The University of Central Arkansas will bring Pulitzer Prize finalist and investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell to its campus at the end of the month as an artist in residence.
On March 31 and April 1, Mitchell will discuss investigative journalism, journalism ethics and truth and accountability at the university’s Stanley Russ Hall.
The free event is mostly student-focused, with Mitchell giving a public talk to close out his two-day residency.
Mitchell has worked for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., where his investigative reporting put several white supremacists in prison for some of the most infamous murders of the Civil Rights era, including that of NAACP leaders Medgar Evers and Vernon Dahmer, four Black girls who were killed in a Birmingham church bombing and the three Freedom Summer activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.
Mitchell, who has won numerous awards for his work, wrote about his experience investigating these killings in his 2020 book, “Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era.”
Mitchell founded the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, which is a nonprofit housed within the news outlet Mississippi Today, which continues to uncover corruptions of power around the state. He also runs a daily newsletter in which he shares bits of Civil Rights history.
Below is the schedule:
Tuesday, March 31
- 10:50 a.m.-12:05 p.m., Student Event: Q&A with Beginning Reporting class, Stanley Russ Hall 102.
- 12:15-1:30 p.m., Student Event: Q&A with Media Law and Ethics class, Stanley Russ Hall 109.
- Time and venue TBD, dinner with journalism faculty and students from the Society of Professional Journalists.
Wednesday, April 1
- 11-11:50 a.m., Student Event: Q&A with International Reporting students, Stanley Russ Hall 102.
- Noon-12:50 p.m., Student Event: Q&A with News Editing students, Stanley Russ Hall 102.
- 3-3:50 p.m., Student Event: Q&A with Student Media Outlets (newspaper, yearbook, television station), Stanley Russ Hall 103.
- 7-8 p.m., Public Event: “Truth on Trial: An Evening With Journalist Jerry Mitchell,” Stanley Russ Hall 103.
