Jones College Collaborates with Southern Miss, Supports National Journalism Project

Mon, 09/29/2025 - 09:21am | By: Kelly Atwood and Dr. David Tisdale

Working together, the Jones College journalism program and The University of Southern Mississippi’s Roy Howard Community Journalism Center are undergirding fact-based, informative local news production to benefit local communities.

A proposal by Jones College journalism instructor Kelly Atwood was recently selected as one of only eight proposals from across the country for the Community College Civic Information Challenge cohort, led by Journalism + Design. The organization allots $5,000 in seed funding for joint projects among state community colleges, local newspapers and organizations. These initiatives, with additional support from other philanthropic entities, train community members for journalism roles through workforce development opportunities.

To date, Journalism + Design has partnered with 12 community colleges in five states, helped design journalism programs, trained more than 200 individuals, and distributed more than $300,000 in support of these projects.

Atwood’s proposal to Journalism + Design’s Community College Civic Info Challenge seeks to establish a coalition of Mississippi community colleges to offer eight-week, non-credit certificates in digital community journalism skills. The course would target community members with an interest in public affairs, focusing on journalism skills, with certificate holders continuing to engage in community storytelling. The proposal features multiple long-term goals Atwood hopes to implement, including expanding the program to additional state community colleges, forming partnerships with universities, and assisting in populating Mississippi news deserts with trained journalists.

“There are many communities with stories that should be shared, but there’s no one to cover them,” Atwood said. “Mississippi faces a critical need for community journalism due to the rapid expansion of news deserts across the state. Small hometown newspapers, particularly in rural areas, frequently lack the necessary workforce for in-depth investigative reporting. Existing media are stretched thin over coverage areas, providing limited coverage of local issues.”

Jones College is already contributing to the current national conversation on community journalism through its partnership in teaching a course developed by the Roy Howard Community Journalism Center at Southern Miss. The Howard Center is supported by a $3 million grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation.

As part of the 2025 cohort, Atwood, a Jones College and Southern Miss graduate, has been invited to participate in a two-day, all-expenses-paid summit to be presented by Journalism + Design this fall in North Carolina. There, she will collaborate with other cohort members to develop their projects and explore long-term sustainability and statewide implementation with the help of media leaders, community engagement experts, educators and journalists.

Accompanying Atwood to the summit is Dr. Edgar Simpson, director of the Southern Miss School of Media and Communication and architect of the $3 million grant acquisition for the Howard Center.

“Working with Dr. Simpson has inspired me to recognize and promote the role of community colleges in revitalizing journalism in our state,” Atwood said. “Two May 2025 Jones graduates, Sami Jordan (Ocean Springs) and Jacarious Roberts (Hattiesburg), worked with the Center this summer, and Sami helped with a news package that ran in national news outlets, including CNN.”

“Our partnership has the potential to provide future community journalism certificate holders from the Journalism + Design grant with the opportunity to work at the Center. Dr. Simpson and I are both committed to strengthening journalism in our state and providing our communities with the resources to do so.”

Simpson said working with Atwood and the journalism education program at Jones is wholly in accord with the goals of the Howard Center.

“This collaboration with Jones is a great example of how we can leverage our resources to advance and disseminate fact-based, informative journalism for the good of our citizenry,” Simpson said. “I’m so impressed with Kelly’s enthusiasm for and hard work on this initiative, and we’re honored to support her and the students who will participate in this program.”

About the Roy Howard Community Journalism Center
The Roy Howard Community Journalism Center is dedicated to enhancing the media landscape in southeast Mississippi by prioritizing impactful, issue-oriented and people-centered reporting. Funded by a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation, the center combats disinformation and misinformation, fosters the development and growth of student journalists, and helps grow newsrooms across our 10-county service region. Learn more about the center by visiting its website.