Mississippi Today, in partnership with Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting and The New York Times, has won a National Edward R. Murrow Award for the podcast “Abuse of Power: Beyond the Goon Squad.” The project features more than 70 interviews with former inmates and office rs at the Rankin County jail. Reporters from Mississippi Today and The New York Times discovered a system in which guards ordered beatings, inmates who participated were rewarded, and those trying to raise an alarm about the system for more than a decade were ignored.  The podcast allowed people who experienced abuses by the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department to tell their stories in their own voices.  “Mukta Joshi, Brian Howey and Nate Rosenfield took their in-depth and impactful reporting about abuses at a Mississippi sheriff’s office to another platform, allowing listeners into the world they witnessed and wrote about,” said Debbie Skipper, Justice Team and Special Projects Editor at Mississippi Today. “Their podcast demonstrated the hurdles they had to overcome and their concern for protecting the people who dared to challenge a system stacked against them. It opened the eyes of a community to what was going on behind the walls of the sheriff’s office and jail and empowered residents to seek solutions.”  The Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) oversees the Edward R. Murrow Awards, which honors work in broadcast and digital journalism. Among the most prestigious in news, the Murrow Awards recognize local and national news stories that uphold the RTDNA Code of Ethics, demonstrate technical expertise and exemplify the importance and impact of journalism as a service to the community.  The award will be presented at the Edward R. Murrow Awards Gala on Oct. 12 at Gotham Hall in New York City.  ...read more read less