If you don’t know the name Luther Keith, you should.

Keith was the first Black sportswriter at a Detroit daily newspaper.

He was the first Black statehouse reporter in Michigan. In 1982, he became the first Black assigning editor. And 10 years later, he was appointed assistant managing editor, making him the first Black masthead-level editor in the paper’s history.

All of those firsts took place during his 33 years at The Detroit News.

The native son of Detroit died peacefully in his sleep on March 5. He was 74.

The trailblazing journalist loved to tell stories of everyday people, and in doing so, he strived to ensure that the city and residents of his beloved Detroit were portrayed accurately and fairly, and placed on the front page. For Keith, diversity inside and outside the newsroom was paramount.

Midway through a successful reporting career, Keith stepped away from the newsroom for a few years to become the founding director of the Journalism Institute for Minorities (JIM), an academic scholarship program at Wayne State University that serves as a pipeline to diversify media organizations. More than 300 students have graduated from what is now known as the Journalism Institute for Media Diversity. It turns 40 this year.

Keith took every opportunity he could to recruit diverse journalists, such as JIM graduate Mekeisha Madden Toby.

“It was an interview and a conversation and a chance that led to my first newspaper internship,” she said, “and that internship, at The Detroit News, opened too many professional and personal doors to count.”

After a negative portrayal of the city aired on ABC’s “Primetime Live” in the early ’90s, Keith was inspired to create a tabloid publication called On Detroit. The weekly section in The Detroit News showcased the residents, neighborhoods, schools, churches and businesses often overlooked by large media outlets.

On Detroit was the prototype for what is known today as community-centered engagement journalism.

Detroit Free Press columnist Darren Nichols got his start as a reporter covering the education beat for On Detroit.

“There literally isn’t a day I don’t use a lesson from Luther Keith,” Nichols said. “He taught me to eliminate the words ‘I think’ in my copy. Luther would say, ‘We know he thinks it because he said it.’ It’s not only a lesson I use, I teach it to young reporters that I mentor. Luther was full of all of these small things that would make you a better reporter.

“With On Detroit, our goal was to get good enough stories that would (run on) 1A,” Nichols said.

Luther Keith changed the trajectory of my career. I was set on becoming one of the top female design editors in the country. However, Keith saw me in a role I had dreamed of but thought was unattainable: He appointed me editor of On Detroit, a role that provided valuable experience in editing and management while leading a team of five. The lessons I learned from him allowed me many years later to follow in his footsteps as assistant managing editor at The Detroit News.

Most importantly, Keith and his family became my family.

“Luther was the soul of The Detroit News when he worked here. He loved The News, but loved Detroit more, so he left to start an organization serving the city’s neighborhoods,” said Detroit News editorial page editor Nolan Finley in a story published on March 6. “He had a personality that drew people to him. If I had to describe him in one word, it would be joyous. He radiated a love for life, no matter what he was doing.”

Keith was a mentor to many, including retired photo editor Charlotte Massey.

“When I arrived at The Detroit News in 1998, he took me under his wing and put me up for Push the Edges, a community/journalism fellowship with Wayne State University, the Poynter Institute, and the Ford Foundation,” Massey said. “It was an amazing introduction to the city and some of its most interesting citizens.”

A multiple award-winner over the years, Keith was the youngest inductee in the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame in 1995.

Upon retirement in 2005, Keith was eager to do more for the city of Detroit. Ever the visionary, he created ARISE Detroit!, a nonprofit dedicated to equipping residents with the tools to tackle societal issues affecting their neighborhoods. Since its inception, the organization has sponsored “Neighborhoods Day,” an annual event the first Saturday in August for children, teens and adults to participate in service projects across the city.

Maynard alum Walter Middlebrook, a former assistant managing editor at The Detroit News, said Keith’s commitment to young people will be long remembered through his service as a trustee for the Rosa Parks Scholarship Foundation, which awards approximately 40 scholarships annually to graduating Michigan high school seniors.

Keith was part of the team at The Detroit News that created the foundation. The board voted to name a scholarship in his memory.

“(Luther) was considered the soul of the board and always jumped at the opportunity to help pick the awardees,” said Middlebrook, a member of the foundation board.

When Keith wasn’t serving the city of Detroit by day, his alter ego, “Badman,” was entertaining blues fans at night. The self-taught guitarist/singer/songwriter and his band performed regularly at clubs across the city. They even performed on Memphis’s famed Beale Street and at international blues festivals.

Winner of the Detroit Music Awards’ Outstanding Blues Songwriter, Keith released five albums over the past 26 years. One of his songs, “Cooking in the Kitchen,” was the jingle for the restaurant Captain D’s advertising campaign.

Keith was a dedicated member of Detroit NABJ and a former first vice president. President Vincent McCraw described him as the chapter’s North Star, known for his wisdom and humor, often showcased during celebrity roasts. He lent a hand whenever he could, always willing to support the chapter and its members.

“Luther’s unassuming warmth and genuineness was his calling card,” McCraw said. “For 16 years he never hesitated to perform at our Show the Love benefit to raise funds to support Metro Detroit journalists facing financial hardships. For decades, he made a difference in the lives of many of our members.”

Keith is survived by his wife of 36 years, Jacqueline Hall Keith; daughter, Erin Yvonne Hall Keith; loving siblings and extended family members; a grateful community; and countless journalists, who, like me, entered the Detroit market through doors he opened for us to walk through.

Detroit journalists stand tall on Luther Keith’s shoulders and are committed to honoring his legacy because a person’s spirit lives on as long as they are remembered. We will ensure his name endures for generations to come.

Felecia D. Henderson is Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Maynard Institute.

Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education Secures Historic Grants to Advance Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging in Journalism

We’re thrilled to share some exciting news about the Maynard Institute. Two transformative grants will significantly bolster our mission to foster Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) in journalism. The Ford Foundation has awarded us a $400,000 grant for general support between 2025 and 2026, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has committed an unprecedented $2.5 million over four years—the largest grant in our history.

These generous contributions, totaling $2.9 million, couldn’t come at a more critical time. As DEIB initiatives face increasing challenges nationwide, this funding empowers us to expand our signature Fault Lines® training methodology, create new programming, and deepen our commitment to building organizational cultures that truly reflect the diversity of our communities.

