The BBC and Editor & Publisher (E&P) report on the work of Jerry Mitchell of the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. Since 1989, Mitchell has investigated some of the most notorious killings of the civil rights era, and has put four former Ku Klux Klansmen behind bars. (Watch the BBC’s video.)

His newspaper's top editor tells E&P's Joe Strupp that Mitchell "does it the old-fashioned way — developing sources, going through documents, thousands of documents — when most people would be bored."
"It doesn't win us any friends. But it is the right thing to do."

Mitchell recently was awarded a $500,000 genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation, and last week received a publishing deal to write a book, Race Against Time, about his 20-years of pursuing the unpunished killings, including those in the film Mississippi Burning (YouTube).