. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, crafting, and TV shows.