“Ford and Knight have been some of our longest-standing funding partners,” said Martin G. Reynolds, Maynard Institute co-executive director overseeing fundraising and external affairs. “A few years ago, at the height of the racial awakening and pandemic, supporting this work was a priority. Today, we are facing an entirely different climate, making these grants all the more important, impactful, and meaningful. These funds will super-charge our efforts to build journalistic institutions of belonging and help us hire our first-ever development director, as well as other support staff.”

“As an organization dedicated to pushing for accurate and fair representation, we don’t get to step back when attacks happen, or decide it’s a good time to do the work of belonging because the moment lends itself to an opportunity,” Reynolds added.

“This is who we are. This is the work we do, and these grants will help us and the people we seek to serve, immensely. We are deeply appreciative of Ford and Knight foundations for their continued support.”

Building on a Legacy of Support

The Ford Foundation’s $400,000 award follows its pivotal five-year BUILD grant, which supported our general operations, enhanced skill-building for our leadership team, strengthened strategic planning, and funded a website redesign that will launch later this year. This ongoing partnership shows Ford’s steadfast belief in ensuring we have the infrastructure and resources needed to sustain and grow our impact.

Building upon Knight Foundation’s 2019 investment of $1.2 million, which established the Equity and Inclusion Transformation Program and supported our work to infuse Fault Lines® into the Table Stakes initiative, the Maynard Institute will expand its focus to journalism infrastructure organizations. While the previous project paired DEIB training specialists directly with GBH News in Boston and the Cedar Rapids Gazette in Iowa, this new effort will elevate the cultural capacity and organizational cultures of the entities tasked with supporting news publishers.

“The Maynard Institute is igniting a wave of new programming, building on the transformative power of the Maynard 200 Fellowship. It is an experience many alumni describe as career and life-changing, as it has propelled their professional growth and leadership voice,” Odette Alcazaren-Keeley said. Alcazaren-Keeley directed the Maynard 200 program and will direct two new programs: Maynard Communities of Practice and Maynard Regional Training.

“The support from the Ford and Knight foundations will supercharge these two initiatives, helping us deliver even greater impact for frontline editors and managers, executive leaders, storytellers, media entrepreneurs, and others of all backgrounds, especially those who have been historically underrepresented,” Alcazaren-Keeley explained.

“These programs will provide specialized instruction, peer dialogues, collaborative solutions-based endeavors, dedicated coaching, and a resilient community of support.

Our new programs will benefit all institute alumni and the next generation of media professionals across America, whose work is reshaping the face of the journalism industry,” Alcazaren-Keeley added.

This work is essential, as these organizations, which create products and services for an increasingly diverse media ecosystem, must be mindful of blind spots and biases when engaging with news publishers. Additionally, it will benefit these infrastructure organizations to foster hospitable environments where people of diverse backgrounds can thrive and innovate.

Over the grant period, the Institute will conduct three year-long initiatives for journalism infrastructure organizations, which will be chosen over the coming months.

Additional Grant-Supported Efforts

This new funding will also support efforts to:

• Train 50 journalists and media leaders annually.
• Launch a “communities of practice” initiative for Maynard alumni, fostering sustained engagement and professional growth.
• Bring on new team members to enhance program evaluation, development, and program-delivery capabilities to ensure our long-term impact.

Rooted in Founders’ Vision

All of this work is grounded in the vision of our co-founder, Robert C. Maynard, who fought to ensure diverse voices were integrated into journalism. In his 1972 essay, Perspective: A Black Journalist Looks at White Newsrooms, Maynard wrote, “The picture of America as seen through the lens of the mass media is badly distorted.” He believed that bringing minorities into the management structure of media organizations was critical to providing a fuller and more accurate view of society. “When a singular or narrow perspective dominates the news landscape, no American has full access to truth, even if their perspective is represented,” Maynard wrote. “It is this, I think, that hinders the fulfillment of democracy.”

A Commitment to Truth and Democracy

Since our founding, the Maynard Institute has stood firm in our mission to advance equity in journalism, developing programs that meet the moment and have trained generations of reporters, editors, news leaders and media entrepreneurs. These historic investments will allow us to expand our reach and deepen our impact, aligning with the belief that a diverse media landscape is essential to a thriving democracy.

We’re deeply grateful to the Ford Foundation and Knight Foundation for their unwavering support of our mission. Together, we’re building a future where every voice is heard, every story matters, and every newsroom belongs to everyone.

Maynard Family Update: Momo Chang joins Civil Eats

The Maynard Institute congratulates Momo Chang on her new role as Senior Editor at Civil Eats, a news source for critical thought about the American food system. Chang joined the Maynard Institute to manage the Oakland Voices alumni program in November 2019, a few months before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. She quickly adapted to the Oakland Voices alumni program to meet the moment. Chang launched virtual events and led a wave of alumni reporting on the pandemic and other community stories.

“I have had the pleasure of working with Momo at the Oakland Tribune and Oakland Voices. She is a wonderful person, journalist and editor. She is thoughtful, insightful and has always had the capacity to connect with different kinds of folks, a skill that made her a perfect fit to engage Voices alumni,” Martin G. Reynolds, Co-Director of the Maynard Institute, said of Momo Chang.

“Under her direction, we significantly increased the stories coming from Oakland Voices alumni, created new learning opportunities for them, and also benefited from Momo’s connections to the wider journalism community through annual meet-ups she would help coordinate. She also began to widen her work with the Maynard Institute around events and thought leadership before this new opportunity emerged. I am sad to see her go but happy for Civil Eats, and will do my best to find a way to bring her back into the Maynard family fold.”

Looking back at nearly five years with Oakland Voices

“It’s been my honor and privilege to work with so many community journalists from all backgrounds, who each brought their own unique perspectives and experiences,” Chang said.

“We had no idea what the times ahead would look like,” she said in a written statement to the Maynard Institute. “Together, and mostly virtually for the first year, we gathered to talk about Oakland, the pandemic, and to share stories and story ideas.”

Even through the logistical difficulties presented to all journalists by the COVID-19 pandemic, Chang helped steer the Oakland Voices newsroom towards impactful choices and stories that both reflected and informed the community and its unique struggles and community heroes.

