• Podcast
  • Home
  • Better News
  • Contact Us

It's All Journalism

The broccoli of media-focused podcasts.

  • Podcast
  • Home
  • Better News
  • Contact Us

#367 Investigative reporter exposes injustice in civil rights-era murder case

July 25, 2019 by Amber Healy

For three decades, Jerry Mitchell was an investigative reporter for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi.

He spent those years digging into crimes so closely aligned with the civil rights era, he little believed it possible there was any stone to be overturned or any clue left to be found.

Jerry Mitchell

“I have always been attracted, you could say, to injustices that weren’t being dealt with or corrected,” he says. “Even beyond just civil rights cases.”

One of his first editors had served as a statehouse reporter in Oklahoma who asked Mitchell if he’d ever read “All The President’s Men,” the classic account of the Watergate scandal. “He told me to read the book and study how they use attribution. It was the best advice I ever got in journalism,” Mitchell says. “I began to learn through that book, to see how you can do that (investigative work) and how it evolved.”

Mitchell, now the director of the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, started covering civil rights cases in 1989, shortly after watching the movie “Mississippi Burning,” about the deaths of three activists at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. “I saw it with two FBI agents who had worked on the case… and I was intrigued that nobody got prosecuted for murder. There were 20-something Klansmen involved. That blew my mind.”

In particular, he focused on the case of Edgar Ray Killen, a prominent Klan member at the time of the killings. It had been more than 20 years since the deaths of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, but he was inspired by small and incremental breaks in other cases from the era, including the death of Emmett Till.

“I believe there’s always hope, there’s always a possibility in a case you look at,” Mitchell says.

In the Killen case, he was leaked an interview with Sam Bowers, who had been head of the Klan in Mississippi during that time. “He talked about the 1967 federal trial (on conspiracy charges). He said he was quite delighted to be convicted, one of seven Klansmen (to be charged and found guilty). The instigator had walked free. I did a story and the authorities reopened the case in earnest in 1999.”

In 2005, Killen was convicted on three counts of manslaughter. He died in prison in 2018.

Jerry Mitchell, a 30-year investigative reporter who now runs the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, joins producer Michael O’Connell to explain why cold cases and lapses in justice should never be shrugged off and left to history.

#207 – Emory students investigate civil rights-era cold cases
Share Button
If you like this post, please share it along:

Previous Post


Investigative reporter exposes injustice in civil rights-era murder case

Next Post


IAJ partners with API on new podcast mini-series

Related Posts

  • 400. The more journalism and social media change, the more journalists are needed
  • #200 – Photojournalist recalls photo that still haunts him
  • #89 – Jack Gillum: Nerdy data-computing meets shoe-leather reporting
  • It's All Journalism producers Nicole Ogrysko and Michael O'Connell (Photo by Steve Johnson)#230 – That timed we killed a beauty pageant …

Learn How To Podcast

Turn Up the Volume equips journalism students, professionals, and others interested in producing audio content with the know-how necessary to launch a podcast for the first time. It addresses the unique challenges beginner podcasters face in producing professional level audio for online distribution. Beginners can learn how to handle the technical and conceptual challenges of launching, editing, and posting a podcast.

Order this new book by It’s All Journalism Producer Michael O’Connell.

Sign Up for Our Weekly Newsletter

Design

With an emphasis on typography, white space, and mobile-optimized design, your website will look absolutely breathtaking.

Learn more about design.

[footer_backtotop]

© 2022 Copyright by AllJournalismPod LLC 2012-2021 All rights reserved.·Pintercast Child Theme · Genesis Framework by StudioPress · WordPress · Log in