Wendi C. Thomas

This article is about the journalist and founder of MLK50. For the Republican member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, see Wendi Thomas.

Wendi C. Thomas
Born	Ohio, U.S.[1]
Alma mater	Butler University
Occupation	Journalist
Known for	Founding MLK50

Wendi C. Thomas is an investigative journalist and the founder of MLK50, a nonprofit digital newsroom with the goal of reporting on economic justice.[2]

Education

Thomas graduated from Butler University with a degree in journalism in 1993.[3]

Career

Thomas worked for The Commercial Appeal as a columnist from 2003 to 2014.[4] In 2016, she was selected for the 2016 Class of the Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University.[3] In 2017, Thomas founded MLK50: Justice Through Journalism to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.[5] In 2020, Thomas won the Selden Ring Award and the Gerald Loeb Award for local reporting for her reporting on predatory health care practices in Memphis.[2][6]

Lawsuits

Thomas was involved in a 2018 federal police surveillance trial, where the ACLU of Tennessee sued Memphis Police Department for violating a 1978 decree preventing them from surveilling on citizens for political purposes. A white police officer in the trial admitted to posing as a person of color on Facebook and following Black Lives Matter related groups and people to get intel on the movement, also admitting that Thomas was one of the people he followed.[4]

In 2020, Thomas sued the city of Memphis for not including her in the city's media advisory list. Her lawyer claimed that it was unconstitutional for her to not be included and that they didn't include her because they "[did not] like the content of her reporting".[7]

References

1. "MLK50 Founder, Editor & Publisher, Wendi Thomas: FACES of Memphis". February 17, 2019.
2. "Wendi C. Thomas wins 2020 Selden Ring Award for series on predatory healthcare debt-collection in Memphis". annenberg.usc.edu. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
3. "Wendi Thomas '93 Selected for a Nieman Fellowship".
4. Thomas, Wendi C. (June 9, 2020). "The Police Have Been Spying on Black Reporters and Activists for Years. I Know Because I'm One of Them". ProPublica. Retrieved November 16, 2024.
5. "MLK50's Wendi C. Thomas opens up about the realities of launching a news startup". International Journalists' Network. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
6. Trounson, Rebecca (November 13, 2020). "Anderson School of Management announces 2020 Loeb Award winners in business journalism" (Press release). UCLA Anderson School of Management. Retrieved November 13, 2020.
7. McKenzie, Peggy (May 13, 2020). "MLK50 editor sues City of Memphis, mayor, communications chief over exclusion from media list". MLK50. Memphis, Tennessee. Retrieved November 16, 2024.