As co-director of Oakland Voices, Chang’s dedication to Oakland and its people was evident in her fidelity to the stories of the ever-changing city. In addition to contributing articles, she also devoted time to the Oakland Voices alumni and their growth as journalists and storytellers.

Meaningful stories and mentorship

“Oakland Voices is a small but mighty community journalism program that’s made waves in the local community. This is in large part due to the journalism academy members and our alumni group of correspondents who continue to harness the power of telling stories that reflect the diversity of the Oakland community. We covered school closures, health equity issues, our winning basketball teams, the teachers and firefighters of Oakland, arts and culture, and so much more,” Chang wrote.

Though her time with the Maynard Institute has come to an end, Chang’s mentorship of the Oakland Voices alumni leaves a lasting mark on the small-scale, hyper-local outlet, and though her journalism journey is far from over, her influence on Oakland community journalists will forever be part of her legacy.

“I’m especially proud of Oakland Voices’ alumni network of dozens of community journalists, who’ve contributed stories and their voices to the Oakland Voices site,” she continued. “Our alumni have also published their works in outlets such as the The Oaklandside, Guardian US, NOSH, SF Chronicle, and many others. I know that the journalism academy and our alumni will continue to use their voices to tell meaningful stories about Oakland.”

“I wore many hats over the past few years, including editing stories, collaborating with partners like Oaklandside, putting on events… How lucky I am to have worked with some wonderful people, to help tell stories of a town that is near and dear to my heart. Oakland has its challenges, but one thing I know is that the people are what makes its heart beat.”

Maynard Family for Life

“I want to thank Maynard co-executive directors Martin Reynolds and Evelyn Hsu, and Oakland Voices co-director Rasheed Shabazz — and all of the staff members and our board members, who I’ve learned so much from. Working alongside everyone the past few years has been a joy, and these are experiences I’ll carry with me through the rest of my career,” Chang said.

Rasheed Shabazz co-led Oakland Voices with Chang, and worked closely with her in mentoring and devloping the Oakland Voices Community Correspondents.

“Momo was already an accomplished reporter when she came to Oakland Voices. It was amazing to work with her as she deepened her skills as an editor, facilitator, social media maven, and mentor,” Shabazz said. “My predecessor Brenda Payton invited her to speak to the 2016 class. I invited her in 2019. I look forward to the 2025 class learning from her.”

Left to right: Momo Chang, Marabet Morales Sikahall, Brandy Collins at an Oakland Voices session. Photo credit: Rasheed Shabazz.

Maynard 200 Fellow Class of 2023

When the Maynard 200 Fellowship expanded to include a curriculum track designed for frontline editors and managers, Chang joined the thriving professional network of over 200 fellows.

“It was always a great joy to collaborate with Momo, and it is fitting that one of her last projects was a reporting piece that leveraged the expertise of Oakland Voices and Maynard 200 journalists,” said Maynard 200 Director Odette Alcazaren-Keeley.

I am thankful to have had the opportunity to connect her editorial leadership with one of her fellow M200 alums, Mason Bryan of Prison Journalism Project. This piece is but one example of various impactful coverage she has expertly guided, empowering diverse journalists to tell more authentic stories. It’s a testament to the totality of who she is — a news leader, empathetic colleague and an inspiring friend.”

Left to right: Odette Alcazaren-Keeley, Martin G. Reynolds, Evelyn Hsu and Momo Chang during the 2023 Maynard 200 Fellowship at TCU’s Bob Schieffer College of Communication. Photo credit: Jaida Joiner.

Contributions to Professional Community Building

Chang also helped organize and execute Maynard Institute events such as our recent data training for journalists on heat-related incidences of gun violence, featuring her Maynard 200 Fellow alum Helina Selemon and Maynard 200 Faculty Aaron Glantz, “Data for Journalists Covering Climate Change and Gun Violence.” Chang also wrote a recap of the resources from this training.

The Oaklandside invited Chang to participate in a sold-out panel discussion on Bay Area Journalism as part of their Culture Makers lecture series in 2023. Later that year, she teamed up with co-host Pendarvis Harshaw to organize a recurring networking meetup for Bay Area journalists.

Left to right: Martin G. Reynolds, Odette Alcazaren-Keeley, Phil Yu, blogger of Angry Asian Man and co-author of RISE, Momo Chang, Jeff Chang, creater of They Call Us Bruce podcast and co-author of RISE, and Evelyn Hsu at the Maynard Family AAJA Happy Hour. Photo credit: Michelle Felix.

When professional associations were returning to in-person conferences in 2022, Chang helped coordinate and co-host the Maynard Institute’s outdoor happy hour reunion at the Asian American Journalists Association convention in Los Angeles. She was instrumental in recruiting guest speaker authors of the book Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now. Chang also contributed to a conference panel session on freelancing.

About Civil Eats and the intersectionality of food stories

As a longtime journalist, editor, and organizer, Chang served nearly five years as co-director of Oakland Voices. We agree the new role at Civil Eats is a great fit considering Chang’s experience as a culturally sensitive food writer.

Founded in 2009, Civil Eats is an online outlet delving into stories about sustainable agriculture and encouraging critical conversations on the American food system in an effort to “build economically and socially just communities.”

Like Momo Chang, Civil Eats “doesn’t shy away from pursuing difficult or complicated stories.” Both solutions-oriented, centering human wellbeing and community, and focused on the overlooked layers of context and detail missing from many other publications, Chang and Civil Eats are a great fit for one another.

Civil Eats recently took to X, formerly Twitter, to announce Momo’s new role, saying “We are very excited to announce that veteran journalist Momo Chang will be joining the Civil Eats team as our senior editor!”

“I’m delighted that I’m now a part of Civil Eats as their senior editor, to work with this award-winning team of journalists, and to tell stories about our food systems, farmers and farming, fishing, and national and local policies on food that affect all of us,” Chang said.

“I look forward to helping build on the canon of work that Civil Eats has been publishing for the past 15 years,” she responded to Civil Eats on Twitter.

We look forward to watching Momo continue her journalism journey growing and shaping the incredible work of Civil Eats. She will always remain part of the extended #MaynardFamily.

