MFP’s Youth Media Project Students, Mentors Earn National Recognition

Report for America awarded Education Equity Reporter Torsheta Jackson and Environment Reporter Illan Ireland the 2025 Service Project of the Year award for their work with Mississippi Free Press’s Youth Media Project during their 2025 Local News Awards on May 28, 2025.

The Youth Media Project brings metro-area high-school students to the Mississippi Free Press newsroom for six weeks each summer. During that time, students develop  journalism, photography and videography skills to produce print and video stories. 

Mississippi Free Press’s Youth Media Project collected seven awards during the Report for America Student Journalism Awards ceremony on April 24, 2025, the most of any service project led by RFA Corps members. The national competition recognized and celebrated the work of student journalists working with RFA corps members on their service projects.  

Mississippi Free Press Editor Donna Ladd, Photo Editor Imani Khayyam and Programming Coordinator Kiden Aloyse-Smith led the 2024 Youth Media Project while Jackson and Ireland served as mentors. The 2024 YMP summer newsroom focused on elections, including how the media can cover elections better and engage young voters. Their flipbook and stories can be viewed on jxnpulse.com.

RFA Student Award Winners:

1st place Best Profile: Ferrari Sharespeare – March to Equality: Alyce Clarke’s Fight for Women’s Rights and Voting in Mississippi

1st place Best Feature Story: Paris Braggs, Caitlyn Russell, Jeremy Thomas and La’Ziyah Walker – ISSUE FOCUS: Redlining, Voting Suppression and Felony Voting Bans Not Just Relics of Past

2nd place for Best News Story: Laila Henderson – From Partisanship to Gridlock: Why Legislation Gets Stuck, Rejected

2nd place Best Op/Ed Piece: Kaitlyn Poole – Opinion | Trump Can Run With 34 Felonies, But Many Mississippians Cannot Vote on Nov. 5

2nd place Best Enterprise: Hannah Evans – The How and the Why: Education Is Key to Motivating Young People to Vote

3rd place Best Enterprise: McKenzie Mathews – ‘Tears of Joy and Pride’: Don’t Be Discouraged, #MakeVotingATrend

3rd place Best Photo: Taylor Brandon – Darlyn Bustillo, Daughter of an Immigrant and Future Immigration Lawyer

The 2025 Youth Media Project kicks off June 9 with student journalists reporting on health disparities and solutions with support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Community Foundation for Mississippi.

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