Lynne Jeter

After serving for several years as the primary WorldCom reporter for the Mississippi Business Journal, the only statewide business publication, Lynne Jeter had a front-row seat to the $11 billion accounting fraud that led to the filing of the nation's largest bankruptcy and fraud charges against former CEO Bernie Ebbers. John Wiley & Sons published her first book, Disconnected: Deceit and Betrayal at WorldCom, in February 2003, which has been optioned for a movie. The paperback debuted in June 2004, and the Kindle edition recently. She assisted MSNBC producers with their Emmy award-winning special about the WorldCom debacle and CNBC producers of a business crime series with their WorldCom focus, and whistleblower Cynthia Cooper with her 2008 Wiley-published book, Extraordinary Circumstances.

An award-winning writer for features, series planning, news reporting, sports stories and investigative journalism, including 1999 and 2006 SBA Small Business Journalist of the Year honors, Jeter participated in the inaugural class of the prestigious Fellowship Program for Professional Journalists at the University of Mississippi in 2002.

"Lynne Jeter is the premier southern business writer," said international journalist Starr Smith, twice named Travel Writer of the Year by the Southeast Tourism Society. "She knows the territory...and writes with knowledge, understanding, clarity, and above all, with courage."

Jeter was travel editor for SOUTH magazine, which Library Journal named one of America's 10 best magazine launches in 2003. She established a travel column, Backstage Pass, for Mississippi Business Journal, and has contributed to Art & Antiques, Northwest Airlines, Southern Accents, and U.S. Airways magazines. She wrote the kick-off essay for Biltmore magazine, which debuted in 2007.

A versatile writer, for several years Jeter penned a interior design and casino entertainment columns for The Clarion Ledger, Mississippi's largest daily newspaper.

For the latter, she has interviewed a diverse group of entertainers ranging from Ann Margret, Faith Hill, Engelbert Humperdinck, Dan Fogelberg, Dorothy Moore, Melissa Manchester, Jose Feliciano, Tony Orlando, Ted Nugent, Kenny Rogers, Toby Keith, Jo Dee Messina, David Cassidy, Debbie Gibson, Eddie Money, The Beach Boys' Mike Love, The B-52's Kate Pierson, Chicago's Lee Loughnane, Lynyrd Skynyrd's Johnny Van Zant and Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, to comedians Bob Newhart, Joe Piscopo, Carrot Top, Tommy Smothers and Jay Leno, to world figure skating champions Peggy Fleming and Kristi Yamaguchi.

She has also interviewed rising star Lacey Chabert, soap star Maurice Bernard, TV star Gerald McRaney, football standout Deuce McAllister and movie mogul Morgan Freeman for other publications. Her profile of Morgan Freeman was voted an all-time Mississippi Magazine fan favorite.

Jeter serves as a national writer and editor for Florida, Mississippi and North Carolina markets for Medical News, Inc., a B2B local monthly publication produced by Brentwood, Tenn.-based SouthComm.

In time for the Neshoba County Fair in 2009, Quail Ridge Press published CHIEF, an autobiography she co-authored with Chief Phillip Martin of the Mississippi Choctaws, who died in 2010. Jeter, who is part Choctaw, calls "Chief," who led the Indian tribe from poverty to prosperity in four decades, the greatest Choctaw leader since Pushmataha.

When she isn't working from home, Jeter can most likely be found on the tennis courts.