Maynard Institute fellows, faculty and alums continue to create change in journalism and in their communities, breaking into new roles and winning awards for their consistently humanizing, community-oriented, and groundbreaking journalism across myriad beats and investigative paths. Join us in celebrating their accomplishments and contributions to the field of journalism.

Awards and Fellowships

Maynard 200 alum and CEO of the Institute for Nonprofit News Karen Rundlet was named one of The NonProfit Times’ Power and Influence Top 50.

Block Club Reporter and Maynard 200 alum Rachel Hinton was honored with a DePaul Distinguished Alumna Award.

Joshua Barajas, 2024 Maynard 200 Fellow, and the PBS NewsHour team received the 2024 Newsletter Journalism Award from the National Press Club for their newsletter “Here’s the Deal.” Even more critical in a historic election year, “Here’s the Deal” breaks down and simplifies Capitol Hill happenings and their relevance to the everyday lives of Americans.

Eleanore Catolico, Maynard 200 alum class of 2021, won second place in the Society for Features Journalism writing competition for the category “Inclusion and Representation in Features.”

Walter Smith Randolph, Maynard 200 class of 2023, was selected to the NABJ Leadership Academy Cohort 2024.

Angela Chen, Maynard 200 class of 2021, has been awarded a Carter Center Fellowship.Recipients of the Rosalyn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism pursue groundbreaking mental health journalism projects, reporting on the mental health’s biggest challenges, reducing stigma surrounding mental illness through storytelling, and driving change through community-oriented journalism.

Heidi Chang, 2002 Maynard Cross-Reporting Fellow, received the AAJA Award for Excellence in Audio Storytelling.

Rachel James-Terry Maynard 200 class of 2023, was named a “Woman to Watch” by PR Week.

Boston Globe mental health reporter and 2018 Maynard 200 alum Esmy Jimenez won one First Place and two Second Place awards from SPJ Washington.

2024 Maynard 200 Fellow Erica McIntosh received an Edward R. Murrow Award for her reporting on mini-documentary “Miss Gen from Georgia” with Connecticut Public Broadcasting.

2019 Maynard 200 alum Natasha S. Alford received her Masters in Public Policy from Princeton University, and her young son participated in awarding her degree, a moment which was captured for posterity.

2022 Maynard 200 alum Joe Ruiz was selected for a John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship. JSK fellows receive nine months of support at Stanford exploring and testing practical solutions to journalism’s systemic problems and urgent questions from AI to misinformation and mistrust in journalism.

Jasmine Vaughn-Hall, Maynard 200 class of 2021, won Best of Show from the MDDC Press Association.

Allison Jing Yang, 2024 Maynard 200 Fellow and Senior Editor of Initium Media, was recognized with a 2024 Human Rights Press Award for Investigative Writing.

Helina Selemon, Maynard 200 class of 2023, was recognized with a Solutions Journalism Award for her story on the heat crisis and gun violence. Last month, Helina co-presented data reporting methods for heat-related gun violence with faculty member Aaron Glantz.

Josh McGhee, Maynard 200 alum class of 2023 received several awards in quick succession: Josh was awarded a McGraw Fellowship for Business Journalism and will be investigating how hospitals profit from involuntary mental health treatment laws.

He was also recognized with a 2024 Community Media Awards Studs Terkel Award for his work on criminal justice and mental health with MindSite News, and won Best Collaboration in the inaugural Stillwater Awards recognizing excellence in prison journalism.

Josh also received a Gold Award from Digital Health Awards for his coverage of criminal justice and mental health.

New Books and Podcasts

Dr. Jonathan P. Higgins, Maynard 200 class of 2018, just announced the release of their book, “Black Fat Femme,” based on their award-winning podcast, coming out March 25, 2025.

Maynard Media Academy alum Ebony Reed released “Fifteen Cents on the Dollar, How Americans Made the Black-White Wealth Gap” with co-author Louise Story, and embarked on a successful press tour, giving many interviews explaining the concepts of wealth, debt, and generational security and how nearly 200 years after the end of chattel slavery and the first proposals of reparations, the Black-White wealth gap persists.

Industry Impact and Events

Brianna Tucker, Maynard 200 class of 2022 and Deputy Campaign Editor with the Washington Post, was voted NABJ Chair of the Political Task Force for 2024.

Anniversaries

Marian Chia-Ming Liu, 2021 Maynard 200 alum-turned-faculty, marked five years at the Washington Post. She also spearheaded the AAJA Style Guide project, an essential guide to covering Asian American and Pacific Islander communities with cultural competence and sensitivity.

Faculty and Leadership Updates

Faculty Member Ron Nixon was awarded the Dorothy Butler Gilliam Trailblazer Award by the Washington Association of Black Journalists for his own trailblazing career as an exemplary investigative journalist and for being an exceptional leader in journalism. The award was established in honor of Maynard Institute co-founder Dorothy Butler Gilliam, who in 1961 became the first Black woman reporter at the Washington Post and still retains a board position with the Maynard Institute.

Steve Padilla, Maynard 200 faculty member and Editor of the LA Times’ Column One, inducted into the NAHJ Hall of Fame.

Faculty member Aaron Glantz began his resident fellowship at the Center for the Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, and will be using the same office in which Palestinian academic titan Edward Said wrote his most famous work, “Orientalism.” Building on his experience at the Carter Center, Glantz aims “to incubate an initiative that builds resilience for investigative journalists, human rights advocates, and others dedicated to social change.”

Board member Kevin Merida won a 2024 Richard M. Clurman Award for his superb on-the-job mentorship of young journalists from the University of Michigan Wallace Center for Journalists.

Sandra Clark, Maynard 200 faculty member, was listed as one of Editor & Publisher’s “15 over 50.”

Mei-Ling Hopgood, consultant and member of the extended Maynard Family was honored with a University Teaching Award.

Role Transitions and New Beats

Penda Howell, Maynard 200 class of 2019, joined the National News Publisher’s Association/The Black Press.

The Maynard Institute is proud to see Momo Chang join Civil Eats as their new Senior Editor after serving nearly five years as Co-Director of Oakland Voices.

Alison Saldanha, Maynard 200 class of 2022, left the Seattle Times and is headed to Dallas News.

