Jackson was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1871. At the time of the 1900 United States Census, he was living in Providence and working as a reporter. He worked for six years for the Providence Telegram from 1895 to 1901 and became the newspaper's Sunday and sporting editor.
Sportswriter
In November 1901, Jackson was hired to replace Ray M. Ziegler as the sporting editor of the Detroit Free Press, a position he held until 1910. In addition to his editorial duties, Jackson published a regular column titled "Sporting Facts and Fancies", and feature stories on the major sports events in the city. He covered Michigan Wolverines football in the era of Fielding H. Yost's "Point-a-Minute" teams and the Detroit Tigers during the early years of Ty Cobb's career in Major League Baseball. Jackson is credited with having given Cobb the nickname, "The Georgia Peach". In 1910, he became the sports editor of The Washington Post. He published a regular column in The Washington Post called Sporting Facts and Fancies. After three years in Washington, D.C., Jackson returned to Detroit as a sports writer and editor for The Detroit News-Tribune. He subsequently returned to the Detroit Free Press.
Baseball Writers' Association of America
In 1908, Jackson and Jack Ryder of the Cincinnati Enquirer organized the Baseball Writers' Association of America. The BBWAA was established in response to ongoing disputes over working conditions in, and control over, press boxes. The press boxes at many fields were cramped, and team owners had begun to offer seating in the press boxes to actors, friends and others who were not members of the working press. Frequently, there was no room for reporters from the visiting team. The issue came to a head during the 1908 World Series between the Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs when visiting baseball writers in Chicago were seated in the back row of the grandstand and in Detroit "were compelled to climb a ladder to the roof of the first base pavilion and write in the rain and snow". The organization was established at a meeting held at the Pontchartrain Hotel in Detroit, Michigan on October 14, 1908, following the 1908 World Series. Jackson was selected as the organization's first president and held that position for 11 years from 1908 to 1919. When Jackson stepped down as president in October 1919, the Association presented him with "a handsome traveling bag".
Later years and death
In 1921, Jackson moved to California and worked for several years there. He died in San Francisco, California, in June 1936. Edgar Guest, known as the "People's Poet", began his writing career with the Detroit Free Press in the early 1900s. After learning of Jackson's death, Guest published a poem titled "Joe S. Jackson" which provided in part:
"Joe wrote of baseball in the years gone by And all the sports which men and boys enjoyed. His was the nimble brain, the watchful eye, Mine was the poor assistance he employed * * * Word comes that Joe is dead. The game goes on! Before the march of time all champions fall. Now those he lavished praise and help upon Only the dusty record books recall.
