Cathy Straight

Cathy Straight, a 1985 Southern Miss graduate, serves as senior assignment editor for national news at USA Today, which she joined in 2006.  She has overseen coverage of breaking news and stories such as the Southern California Wildfires, the Virginia Tech shootings, and the Jena Six controversy in Louisiana.  She was also responsible for national coverage of the Gulf Coast’s recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina.  Ms. Straight worked at The Tennessean in Nashville from 2000 to 2002.  From 2002 to 2006, she was a senior manager and managing editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press directing local and national coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks among other major stories.  She was also part of that paper’s “first responders” effort to help The Sun Herald in Biloxi after Hurricane Katrina, helping to manage local coverage and providing enterprise coverage to all Knight Ridder newspapers.  Ms. Straight was inducted into the MCJ Hall of Fame in 2007.