» Carolyn Dillon, longtime owner and publisher of The Tylertown Times, died Monday, Jan. 27, following an extended illness. Dillon operated the weekly newspaper and radio station WTYL-FM since 1983. “Perhaps the most important value I learned from Carolyn was the importance of community-driven journalism — how local news operations are the fabric of an engaged citizenry, binding a better-informed people together,” wrote Tony Plohetski on Facebook, who is now a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman in Texas. Hartman Hughes Funeral Home in Tylertown is in charge of arrangements.

» Emily Wagster Pettus recently announced her departure from a 24-year career with the Associated Press as a Jackson-based Mississippi correspondent. Pettus said she was one of several journalists who took a buyout from the news coop as it restructures. Pettus formerly was a reporter for The Vicksburg Post and the Clarion Ledger and is an Ole Miss journalism graduate. Also departing is longtime Mississippi bureau photographer Rogelio Solis, who will move in to freelance photography. Longtime bureau chief Adam Yeomans, based in Nashville, announced his departure in October.