Donna Ladd

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Donna Ladd (born 1961 in Philadelphia, Mississippi) is an American investigative journalist who helped create The Jackson Free Press, an award-winning freely distributed newsweekly[1]. She has received international recognition for her racial reconciliation efforts in Mississippi and nationally[citation needed], helping bring "cold" civil rights cases to justice[citation needed] and for her dogged coverage of Frank Melton[2], the controversial mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. She is currently on the board of directors of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and serves as the organization's national Diversity Chair. [3] She is also currently vice president of the ACLU of Mississippi[citation needed].

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[edit] Biography

Ladd was born in Philadelphia, Mississippi. In 1983, Ladd completed her B.A. in Political Science at Mississippi State University[citation needed] and left to pursue a career in journalism. She helped start The Colorado Springs Independent[citation needed], Colorado Springs' first alternative newsweekly[citation needed], in 1993[citation needed]. After editing and then writing for the paper for several years, she moved to New York City where she wrote for The Village Voice[4] and pursued a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University[citation needed]. Ladd lives in Jackson, Mississippi with author and Jackson Free Press publisher and technology/blogging consultant Todd Stauffer, her partner of 10 years.

[edit] Blue in a Red State

In 2001, Ladd 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[citation needed], a now-defunct investigative civil rights newspaper from the 1960s.

The JFP, as it's called locally, launched in 2001 with a fully interactive Web site, with a wide variety of blogs and forums, introducing blogging to Mississippi's media[citation needed]. Ladd has attracted controversy because she moderates the discussion on the site herself and strictly enforces the site's blog rules, "in order to encourage respectful discussion of a variety of ideas," as the site's blog rules state, although she has been known to not follow the same rules herself. Her policy attracts vicious condemnation from JFP forum users who feel she personally exudes an "always right" attitude and often disregards users own opinions, going so far as to ban them from posting when they call her out for her "I'm right and you're wrong" control of the forums. She maintains that not allowing bigotry and personal "troll attacks" on the site is why the site has such long discussions with a variety of voices represented. She often moves posts she disagrees with to the Troll Blog. She has stated on the JFP forums that she owns the site and can do what she wants. Still, there are other JFP forum users who agree with Ladd's operation style.

Ladd teaches workshops on incorporating reporting and the Web around the country.[5]

She is also one of the few outspoken female political voices in Mississippi, drawing ire at home and recognition outside the state for her outspoken progressive commentary on her own blog, which often focuses on people such as Gov. Haley Barbour. Her investigative work on Barbour has attracted attention from national blogs. [6] [7] Her criticism of the Republican Party and approach to discussing race, however, has made her unpopular among some in the state, leading to disparaging nicknames and satirical Web sites and blog threads designed to disparage her.[8][9] She is also criticized by white supremacists like "white nationalist" Richard Barrett, who likes to call her the "hip hop editor" and an "integrationist" on his Web site.[10]

[edit] Justice & Reconciliation

In July 2005, Donna Ladd and photographer Kate Medley joined Thomas Moore and Canadian Broadcasting filmmaker David Ridgen in a trip to Moore's hometown of Meadville, Mississippi, 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. [11] In January 2007, the Justice Department announced that Seale had been indicted for federal kidnapping and conspiracy charges in connection with the case. [12] Ladd's work on the case drew a variety of national and international attention, including from NPR, CNN, BBC, CBC Radio, CBS Radio, the Society of Professional Journalists, Editor & Publisher, and the Poynter Institute. [13] [14] [15] Seale was convicted of federal charges in June 2007 and has been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. [16] [[17]

Ladd started the work on the Dee-Moore case while she was covering the Edgar Ray Killen case in Philadelphia, Mississippi[citation needed]. She had long called for the conspirators to be prosecuted in that case[citation needed]. She is discussed in professor Howard Ball's book "Justice in Mississippi: The Murder Trial of Edgar Ray Killen"[citation needed].

[edit] Diversity Work

Ladd is the national Diversity Chair for the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. She teaches writing workshops at the Academy for Alternative Journalism at Northwestern University every summer, a program to increase diversity in the alternative press. [18][19]

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. [20] 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[citation needed], one of three civil rights workers killed in her hometown when she was 3 years old, as well as by other media outlets. [21] [22] Her work for racial reconciliation in Mississippi will be highlighted in several upcoming documentaries[citation needed].

[edit] Awards

Ladd has received six awards from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies for her investigative work and political commentary, including for her Dee-Moore series and as part of the team that investigated Mayor Frank Melton, helping lead to indictments in 2006[citation needed]. [23]. She was designated one of Mississippi's leading 50 businesswomen by the Mississippi Business Journal,Mississippi Business Journal.

[edit] References

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