Jackson Free Press

Every Mississippian flinches when we hear yet another statistic or superlative that shows how bad we seem to have it: We're the fattest, poorest, most racist, worst educated or such, or we're trading off with Louisiana or Alabama for such honors.

So often being told we're the "worst" takes its toll—and, in turn, we too often fall down to the world's bigotry of low expectations for ourselves. Or worse, we believe it ourselves and either leave the first chance we get or whine about how we want to leave because there is nothing to do or no one to have intelligent conversations with.

Of course, that is a self-created problem. As this issue shows, it's just not true. There is plenty to do, and the state is packed with interesting, progressive people if we bother to get out there and find them.

One of our more hated stereotypes of Mississippi is that we can't hang with the big dogs when it comes to something like publishing a high-quality publication. We set our sights nearly eight years ago not on being as good as other media outlets in the state and beyond; we set out to be one of the best. Now we have walls and shelves of awards to show that we can, in fact, produce award-winning journalism; and we have a popular newspaper and a glossy magazine brimming with ads and bolstered by a loyal, diverse readership.

We've made our point both to ourselves and to the world.

But what we are most proud of at the JFP is that many of these awards are not won by long-time journalists, and much of our content is created by people who did their first journalism right here at the JFP, often in an internship. They are people of all ages and backgrounds who decided they wanted to learn quality journalism, and showed up and put the hard work in that it requires to be among the best.

This issue is testament to what young Mississippians are capable of when you take time to teach them, encourage them and then empower them with real responsibility. Yes, it takes discipline and learning to do tedious tasks well. Yes, it means that you have to show up when you're supposed to. And, yes, it means that you are accountable to your team members.

An amazing crew of interns came together to do this issue. They picked their own lead editor, they chose and assigned the stories to each other; they factchecked and edited each others work, and they spent many hours gathering information about what makes this city great to share with other young people. They worked their butts off to be great.

Put another way, this issue disproves stereotypes about our state and our young people. They can be the best when we allow them to be.

Our hat is off to you, summer intern class of 2010. Thank you.