Why Mississippi Keeps Making Headlines

"What is going on with you people in Mississippi?" this smarty-looking person asked. "Y'all are rural and backward as all get out, but y'all have all these famous authors and musicians like nobody else's business, and your little state is getting all of these AI data centers that every other state in America wants. And your football team came close to winning the natty. Please explain."

I told this person, an erudite scholar of immense insight, that there are many interpretations, whys and wherefores of Mississippi's successes and failures. Yes, we've had plenty of both.

Former Jackson Clarion Ledger executive editor Benny Ivory always called Mississippi "a big news state." I remember him saying that in a morning "budget meeting," which has nothing to do with finances, but is where editors decide what's big news and what's not for the day ahead. Their decisions determine the placement of articles, whether on page 1-A, 1-B or elsewhere in the edition to be printed later.

Sir Ivory was correct. It's uncanny each day how much "big news" is generated in this state. We've even had monkeys loose on an interstate highway lately. The recent "bomb cyclone" almost wrecked North Mississippi. A lot of our news goes national when the networks and the country's large newspapers pick it up.

This is such a college football-crazy commonwealth that the sport consumes a lot of media air, whether it's the broadcast variety or the printed type. Ole Miss brought some beautiful publicity to the state during the recent college playoffs, for example. That goodwill was worth millions upon millions for the state. Can we keep it amid this furious Clemson-Ole Miss portal spat?

The biggest news lately has been the aforementioned criminal ice storm that feasted on Oxford. Mississippi's weather always seemed to fascinate and bewilder Mr. Ivory, now retired in Kentucky where he was the highly-respected editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal.

We don't seem to escape much of the really bad stuff, like the ice storm that slammed much of the state. Look for the Grove's genteel socializing area on the Ole Miss campus, which lost innumerable branches from ancient oaks, to be highlighted on future national network shows. There's no need to recount the nation's worst hurricanes that occasionally hunt down Mississippi for damage.

(A contrast to Mississippi's regular suffering of extreme weather is the strangeness of the Southwest Georgia corner that should draw the same inclement weather that moves dead east from Mississippi. The Chattahoochee River, dividing Georgia and Alabama, magically sends the storms from the west up and eastward, missing this small area. No doubt there's a meteorological reason that I can't explain.)

Sooner or later, amid all of the sociological turmoil that's happened in America lately, some of it is likely to erupt in Mississippi because it always does. Our track record on involvement in protest is solid. We'll fight you. My advice is that if you desire to stay away from it, stay home.

I'm referring to the unrest in Minneapolis. We all disdain such behavior -- from both sides -- and it's a given that Mississippi is on the radar of ICE agents and the Border Patrol due to the potentially high number of illegal immigrants working in this state. At least for now, we've run off a proposed ICE detention center here.

While most Mississippians seem to realize the value of migrant workers, mainly in the agricultural sector, they wish them to be legal immigrants.

The training of the federal law enforcement agents seems to be lacking. Hopefully, the ones wearing masks will ramp up their social and behavioral skills before arriving in Mississippi.

---Mac Gordon is a native of McComb. He is a retired newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.