The Maynard Family Continues to Grow

The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education is proud of all members of our Maynard Family. We’re excited to continue this work with optimism and passion for diversity and belonging in journalism, and can’t wait to see what our Fellowship graduates and Fault Lines training recipients will do next to build inclusive and equitable news ecosystems in the new year.

Our work is made possible by individual donors, The California Endowment, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Democracy Fund, Ford Foundation, The Hearthland Foundation, Inasmuch Foundation, Knight Foundation, Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.

About the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education

Since 1977, the Maynard Institute has fought to push back against the systemic lack of diversity in the news industry through training, collaborations and convenings. Founded by Robert C. Maynard, the Institute promotes diversity and antiracism in the news media through improved coverage, hiring and business practices. We are creating better representation in U.S. newsrooms through our programs , which gives media professionals of color the tools to become skilled storytellers, empowered executives and inspired entrepreneurs.

Are you an alum with exciting professional news?

Contact Community Engagement Coordinator, Amani Hamed, at ahamed(at)mije(dot)org to be featured in our next Maynard Family Update.

As we count the days until the Maynard 200 Fellowship reconvenes at TCU Bob Schieffer College of Communications in July, we’re celebrating the achievements of the Maynard Institute fellows, faculty and alums as they continue to create impact in their roles. Join us in celebrating all they have already accomplished in the last few months.

Role Transitions and New Beats

We celebrate the newest addition to The 19th team, Fernanda Santos, who joined as the new managing editor.

Congrats to former news editor Carolyn Copeland on her new role at Prism as managing editor.

Dorany Pineda started a new beat covering water, climate, and the environment in Latino communities across the U.S.

Jacob Simas, was recently promoted to Community Journalism Director at Cityside, which launched a new publication, Richmondside.

Awards and Fellowships

Rachel James Terry, director of Jackson State University’s Public Relations, was recognized with an award for Outstanding Professional of the Year by the Public Relations Association of Mississippi. She was also welcomed by ForbesBLK, “a platform and community that amplifies the voices of Black entrepreneurs, professionals, leaders, and creators.”

Aallyah Wright and the Capital B team won a Silver Anthem Community Voice Award for Human and Civil Rights News and Journalism for Wright’s work on a 2023 story on Black voter and candidate suppression: “In 2023, Aallyah Wright, Capital B’s rural issues reporter, set out to tell a shocking story that uncovered years of racist harassment and intimidation targeting Patrick Braxton, a Black mayor in rural Alabama, who was blocked from taking office in his majority Black town by its majority-white council (none of whom were elected themselves).”

Eleanore Catolico joined the Journalism and Women Symposium 2024 class of Health Journalism Fellows, and is working on a solution-based long-form story examining efforts to increase the number of people of color participating in clinical trials for Alzheimer’s drugs.

Luella Brien, founder of Four Points Media was awarded another prestigious fellowship and became a member of the inaugural Emerging News Leadership cohort at CUNY.

Helina Selemon, health and science reporter for the Blacklight investigative unit at New York Amsterdam News, was selected to be a Society of Environmental Journalists diversity fellow.

2024 Maynard 200 Fellow Allison Jing Yang was selected for yet another prestigious fellowship with The Ford Foundation! One of 26 members of the Ford Global Fellowship cohort, Jing Yang told the Ford Foundation she “believes that journalism needs to take new approaches to engaging and informing readers. She believes that games and new mediums can change how people think about issues of inequality and challenge stereotypes and biases.”

New Books and Podcasts

Natasha Alford published her memoir American Negra and began her multi-city book tour! The examination of identity and the American dream is fresh off the presses, and Alford has made appearances on CNN, ABC, and Good Morning America to discuss the genesis of her memoir and her experiences as an Afro-Latina of African American and Puerto Rican origin.

Ashton Lattimore, Editor-in-Chief at Prism Reports, published “All We Were Promised,” her debut novel and a work of historical fiction set in 1837 Philadelphia, in which a housemaid and an abolitionist plot to help an enslaved girl escape after she’s brought to the city, then a powder keg of tension between pro-slavery rioters and abolitionists. Though only two weeks into publication, the book is receiving excellent reviews on platforms like Goodreads.

Ngoc Nguyen began crowdfunding for her forthcoming podcast “The First Wave,” about the first 120,000 Vietnamese refugees to reach American shores after the fall of Saigon.

Meena Thiruvengadam traveled to Antarctica, her 7th continent. She also made it into not one but two Lonely Planet guidebooks.

Bourree Lam and Julia Carpenter published The Wall Street Journal’s first guide book in 20 years, the New Rules of Money.

William Sanchez II is keeping everyone on their toes by hinting at the release of his new podcast.

Industry Impact and Events

Alicia Ramirez, founder of Riverside Record, spoke at the informational hearing of the senate committee on judiciary about the importance of journalism in the digital age and to call on state legislators to make sure small local news publishers are at the table for any potential legislative solution to the local new crisis. (Jan) The Riverside Record was also included in a roundup of Local Journalism Worth Reading by the New York Times.

Amanda Barrett served as a coach with the Media Transformation Challenge Program and shared “I am so blessed to serve as a coach and witness their growth and development.”

Brandon T. Harden, editor at Bloomberg Business, moderated a panel on the Commodification of Black Creativity, Safe Spaces, and Ownership for the Black Professional Community at Bloomberg.

Anniversaries

Maynard 200 alum Jahna Berry celebrated four years as COO of Mother Jones.

In May, Annie Guo VanDan will celebrate 18 years as president of Asian Avenue Magazine.

Corinne Chin celebrates two years as Director of News Talent/Recruitment with the Associated Press.

Dalila-Johari Paul celebrated one year of being National Editor with Capital B News. Capital B News “is a local-national nonprofit news organization that centers Black voices, audience needs and experiences, and partners with the communities we serve.”

Emily Elena Dugdale celebrates 1 year with the Fuller Project. Dugdale is a seasoned investigative journalist covering criminal justice. As a member of the Fuller Project Team, Dugdale has been investigating allegations of serial rape against a Colorado cardiologist, digging into court records and investigating the possibility that dating apps used by the serial attacker to find victims knew of his dangerous behavior.

