Holly Springs, Miss., is a town of just under 7,000 residents, but small towns like Holly Springs can go on to build big names. One of those names is Elise Jordan, a Yale University graduate and journalist that has written for The Atlantic, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, Buzzfeed, Marie Claire and the National Review.
Jordan presented on the topic of “Media and Democracy in the Digital Age” at the Jordan Center for Journalism Advocacy and Innovation’s “Addressing the Impact of Social Media and AI on Democracy” symposium on April 2. She offered her take on how artificial intelligence will shift the newsroom moving forward.
“I think AI is going to completely transform the world — the newsroom included,” Jordan said. “So much of journalism is rejecting (AI), and you’ve got to learn how to work with it, how to integrate it.”
Because of Jordan’s belief that journalists must adapt to the addition of AI in the newsroom, she has spent time studying what it means for them. Ultimately, she has come up with a couple of ideas, even in the midst of uncertainty for the journalism field.
“The job skill that’s going to be most valued in the AI economy is the ability to ask good questions,” Jordan said. “We don’t know what it’s going to look like, but critical thinking and a liberal arts education are going to really help you.”
As she worked in the speech writing office of the White House during the George W. Bush administration, Jordan said, the importance of collecting and relaying accurate information was instilled into her work ethic as a communications professional.
“… (L)earning how those speeches were fact-checked with precision, care and accuracy — that’s something that’s really stuck with me and has been important for my entire career,” Jordan said.
But did Jordan, as a woman from the Magnolia State, ever see herself having a career that involved working in places like Washington, D.C.?
“When I was young as a teenager, we first got the internet, which really started to open up the world a little bit because information was more easily accessible, and I was dying to leave. I was dying to go to different places, to travel, to experience another way of life,” Jordan said. “As the years go by, I realize just how much Mississippi is home and how much I’m rooted here, I’m grounded here — the sense of community, the sense of family, the importance of faith (all) really give a lot of perspective to my life outside of (Mississippi).”
Another trait that Jordan believes she inherited from Mississippi is the ability to tell a story.
Jordan is working on a book about Dwight D. Eisenhower and the women who helped him during the second World War, particularly Kay Summersby, Eisenhower’s chauffeur and personal secretary. The project, which is slated for a 2026 release by Knopf, was born after Jordan attended a historical site in France and saw a mannequin of Summersby.
“I noticed there was a woman in the room, and so I thought, ‘Who’s that woman?’” Jordan said. “I learned she was Kay Summersby and that she had been censored out of the official photo that she was in at the signing of the peace (agreement). I just wanted to know why.”
That trail led Jordan down the path of completing the story.
“There’s so much we can learn from that era of competence, sacrifice and national mindedness in a positive way, and I feel like there are so many lessons that are applicable to today,” Jordan said.
Whether in a newsroom discussing AI, the White House writing speeches or completing an in-depth write-up about underrecognized women in history, Jordan is embracing her Mississippi roots and telling stories.
“What I love about Mississippi is that we’re talkers, we’re storytellers, we embrace characters,” Jordan said. “I think that there’s this misconception that Mississippi isn’t a very welcoming place, but I’d actually argue that we embrace our characters in a way that other places in the world — and bigger cities — don’t necessarily do.”
The Holly Springs native — who grew up approximately 45 minutes away from the University of Mississippi campus — took an on-campus creative writing course on Wednesdays during high school. She felt a breeze of reminders as she stepped onto campus for the symposium, reminding her that the culture of Ole Miss is something she carries around with her.
“Every time I’m back in Oxford and back on campus, the vibrancy and the rise of Ole Miss is just so apparent to me. The university is growing in the right direction,” Jordan said. “It’s just been so impressive to watch how the world has changed, and Ole Miss has kept its core values but has met the moment and has really become an institution that stands with top institutions all around the world.”
