UM graduate earns award for reporting in the Mississippi Free Press
Nick Judin graduated from the University of Mississippi in 2012 with a degree in English, focusing on creative writing. He recently was named a national health fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism to research housing inequity and evictions.
AUGUST 22, 2022 BY STAFF REPORT
University of Mississippi alumnus Nick Judin has been recognized at the 2022 Diamond Journalism Awards for reporting published by the Mississippi Free Press.
The awards, sponsored by the Arkansas Pro Chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists, honor work by students and professionals in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.
Judin received the Charlotte Tillar Schexnayder Award for Public Service Journalism for “What the Jackson Water Crisis Exposed.” He also was a finalist for print/online reporting with “Solutions for Health Equity in Mississippi.”
“The work follows our guiding and shared belief that great and impactful journalism is not stenography or done via email,” said Donna Ladd, MFP editor. “Journalists have to go to sources and look for the real story, not just chase a headline and sound bites.”
Judin’s work explores the historical and human perspective of the Mississippi capital city’s failed water system over several weeks in 2021.
“The point of journalism is impact,” he said. “The history of Jackson, with all its complexities and what that means for today and the future, must be understood.”
Judin received attention from national news outlets for his coverage of Jackson’s water system failures. Ladd credits that to Judin’s ability to build relationships with sources.
“He used his deep, local source base to go into the homes of people affected and told powerful and haunting stories about what they faced because of historic inequities,” Ladd said. “… And he explained the technical and historic aspects of the crisis in a way no other media could do without his sense of understanding the systemic issues at play.”
Judin works to tell complex policy stories with a human touch.
“If it means people are engaging and grappling with that, then I’m good,” he said.
Judin lives and works in Jackson, his hometown. He graduated from Ole Miss in 2012 with a degree in English, focusing on creative writing. He eventually became a state reporter with the Jackson Free Press and moved to the Mississippi Free Press in 2021.
He recently was named a national health fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism to research housing inequity and evictions.