#anna wolfe

"Wolfe, a reporter with Mississippi Today, a nonprofit, online news outlet, won the Pulitzer for detailing a disturbing $77 million welfare fraud scandal in the nation's second-poorest state, a scandal headlined by Mississippi's most famous athlete, Brett Favre.

The reporting described how, with then-Gov. Phil Bryant in office, Favre and a handful of others scored millions of dollars that were supposed to go to welfare families but were instead used on projects that included a college volleyball facility and a concussion drug company.

Favre's involvement elevated the story into national news, providing fodder for talking heads from Fox News to ESPN. In no time, some people were going to sarcastic extremes over the story, such as shirts that went on sale saying, in all capital letters, "Brett Favre stole money from poor people. Go Bears."

Bryant and Favre both have said they had no idea the money was designated for welfare families.

It was against that backdrop last spring, a month shy of her 29th birthday, that Wolfe won the Pulitzer and celebrated with family, friends and colleagues at Hal & Mal's, a Jackson institution. It was a moment that should have capped the journey on a story Wolfe had been chasing for five years.

Instead, not long after the Pulitzers were announced, the former governor sued Mississippi Today for defamation, setting off a battle that not only soured Wolfe's and Mississippi Today's moment but, more troubling to Wolfe, turned the focus away from the scandal itself.

That's because not only has Bryant's lawsuit not gone away despite Mississippi Today's insistence that its reporting is truthful, but the former governor also recently asked a circuit court to hold Wolfe and the news organization in contempt of court. The governor wants all of Wolfe's notes. He wants her emails. He wants her confidential sources. And the judge has ordered, at the very least, that Wolfe and Co. show him what they've got so he can determine its relevance to the case.

Mississippi Today has called the order "unconstitutional" and appealed to the state supreme court. Either way, Wolfe and her boss, Adam Ganucheau, have said there's no way they're giving up confidential sources. They say they would rather defy the court and face possible jail or, probably more likely, see their news organization get hammered with substantial damages.

When Anna Wolfe won the Pulitzer Prize for her dogged reporting on Mississippi’s welfare fraud scandal, she had no inkling she was soon going to have to contend with the possibility of going to jail.

But just over a year after she secured journalism’s top award for exposing how $77 million in federal welfare funds went to athletes, cronies and pet projects, she and her editor, Adam Ganucheau, are contemplating what to pack for an extended stay behind bars. Sued for defamation by the state’s former governor — a top subject of their reporting — they have been hit with a court order requiring them to turn over internal files including the names of confidential sources. They say the order is a threat to journalism that they will resist.

“If one of us goes to jail, we will be the first person to go to jail in the Mississippi welfare scandal,” Wolfe told NBC News, referring to the eight indictments that stemmed from the imbroglio, none of which has yet resulted in a sentence. “How can I make promises to sources that I’m going to keep them confidential if this is possible?”

The case has drawn attention beyond Mississippi as an example of how public figures can make life difficult for news organizations long before they have ever presented evidence of the “actual malice” needed to prove defamation cases. Mississippi Today, the independent nonprofit organization that employs Wolfe and Ganucheau, is asking the state Supreme Court to overturn the order. Bryant appointed four of the nine justices.

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NBC NEWS:

She won a Pulitzer for exposing how the country's poorest state spent federal welfare money. Now she might go to jail.

SEPTEMBER 04, 2017

I draw a lot of inspiration from car-ride-conversations with my dad. This one's stuck with me a long time. The idea was "Stripped Teas" a tea brand that showcased all natural teas, but in strip tease form. The pun was amusing, but I began to consider the project more seriously last year. I imagined vividly a tiny burlesque in a cup; figures elaborately dressed in tea leaves would hit the water and transform, the leaves dispersing and floating away to reveal bold illustrations beneath. Since I've begun work there have been many challenges, not least of which the scale. I needed a large enough surface to illustrate on, but small enough to fit in a teacup. My first idea was to embroider teabags.

In between saving up for an embroidery machine and the software I'd need to design my tea-ladies, I was itching to get started. Post graduation I struggled to establish a regular art practice between working full-time and securing a studio space. I needed something to do with my hands, something small to take between work and home - a mini studio, if you will. So I developed the "stitchbook" - a sketchbook for teabag-sized embroideries. I used off-cuts of micro-suede and various sheers to to make a flexible book with pockets for needle, floss, snips, and a 3" hoop. I also included newsprint paper, for making notes and sketches.

The stitchbook turned into my tea tasting notebook as well. It was another small way to mesh my project with my everyday life. I wrote about the teas I'd tried, the good and the bad - building a vocabulary and library of flavors to inform my practice. This small process gave me the confidence to seek out new tea places, to connect with the tea drinking community, to share my notes and to make my own blends. Hell - to make this blog!

I'm an artist, but for as long as I've been making, I've also had my doubts. Am I active enough? creative enough? good enough to call myself that? I still don't know. Even after getting my BFA, especially in those first years after graduating, I felt unworthy of the title. What I do know is that making is a part of me, and however much I fret over being an artist, the proof of my conviction is in my creations. The stitchbook is a personal reminder that making is important to me, and no matter the challenges, I can count on my resourceful nature to find a way to keep feeding that creativity.

DECEMBER 04, 2016

I can't remember my first cup of tea, only that I hated it. Tea was my mother's drink, my grandmother's, my great aunt's, my nana's, but not mine. More appealing were the fizzy syrupy sodas, milk swirled with chocolate, juice out of a box. I had a young uncomplicated palate. Thankfully tastes change, it's the growing that sticks with us.

Now, the first cup of tea that changed my mind wasn't anything special- regular black tea in a stapled bag, to be sure. But it was made for me. I'd come home terribly upset over something not worth remembering now, and my mum put on the kettle. She sat with me and listened until it whistled her away, returning with offers of honey and lemon. She brought out two cups, pouring mine first before finally settling down herself. Together we warmed our hands watching the steam rise from mismatched mugs. I couldn't tell you what it tasted like, bitter or sweet, but I felt better.

I remember the gesture, and daily repeat that magic ritual, passed down from daughter to daughter: boil the water, add the leaves, steep, stir, sip, repeat. The love passed along in teacups is the same sort of love found in the stitches of quilts. It's the warm everyday kind, and it grows on you. This is what I mean when I say, I love tea.

Today, and many cups of tea later, I'm spreading the love - starting with this blog. Consider this a window into the project: Double Cup Teas, using needlework and tea leaves to transform "feminine" activities into feminist activism. There's a lot of care in a cup of tea- from the cultivating, to the brewing, to the sharing. Engaging in the ritual is one small way to take care of yourself, your community, and your environment every day. To that end, I'll be posting once a month with updates, news, reviews, teas, tips, stitches, and bitches <3 so you can make the most out of every cup.