Jonathan Logan Family Foundation awards $500,000 to Deep South Today to support investigative and justice reporting
By Mississippi Today | Originally published by Mississippi Today
Deep South Today, a nonprofit network of newsrooms in Louisiana and Mississippi, is pleased to announce it has received a $500,000 grant from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation to deepen and expand investigative and justice-focused reporting to amplify its impact across the region.
“The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation was among the earliest investors in Mississippi Today and Deep South Today, as it recognized the need and potential for impactful investigative journalism in our region,” said Warwick Sabin, President and CEO of Deep South Today. “We are grateful for the opportunity to build upon that strong foundation and our record of achievement to further scale the reporting on behalf of the communities we serve.”
With this new support, the DST newsroom Mississippi Today will address a critical gap in how courts are covered in the state. Instead of focusing narrowly on proceedings, journalists will cover the broader systems and consequences that shape people’s lives and civic participation.
Building on Mississippi Today’s prior reporting on felony disenfranchisement, the newsroom will develop a justice-oriented reporting beat that examines how court decisions, prosecutorial practices and legal structures impact communities — particularly those historically excluded from the democratic process.
“This work will illuminate where barriers to participation persist, and how systems of justice reinforce or dismantle those barriers,” said Mississippi Today Editor in Chief Emily Wagster Pettus. “By covering the courts through this lens, Mississippi Today will shine light on stories that are too often invisible, while providing the public with a clearer understanding of how power operates within the legal system.”
Resources also will be directed toward increasing impact, which will include dedicating more time and resources to long-term reporting projects, strengthening collaborations across the Deep South Today network and continuing to partner with national outlets to amplify stories that resonate beyond Mississippi. Sustaining and growing the impact of this work requires more than reporting capacity — it requires editorial leadership capable of building systems, guiding strategy and scaling collaboration across multiple newsrooms.
The Deep South remains one of the most consequential and undercovered regions in the country, and Deep South Today is building a network of nonprofit newsrooms designed to meet that challenge by creating infrastructure for investigative reporting and amplifying its reach and influence.
“This kind of reporting doesn’t happen by accident. It takes time, resources and editorial infrastructure built for the long haul,” said Adam Ganucheau, executive editor and chief content officer of Deep South Today. “We’ve already used that infrastructure to expose police torture and the misspending of public dollars, and to dig into how courts shape who gets to participate in our democracy. This grant lets us go further, reaching more communities and strengthening independent journalism in Mississippi and across the Deep South.”
About Deep South Today
Deep South Today is a nonprofit network of local newsrooms that includes Mississippi Today, Verite News and The Current. Its new Arkansas Today newsroom will launch in fall 2026.
Founded in 2016, Mississippi Today is now the largest newsroom in the state, and in 2023 it won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. Verite News launched in 2022 in New Orleans, where it covers inequities facing communities of color. The Current is a nonprofit news organization founded in 2018 serving Lafayette and southern Louisiana.
With its regional scale and scope, Deep South Today is rebuilding and re-energizing local journalism in communities where it had previously eroded, ensuring its long-term growth and sustainability.
About Jonathan Logan Family Foundation
The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, based in Berkeley, California, supports organizations that advance social justice by empowering world-changing work in investigative journalism, documentary film, arts and culture and democracy.
This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Source: Original Article
