Jackson Action   

Ronnie Agnew returns to his Mississippi roots, becoming the first African American to be named executive editor of Jackson's Clarion-Ledger.

Ronnie Agnew, a Mississippi native son who began reading Jackson's Clarion-Ledger when he was a teenager, becomes the first African American to be named executive editor of the 165-year-old paper once known for its pro-segregation stance.

"Beyond it just being home, this paper has been a part of my life," Agnew says. When he was hired as managing editor in early 2001, he told his wife he had his dream job. He had no idea, he says, that he'd be running the newsroom so soon. His predecessor, Shawn McIntosh, is now deputy managing editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Agnew, 40, grew up in Saltillo, about eight miles north of Tupelo, with eight brothers and sisters. When he was young, his father grew cotton as a sharecropper, until Agnew's mother persuaded him to get a manufacturing job.

"My parents were educated to the third or fourth grade," Agnew says. "They always put newspapers in front of us. Whenever they could afford to, they put the Clarion-Ledger in front of us."

Like seven of his siblings, Agnew went to college, graduating with a degree in radio and television and English from the University of Mississippi in Oxford. He was determined to get a job in broadcasting, but a former professor urged him to try newspapers.

His first job was at the Greenwood Commonwealth, in the heart of the Delta. "Seeing true poverty in Mississippi was an eye-opening experience," Agnew recalls. "I will never forget how horrified and shocked I was by it." It was then, he says, that he realized how newspapers can tell the stories of those who can't speak for themselves.

Though his career took him to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Mississippi tugged at him. He took a job as ME at the Hattiesburg American, then moved to Alabama when the Dothan Eagle hired him as editor.

"Ronnie wasn't like anybody," says Debbie Ingram Smith, the Eagle's business editor. "It seemed like he didn't want his race to set him apart. It was more what he accomplished. That was who he was."

A number of reporters and editors in Dothan and Jackson describe Agnew as accessible and approachable. "He walks around the newsroom talking to people," says Andy Kanengiser, the Clarion-Ledger's higher education reporter. Not only does Agnew keep tabs on his reporters' beats, Kanengiser says, "He takes a real interest in your family."

Agnew wants the Gannett-owned paper to help readers understand changes under way in Jackson--which has experienced major demographic and economic shifts as more people move to the suburbs--while being a leader on statewide issues.

"Few newspapers have the impact that this newspaper has," Agnew says. "We are on the forefront of change in Mississippi."