Welcome to JBANEWSPM! This blog has been created for the journalism students taught by Professor Joe Atkins at the University of Mississippi. Where did the name come from? Well, JBA are Professor Atkins' initials (Joseph B. Atkins). "News" doesn't necessarily mean we just talk about hard news on this blog, but the news could be important in selecting stories. "PM" doesn't mean this is an "evening" publication. It refers to the 1940s newspaper that was a milestone in American journalism and which included the work of Ernest Hemingway, I.F. Stone, Erskine Caldwell, Margaret Bourke-White, Arthur "Weegee" Fellig, and other legends. Stone biographer Myra MacPherson called PM "the most daring newspaper experiment of the twentieth century ... a tabloid that refused to pander." It was a hard-hitting publication that utilized the latest technology of its day (lots of cutting-edge photographs, for example) to tell its stories. That is the spirit and driving force behind this blog.
