Immersion Faculty
Jerry Mitchell
MCIR Founder
The stories of investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell have helped lead to convictions of Klansmen guilty some of the nation’s most notorious crimes — the 1963 assassination of Mississippi NAACP Medgar Evers, the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four girls and the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andy Goodman and Mickey Schwerner. His work also led to the 2016 conviction of Felix Vail — the oldest conviction in a serial killer case in U.S. history. His stories have also helped free two people from death row, exposed injustices and corruption, prompted the firings of boards and officials, and inspired statewide reforms. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and a winner of more than 30 other national awards, including a MacArthur “genius” grant. The New York Times selected his memoir, Race Against Time, as an Editor’s Pick, NPR designated it one of the “Best Books of 2020,” and Business Insider chose the memoir as one of the best true crime books of all time. At Ohio State University, he taught journalism classes, served as an adviser to the student newspaper and earned a master’s degree.
Debbie Skipper
MCIR Managing Editor
This veteran journalist worked as an award-winning feature writer and health reporter before moving into editing at the Clarion Ledger. She supervised the work of investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell that has led to the prosecution and conviction of numerous Klansmen in cold cases from the civil rights era. She was also the editor of “The AIDS Hope: Mississippi’s Despair” series, which won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award Grand Prize, and “The System” series about the dysfunctional criminal justice system in Hinds County, for which she was honored with the Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association. She left the Clarion Ledger in January 2019 to join Mitchell at the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting.
Ken Wells
Immersion Editor
Pulitzer-Prize finalist (The Miami Herald), editor of two Pulitzer-Prize-winning projects (The Wall Street Journal) and winner of the Harry Chapin Media Award for his riveting post-Katrina work of narrative non-fiction (The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous), Wells is the author of five well-received novels of the Louisiana bayous and three works of narrative nonfiction, most recently, Gumbo Life: Tales from the Roux Bayou.
Ann Marie Cunningham
Reporter in Residence
Formerly a New York Times reporter and best-selling author, Ann Marie Cunningham supervises the undergraduate section of students enrolled in MCIR's Immersion Program at Millsaps. A veteran journalist who has worked in print, broadcasting, and online, Ann Marie has taught journalism at New York University and lectured at MIT. Ann Marie is co-author of the bestselling Ryan White: My Own Story, the autobiography of the Indiana boy who contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion, sued for the right to go back to school, and won.