Roy Howard Community Journalism Center Officially Launched at Southern Miss

Tue, 01/07/2025 - 03:11pm | By: Dr. David Tisdale

With the beginning of a new semester comes the start of a new opportunity for students in the University of Southern Mississippi School of Media and Communication to engage the citizens of the state through advocacy for and production of informative, fact-based journalism.

The Roy Howard Community Journalism Center (RHCJC)–funded by the Scripps Howard Foundation for three years at $1 million a year–formally opened Jan. 6 for the spring 2025 semester. The center will serve 10 counties, including Forrest, George, Greene, Hancock, Jackson, Lamar, Pearl River, Perry, and Stone, to inform its citizenry on issues impacting their daily lives.

Dr. Edgar Simpson, School of Media and Communication director, secured a grant through the foundation for the establishment of the center in 2023, with the startup of its operations moving forward through 2024 in preparation for this semester’s official launch. A meet and greet reception for RHCJC partners and supporters will be held Feb. 20 at the Thad Cochran Center on the University’s Hattiesburg campus.

Nichole Cyprian, a Southern Miss graduate serving as director of the center, hailed its establishment as “an exciting new chapter for journalism in southeast Mississippi.”

“As this adventure begins, we’re working with media partners to restore public trust in the news ecosystem while also building up our ‘What is True?’ hotline, which fights disinformation and misinformation,” Cyprian said. “At the same time, we’re offering media literacy classes throughout our 10-county service area that will help build better informed and media-savvy citizens.”

The work of the center includes its first news series, “Bill of Health,” which focuses on the potential effects of Medicaid expansion on local communities.

“Over the coming months and years, you’ll find us providing more quality and issue-oriented journalism—in other words, we’re going to be reporting what matters to our audiences,” Cyprian further noted.

Dr. Simpson shares Cyprian’s enthusiasm and anticipation of the great outcomes the center portends for collaborative work between Southern Miss students, professionals in the field and the communities they will serve to “provide and enhance accurate information.”

“Nichole and her crew are leading the way in the best practices of transparency in reporting and in educating about media literacy,” said Simpson. “There is no higher calling, and we are enormously grateful to the Scripps Howard Foundation and to Southern Miss for all the support in creating the center."

The School of Media and Communication is housed in the Southern Miss College of Arts and Sciences. For more information about the school and the Roy Howard Community Journalism Center, visit https://www.usm.edu/media-communication/rhcjc.php and https://rhcjcnews.com/.