“What a ridiculous and terrible piece.” Those words from a Mississippi Free Press reader in Eastover, a posh capital-city neighborhood, accompanied photos of the front and back of the latest attack mailer about our journalism and our team sent to mailboxes in select Jackson neighborhoods presumed to have more whiter and conservative residents.
This one displayed old, pixellated photos of me and investigative reporter Nick Judin (photos we own) alongside one of Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba in an apparent effort to anger and titillate rich white folk who didn’t ask for the unsigned trash in their mailboxes. It indicates falsely that, somehow, Nick and I and the team are connected to and supporting alleged corruption by Lumumba and the Black district attorney and city councilwoman who were indicted for capital-city corruption and bribery in the past year. We’ve reported what we know about it and are like everyone else watching to see and report what happens. That’s the job.
As we do with all corruption allegations, the Mississippi Free Press is covering this one—as we did with the battles over garbage contracts in recent years—in an evenhanded way and have given no indication of supporting any side in any corruption scandals. We go where the facts lead without declaring guilt (not our job), and as a statewide nonprofit we don’t do partisan reporting and don’t have the capacity to dive deeply into local races across 82 counties and don’t do endorsements. So if this is about the mayoral race, this bunco is barking up the wrong tree. This mailer innuendo is a straight-up lie by a liar who can’t spell or make a convincing argument.
Like a nonsensical mailer that went out two years ago maybe trying (and failing) to link me with Lumumba in some nefarious way, this one didn’t make a lick of sense and clearly wasn’t produced by a genius in its efforts to intimidate recipients and get them to call out friends and neighbors who might support or read the Mississippi Free Press. It demands at the top over our pictures: “Why do your friends keep
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