Maria Bastidas celebrated one year of her Latina Leads program. Bastidas said, “Over the past year, we’ve had the privilege of serving over 300 young Latinas through our Leadership Workshops, equipping them with essential skills, boosting their self-esteem, and providing them with tools to confront bullying and prepare to create inspiring social media content, videos, and sketches.”

Tierra Hayes was voted employee of the month at the Chattanooga Times Free Press for the second time. Hayes just celebrated one year as the Digital and Engagement Editor at the Chattanooga Times Free Press, and is already making waves and hiring new team members.

Faculty and Leadership Updates

Aaron Glantz will be joining the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences as a fellow. The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences is an interdisciplinary research lab at Stanford University and fellows conduct research in a variety of fields including anthropology, archaeology, business, communication, economics, geography, history, language and literature, law, medicine, political science, psychology, and sociology.

Maynard Institute Board Member Kevin Merida, former Executive Editor of the LA Times, and Ron Nixon, Maynard200 Faculty member, cofounder of the Ida B. Wells Society, and VP of investigative, enterprise, grants and partnerships with the Associated Press, celebrated Oscar wins!

Kevin Merida shouted out former colleagues on Twitter after “The Last Repair Shop” won for Best Documentary Short. The film followed the team that repairs instruments for the Los Angeles Unified School District music classes, and was distributed by The Los Angeles Times Studios and Searchlight. This Oscar win marked a first for the LA Times.

Ron Nixon congratulated the team and quoted “20 Days In Mariupol” director Mstyslav Chernov, who used his acceptance speech to draw attention to the “humanitarian catastrophe” in his native Ukraine, and said he wished he had never had to make the film.

Nixon had led some of the original coverage of Russia’s attacks on the Ukrainian city, and guided the film as VP of investigations with the Associated Press. The feature-length documentary was a joint venture between the Associated Press and PBS Frontline.

The Maynard Family Continues to Grow

The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education is proud of all members of our Maynard Family. We’re excited to move forward into 2024 with optimism and passion for diversity and belonging in journalism, and can’t wait to see what our Fellowship graduates and Fault Lines training recipients will do next to build inclusive and equitable news ecosystems in the new year.

Our work is made possible by individual donors, The California Endowment, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Democracy Fund, Ford Foundation, The Hearthland Foundation, Inasmuch Foundation, Knight Foundation, Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.

About the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education

Since 1977, the Maynard Institute has fought to push back against the systemic lack of diversity in the news industry through training, collaborations and convenings. Founded by Robert C. Maynard, the Institute promotes diversity and antiracism in the news media through improved coverage, hiring and business practices. We are creating better representation in U.S. newsrooms through our programs , which gives media professionals of color the tools to become skilled storytellers, empowered executives and inspired entrepreneurs.

Are you an alum with exciting professional news?

Contact Community Engagement Coordinator, Amani Hamed, at ahamed(at)mije(dot)org to be featured in our next Maynard Family Update.

We at the Maynard Institute were saddened to learn of the passing of William G. “Bill” Connolly on December, 12, 2023. In addition to working at The New York Times for 30 years as an editor, Bill served as a Maynard Institute faculty member. His staunch allyship serves as enduring inspiration for us all. The obituary in the New York Times describes how “He sought diversity in the newsroom and oversaw the paper’s ethical guidelines.” A statement shared online by his family adds, “Bill was proudest of the work he did to advance the careers of young journalists, including 20 years as a senior faculty member at the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education’s program for BIPOC journalists and decades of workshops for the Dow Jones News Fund’s residency programs.”

We reached out to some members of our extended Maynard Family to share their memories of Bill for this blog.

Stephen Montiel, president of the Maynard Institute from 1988 to 2000, shared the following:

Bill Connolly, a fierce defender and supporter of the Maynard Institute’s Editing Program, selflessly shared his passion for editing excellence with a generation of journalists, mostly people of color, who made the transition from reporting to editing.

The Maynard Institute had conducted an Editing Program pilot in 1979 in conjunction with the Summer Program for Minority Journalists at the University of California, Berkeley. With Frank Sotomayor as its first director, the Editing Program for Minority Journalists was launched at the University of Arizona Journalism Department in 1980.

Bill, then an editor at the New York Times, was among the first journalists to step forward as a faculty member. In that era, the program ran for an entire summer. Some participants left jobs in order to be in the program and accepted the job placement offered by the institute. Many of the faculty would teach for weeks at a time and some used their vacations to be part of the program.

Always the consummate editor, Bill was also a heroic leader of efforts to diversify the content of news during the 1980s and 1990s.

Bill’s students in the Maynard editing program integrated the editing ranks of daily newspapers and became newsroom leaders.

Bill remained steadfast in his commitment to the program as it changed and opened its doors to white participants, becoming simply the Editing Program, and operated in different locations. He always was true to the rigor and principles of editing.

Photo of Walter Middlebrook and Bill Connolly, courtesy of Walter Middlebrook.

Former Detroit News assistant managing editor and Maynard Institute instructor Walter T. Middlebrook Jr. also his memories:

As a young 1983 fellow in the Editing Program for Minority Journalists at the University of Arizona, I left the program with two major lessons from the curmudgeonly Bill Connolly: eliminate “the echo” and that a good copy editor would have saved the Washington Post from publishing the journalistically disgraced “Jimmy’s World” story that forced the paper to relinquish a Pulitzer Prize.

To see and hear his dissection of “Jimmy’s World” laced with the questions a good copy editor would have asked was masterful. It instilled a respect for copyediting and the copy desk that helped guide me through my progression as a newsroom manager. And the echo lecture – about avoiding repeating information in a story that was given earlier – is a recurring note in my edits of the work of students and seasoned writers.

While the man, who had scared me to death in those early meetings, taught my fellow classmates how to become better editors, he would become a father-figure to me in my journalistic pursuits and a “brother” as I got older. He loved EPMJ and the mission of the editing program. Our bond and EPMJ were among the many topics we discussed during our periodic meetings over the years for conversation, food and drink. Those gatherings often would include my other father figure/brother Rich Holden, a top Dow Jones executive who taught for decades in the Editing Program when he was director of what was then called the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, or just the two of us after Rich died.

