Press Forward Mississippi and MSPA collaboration is an important advance for young journalists
By R.J. Morgan
Late last month, the day before Halloween, the Mississippi Scholastic Press Association hosted its annual Fall Statewide Convention at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Around 325 high school students gathered from across the state, each one involved in some type of student storytelling on their campus: newspaper, news website, yearbook, broadcast, news or literary magazine, podcast, live stream, etc.
In a series of more than 25 different morning breakout sessions, students learned from journalists and educators from in and outside Mississippi on a wide-ranging series of topics meant to help them grow as communicators, citizens and future professionals.
A student journalist reviews the program at the Mississippi Scholastic Press Association's annual Fall Statewide Convention at the University of Southern Mississippi. This year’s gathering of middle school and high school storytellers highlights a new partnership with Press Forward Mississippi. Photo by Stephen Coleman.
They learn about photography, graphic design, podcasting, interviewing, feature writing, video editing, and more. They heard from political and legislative reporters who cover the Mississippi Capitol. They heard keynote speaker Torsheta Jackson underscore the importance of covering schools and communities with accuracy and dignity. They engaged in solutions circles and systems analyses for some of Mississippi’s most pressing issues. They ate pizza for lunch that did not come from a school cafeteria.
It was an uplifting and energizing day, as it always is.
These students play a crucial role in the informational ecosystem of their school community. They aren’t just participating in a student activity, they’re intimately involved in documenting all the other activities and accomplishments of their classmates. They preserve in published amber what it was like to walk the halls of their high schools in 2025. Even in today’s individualized, asynchronous world, those years are full of collective memories worth accumulating. It is important work.
Increasingly, they might also be the only such source of news in their county. According to the 2025 Report of the Local News Initiative at Northwestern University, six of Mississippi’s 82 counties have zero outlets for local news. Most of the rest have only one.
Enter Press Forward Mississippi.
Press Forward Mississippi is one chapter in a broader national coalition of partners trying to strengthen and improve local news coverage, and, through that, strengthen our democracy.
What’s happening in Washington, D.C., doesn’t affect the residents of Washington County nearly as much as the decisions of their local school board, supervisors, planning and zoning commissioners, etc.
But none of that stuff ends up on MSNBC or Fox News, so where can residents go to stay informed?
Answer: local media outlets.
Since 2023, Press Forward has raised and invested $400 million across 40 chapters nationally to help strengthen local media. These partnerships bring local foundations and philanthropy to the same table as journalists, publishers and educators. This fall, Press Forward Mississippi hosted its first Community Journalism Workshop in conjunction with the fall MSPA convention described above. This partnership event mingled existing professionals with high school students who are just beginning their journey. It also connected journalism teachers with professional mentors in ways not previously possible.
Student journalists got to see that the professionals of this state are behind them. It was a resounding success, and it makes me even more excited about the future. One of PFM’s initial funding projects, announced earlier this fall, is related to our work. From their website:
Students in high-school newsrooms gain vital skills in communication, civic awareness, media literacy and real-world storytelling. These programs are not available to students at most of Mississippi’s public high schools.
The Mississippi Scholastic Press Association (MSPA) supports a statewide network of journalism programs through conferences, awards and teacher training. But only about 15 percent of Mississippi’s public high schools are part of MSPA, and most do not offer journalism programs at all.
What’s missing is a clear onramp for schools that don’t yet offer journalism, but would like to. Press Forward Mississippi will identify a cohort of interested schools, help them launch new journalism programs, and connect them to the existing MSPA network for mentorship and long-term support.
This $50,000 grant will be life-changing stuff for 15 communities in this state. Students involved in strong scholastic journalism programs correlate with higher test scores, higher GPAs and better grades in their first semester of college than their non-journalism peers.
They’re also serving their communities by providing accurate information on matters of local importance at a time when they need it most.
Communities need good scholastic journalism programs just as much as the kids do.
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R.J. Morgan is instructional associate professor in the School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi, director of the Mississippi Scholastic Press Association and a member of the Overby Center panel of experts.
