Donna Ladd
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Donna Ladd (born 1961) is an American investigative journalist who helped create The Jackson Free Press and The Colorado Springs Independent, two successful alternative weeklies. She is editor-in-chief and co-owner of The Jackson Free Press, the only member of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies in Mississippi.
Ladd was born in Philadelphia, Mississippi. In 1983, Ladd completed her B.A. in Political Science at Mississippi State University and left to pursue a career in journalism. She helped start The Colorado Springs Independent, Colorado Springs' first alternative newsweekly, in 1993. After editing and then writing for the paper for several years, she moved to New York City where she wrote for The Village Voice and pursued a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.
After graduating from the program in 2001, she returned to Mississippi after an 18-year absence and co-founded The Jackson Free Press, where she continues to serve as editor-in-chief and where she regularly contributes op-eds and investigative pieces. She took the name from the The Mississippi Free Press, a now-defunct investigative civil rights newspaper from the 1960s. The Jackson Free Press, which is free of charge and is supported entirely by advertising revenue, has a weekly circulation of 16,000 (though Media Audit figures indicate an actual readership of approximately 40,000) and its Web site receives more than 500,000 page views per month.
In 2006, Ladd and Mississippi NAACP chapter president Derrick Johnson were co-recipients of the Friendship Award, an annual prize given by Jackson 2000, a racial reconciliation group. She has also been designated one of Mississippi's leading 50 businesswomen by the Mississippi Business Journal, and has received numerous awards from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies for her journalism work.
Ladd lives in Jackson, Mississippi with author and Jackson Free Press publisher and technology/blogging consultant Todd Stauffer, her partner of 10 years.
