Donna Ladd

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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.^{[citation needed]}

In July 2005, a team of JFP journalists, led by editor Donna Ladd, joined Thomas Moore and Canadian Broadcasting Corp. filmmaker David Ridgen in a trip to Moore's hometown of Meadville, Miss., to investigate and call for justice for the 1964 Klan murders of his brother, Charles, and his friend, Henry Dee. In the paper's first story about the trip, published July 20, 2005, the JFP revealed that the lead suspect, James Ford Seale, was alive and living in the area, although The Clarion-Ledger and other media had reported that he was no longer alive. [1] In January 2007, the Justice Department announced that Seale had been indicted for federal kidnapping and conspiracy charges in connection with the case. [2] Ladd's work on the case drew a variety of national attention, including from the Society of Professional Journalists, CNN, Editor & Publisher, and the Poynter Institute. [3] [4] [5]

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. [6] Her work for racial conciliation and justice in the state have been recognized widely, including in a long Glamour magazine profile of her and the daughter of James Chaney, one of three civil rights workers killed in her hometown when she was 3 years old, as well as by other media outlets. [7] [8] Her work for racial reconcilation in Mississippi will be highlighted in an upcoming documentary produced by Mississippi Public Broadcasting.

She has also been designated one of Mississippi's leading 50 businesswomen by the Mississippi Business Journal,[9] and has received numerous awards from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies for her journalism work. [10] In 2005 she was elected to the national board of directors of AAN, where she is working on diversity initiatives for the association. [11]

Ladd lives in Jackson, Mississippi with author and Jackson Free Press publisher and technology/blogging consultant Todd Stauffer, her partner of 10 years.

[edit] External links

• Donna Ladd's Blog
• Donna Ladd's Official Biography
• The Jackson Free Press
• The Colorado Springs Independent
• The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies
• Donna Ladd's AAN Awards
• "The Road to Meadville" Package on the Dee-Moore Murders
• Ladd Interview on NPR's "Here and Now"
• Ladd Interview on NPR's "Day to "Day"
• Society of Professional Journalists