In an article published May 9, Jackson Free Press Publisher Todd Stauffer describes how Lee Warmouth, circulation director of the Gannett-owned Clarion-Ledger, asked him to sign a contract in order to continue distributing at some of the Free Press' already-existing spots. Ostensibly designed to reduce rack "clutter," the contract gives Gannett exclusive control of the display, and merchants are asked to sign a contract that forbids racks or boxes other than Gannett's. "In the meeting with Warmouth, it became clear to me that this 'service' was, in fact, not really aimed at the needs of local publications, but more about promoting The Clarion-Ledger's own growing stable of free publications while punishing anyone who dares to compete with them," Stauffer writes. He also discovered that merchants were being misled that Jackson Free Press had already signed on for the service.
On the JFP blog "Noise," Editor Donna Ladd noted similarities between a Marshall Ramsey cartoon in Jackson's The Clarion-Ledger and a Darren Schwindaman cartoon published in JFP two weeks earlier. Both play on the Brokeback Mountain catch phrase, "I wish I knew how to quit you" to comment on Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's veto of a tobacco tax. Ladd wrote, "We appreciate the compliment, Marshall, but a note of appreciation would have sufficed."
On Feb. 9 at Lemuria Books in Jackson, two of the Free Press' most distinguished journalists, Editor-in-Chief Donna Ladd and freelance writer Ayana Taylor (pictured), read their award-winning entries from "Best AltWeekly Writing and Design 2005." More than 25 books were sold, and the evening was an all-around success.
Ben Allen, a conservative Ward 1 Councilman in Jackson, Miss., is authoring a blog hosted on the Jackson Free Press Web site. The blog went live on Jan. 12 with a post in which Allen explains that Free Press Editor in Chief Donna Ladd is "a personal friend," and that he can "live with" the paper's liberal bent if his blog is a venue for two-sided political discussion. Allen goes on to say that he is "enthusiastic about the depth of many of the local ISSUES researched AND REPORTED in-depth by the JFP. We in government get so weary of the lack of real information in local and state issues as covered by our State's largest newspaper." In its first week, the blog generated nearly a thousand views and some polite questions about bike lanes and streetlights.
Celeste Fraser Delgado was arrested on Nov. 20, 2003 while covering protests during the Free Trade Area of the Americas ministerial meetings in downtown Miami. On Thursday--the two-year anniversary of the event--the ACLU filed three lawsuits, including one on Delgado's behalf, charging that police officers had used excessive force to intimidate and unlawfully arrest innocent bystanders and protesters. Delgado, who wrote a 2700-word article about her experience, is no longer with Miami New Times.
In the same year that Ayana Taylor served as a diversity intern for the Jackson Free Press, she wrote three news stories that won her a first-place AltWeekly Award. She believes it's her persistence that has made interview subjects open up to her, even when they didn't want to talk to the media. This is the 15th in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
The editor-in-chief of the Jackson Free Press never intended to write the story that won her a 2005 AltWeekly Award for Feature Story. She'd assigned it to another writer. And then she ran into one of the subjects of the piece, they got to talking, and over the next six months she developed her heart-rending account of a family that suffered at the hands of a priest. This is the second in a "How I Got That Story" series highlighting the AltWeekly Awards' first-place winners.
In an unsigned article titled "Negress Awarded for Interviewing Nationalist," the Mississippi-based Nationalist Movement takes a swipe at one of the three pieces that netted Ayana Taylor of Jackson Free Press an AltWeekly Award earlier this year. Richard Barrett, editor of the group's Web site and the subject of Taylor's profile, "X Marks the Boycott," calls the story "light on accuracy," claiming he was misquoted and that Taylor "editorialized considerably in the article." Barrett also says he had "trouble understanding (Taylor)," and congratulates himself for "departing from precedent in which pro-majority activists invariably refused to speak to Negroes."
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