It was during those sessions that I would learn of the many layers of the teacher – his love of the often-derided semicolon, the lifelong prankster, the family man, but most of all, the hidden artist who had been painting since forever, even up to his death. Who knew? He never shared his art, but it adorned every wall in his home.

I always had fun teasing Bill about how the masterful copyeditor’s name was often misspelled in research papers and other works related to his participation with the American Copy Editors Society and in his contributions to The New York Times, particularly the paper’s published style manual.

The teacher, the father-figure, the brother left an indelible mark, and he will be missed.

Here is a link to an impactful page of collected memorials and obituaries that his family created at bit.ly/WGCJrobit

The stories, the man … personify to me what the Maynard family is all about.

We extend our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Bill Connolly. We join our Maynard Family in celebrating his life and legacy.

The Maynard Institute has trained journalists for over 45 years, so there are always alumni achievements to celebrate! The Maynard Family of Alumni, Faculty, and Directors has had a busy and fulfilling year. As we approach 2024, here’s a look back on the journeys and accomplishments of some members of the Maynard Family.

Maynard 200 Fellow and founder of Queerency, Travers Johnson, launched LGBTQ+ Business Week, a week-long digital awareness initiative that aimed to increase the visibility of queer-owned businesses, empower LGBTQ+ small business owners, and raise awareness of economic issues facing LGBTQ+ people.

Maynard 200 Fellowship Faculty member Aaron Glantz wrote a moving tribute to First Lady Rosalynn Carter and his experiences at the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship in Mental Health Journalism for NPR.

Faculty member Ron Nixon held an investigative reporting bootcamp at Morehouse College with the Ida B. Wells Society, their first in-person bootcamp event since the pandemic, and was honored by The Root as one of 2023’s most influential Black Americans.

Maynard 200 alum and Managing Editor at The Oaklandside, Jacob Simas was promoted to Community Journalism Director at Cityside. Also, the folks at Cityside announced that the city of Richmond will be getting its own sister publication, Richmondside, in 2024.

Priya David Clemens, the host of KQED Newsroom, became the press ambassador for the San Francisco Host Committee for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC). The forum saw world leaders including President Biden and China’s prime minister Xi Jinping, and also witnessed massive protests.

Maynard Media Academy alum Karen Rundlet became the new CEO of Institute for Nonprofit News. INN strengthens and supports 425 independent news organizations that are nonpartisan, non-profit, and dedicated to public service.

Rachel Hinton became an investigative reporter with Block Club Chicago , a publication dedicated to delivering reliable, nonpartisan and essential coverage of Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods.

Michael Butler celebrated two years of reporting with the Miami Herald, where he recently published several pieces on Black entrepreneurs in STEM who are changing their industries and their communities.

Michael Tennant published his book “The Power of Empathy,” which counts vulnerability as a “superpower” and aims to help people chart paths from personal to societal change through empathy and connection.

Ashton R. Lattimore announced the publication of her debut novel, “All We Were Promised,” and held a virtual open house event for Prism media called “Prism: Justice, Journalism, and Power,” as the outlet continues to grow.

Natasha Alford, host of The Grio Weekly and Vice President of Digital Content for The Grio, announced the publication of her memoir “American Negra,” available in February of 2024. The book is “part memoir, part cultural analysis” and Alford dives deep into identity, family, and diversity of Black experience in America.

Maynard 200 Fellow, Class of 2019 Investigative Storytellers, Aysha Khan became the managing editor at NextCity.

The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education is proud of all members of our Maynard Family. We’re excited to move forward into 2024 with optimism and passion for diversity and belonging in journalism, and can’t wait to see what our Fellowship graduates and Fault Lines training recipients will do next to build inclusive and equitable news ecosystems in the new year.

Our work is made possible by individual donors, The California Endowment, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Democracy Fund, Ford Foundation, The Hearthland Foundation, Inasmuch Foundation, Knight Foundation, Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.

About the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education

For 45 years, the Maynard Institute has fought to push back against the systemic lack of diversity in the news industry through training, collaborations and convenings. Founded by Robert C. Maynard, the Institute promotes diversity and antiracism in the news media through improved coverage, hiring and business practices. We are creating better representation in U.S. newsrooms through our programs , which gives media professionals of color the tools to become skilled storytellers, empowered executives and inspired entrepreneurs.

Are you an alumni with exciting professional news?

Contact Community Engagement Coordinator, Amani Hamed, at ahamed@mije.org to be featured in our next Maynard Family Update.

One of the Maynard Institute’s core programs, the Maynard 200 Fellowship is designed to advance the careers of investigative storytellers, executive leaders, frontline editors and media entrepreneurs of diverse backgrounds. In 2023, Executive-in-Residence Dickson Louie continued the media entrepreneurship award program originally launched in 2021. Based on the scores from a panel of media business experts, faculty, and Maynard 200 alumni, two fellows, Ryan Sorrell and Ahmed Hamid, have been recognized for their outstanding media venture pitches.

This award program would not be possible without the esteemed panel of judges. Our special thanks go to this year’s judges: Nancy Flores, Jon Funabiki, Michelle Garcia, Waylae Gregorie, Ned Hawley, Bruce Koon, Peter Lamb, Cathy Eckstein, Marla Jones-Newman, Professor Michael Sherrod, and Linda Lloyd da Silva.

The Dori J. Maynard Media Entrepreneurship Award

Ryan Sorrell is the recipient of this year’s Dori J. Maynard Media Entrepreneurship Award for his start-up, The Kansas City Defender. This award is given to the Fellow with the top overall score from the judges. The award honors the late Dori J. Maynard, the long-time president of the Maynard Institute and the daughter of Robert C. Maynard, our Institute co-founder. The amount of this award, which is funded by Louie each year, is $1,000 and for the operating expenses of the winning start-up.

“From our in-person conversations, to your feedback and guidance, this has been a truly transformative experience that has helped me grow in my confidence and vision,” Sorrell said in thanks.

The Quentin Hope Metrics Award

Ahmed Hamid is the recipient of this year’s Quentin Hope Metrics Award for his start-up, Refound, which verifies news images in this era of AI. The award honors Quentin Hope, who was instrumental in defining metrics in the News Table Stakes program that Institute co-executive directors, Evelyn Hsu and Martin Reynolds, had participated in. The amount of this award, which is funded by the Institute, is also $1,000.

