Jerry Mitchell

Investigative reporter/Author

The stories of investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell have helped put four Klansmen and a serial killer behind bars. His stories have also helped free two people from death row, exposed injustices and corruption, prompting investigations and reforms as well as the firings of boards and officials. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a longtime member of Investigative Reporters & Editors, and a winner of more than 30 other national awards, including a $500,000 MacArthur “genius” grant.
His memoir for Simon & Schuster, Race Against Time, details how some of the nation’s most notorious murders came to be punished decades later. The New York Times made it an Editors’ Pick, and NPR selected it as a Best Book of the Year.
After working for three decades for the statewide Clarion-Ledger, Mitchell left in 2019 and founded the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit that exposes injustices and raises up the next generation of investigative reporters. The stories of MCIR have already led to two separate Justice Department investigations. Since summer 2022, the nonprofit, now a part of Mississippi Today, has been working with The New York Times on a series that has exposed allegations of how Mississippi sheriffs and their deputies have carried out horrific crimes, including torturing suspects, and the beatings and sexual abuse of those behind bars.