“The camaraderie in the Maynard 200 cohort was a special part of the learning experience,” Hamid said in response to receiving the award. “It has been a special joy to meet the kind hearted and hardworking colleagues and teachers at Maynard. Thank you for guiding us all on this awesome entrepreneurial journey and adventure and for the phenomenal roster of mentors and coaches you curated throughout our learnings.”

Get to know the 2023 awardees

About Ryan Sorrell

Ryan is an artist, organizer, digital strategy consultant and media entrepreneur with a diverse background. His career includes consulting for globally-leading brands such as Meta, Samsung, Amazon, Harvard University and Google.

Ryan’s commitment to social justice began in Chicago amid the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement. He learned from, and is inspired by, radical Black queer women in organizations such as The Black Youth Project and Assata’s Daughters. He has dedicated his career to creating change – specifically abolition of carceral institutions – through intentional community and world building.

As COVID-19 swept worldwide in 2020, Ryan worked at his corporate job in Chicago. When protests of George Floyd’s deaths began in May that year, he moved to Kansas City, Mo., to become a full-time community organizer. With his parents’ support, he lived at home and built the city’s largest direct action and mutual aid organization as protests swelled.

Frustration with how local news reported the protests and the Floyd racial reckoning led Ryan, with no background or experience in journalism, to found the most influential Black digital news outlet in Missouri and Kansas.

Under his leadership, The Kansas City Defender has broken over 10 national news stories, reached over 50 million people, grown a social media following of over 50,000 across platforms and shifted conversations regarding objectivity and traditional journalistic values in news.

Ryan’s commitment to social justice also led him to give public talks at institutions such as University of the Arts London, NPR, PBS and Kansas City Art Institute. He is strongly inspired by the tradition of the Black press and believes it a necessity to philosophically reconceptualize the role and function of news in society.

About Ahmed Hamid

A big fan of the outdoors, Ahmed climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with his brother, a triumph that helped him realize that anything you put your mind to is possible. He is involved in using blockchain and Web 3 to enhance journalism with Refound Journalism, a startup he co­founded.

In December 2022, Refound won first place at the NEAR MetaBuild Ill hackathon. He has cultivated his passion to develop technological means to help creativity flourish and shed light on the urgent need for veracity in reporting. Hailing from Michigan, Ahmed has lived around the world including in the Maldives, Pakistan and China.

His travels from Lake Michigan to the Indian Ocean have exposed him to the tremendous diversity of thought in our world and the fragility of our free speech rights. He is very familiar with challenges and opportunities for progress in helping to keep lines of communication open for true reporting. He hopes to bring toolkits to make that easier for journalists working with Refound.

Read more about all the 2023 Maynard 200 Fellows and check out past blogs featuring award winners from 2022 and 2021.

Why the Maynard 200 Fellowship matters

The Maynard 200 fellowship program advances the Maynard Institute’s efforts to expand the diversity pipeline in news media and dismantle structural racism in its newsrooms. It is designed for and serves the next generation of media leaders, storytellers, editors and entrepreneurs, in order to advance their career growth and leadership power in newsrooms and organizations. The professional development program provides customized training courses, resources and 1:1 mentorship by industry professionals, to fellows who have represented a wide spectrum of racial, gender and geographic backgrounds. Maynard 200 has been supported by Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Google News Initiative and The Hearthland Foundation.

Questions?

For more information about the Maynard 200 Fellowship, please reach out to:
Maynard 200 Director, Odette Alcazaren-Keeley at okeeley@mije.org.

This article was originally published on the Oakland Voices website.

Oakland Voices launched its 2024 Community Journalism Academy to amplify the voices of Oakland residents and change the narrative about the Town.

“This is a resilient group of people that want to tell compelling stories about Oakland,” said Rasheed Shabazz, co-director of Oakland Voices.

Learning Community Journalism

Shabazz developed the curriculum, building on the work of former program coordinator Brenda Payton. The academy includes training on journalism ethics, the Maynard Institute’s Fault Lines framework, news reporting, interviews, health and civic reporting, and opinion/column writing.

Working journalists support the program by leading workshops and sharing their experiences in the field and the newsroom. This year’s faculty has included Niema Jordan, Azucena Rasilla, and Spence Whitney. Grover Wehman-Brown with the housing narrative lab also led a workshop focused on writing about unhoused communities. Most training takes place at Oakland Public Libraries.

“I’m really excited about their creativity and commitment to telling stories about the people of Oakland,” Shabazz said.

This year, nine dedicated Oakland residents are participating in the six-month program. Participants are halfway through the program. So far, they’ve learned interviewing skills through the Talk of the Town series, asking Oakland residents their opinions on different issues, and leading in-depth question and answer interviews. Correspondents are currently completing news and health feature stories.

Participants learn essential journalism ethics, practices, and storytelling skills while contributing impactful stories to the Oakland Voices website (oaklandvoices.us). This year’s program launched in May.

The 2024 Oakland Voices Community Journalism Academy:

• Kevin Butler
• Alma Collins Dumas
• MuHajir Boyle Hassan
• Nikia Durgin
• Yasamin Hatefi
• Marian Johnson
• Sydney Lester
• Moamer Rafe
• Kwajo Opoku Ware

Alumni Program

When correspondents complete the program, they will develop a portfolio of stories and be eligible to join Oakland Voices’ alumni program. Program alumni receive payment for contributing stories to the website along with support with publishing in other outlets.

The majority of content of the Oakland Voices site is contributed by program alum.

About Oakland Voices

Since 2010, Oakland Voices has trained over 75 community storytellers to tell stories about their communities in print and online platforms, as well as radio broadcasts and live shows in partnership with KALW.

Oakland Voices emerged from a partnership between the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education and the Oakland Tribune newspaper and continues to evolve as a unique, independent, community news and information source focused on media literacy and journalism education.

By 2030, Oakland Voices hopes to train 100 Oakland community storytellers to help address the gap that has emerged from the loss of local news outlets.

About the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education

Oakland Voices is a program of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Oakland Voices has been supported by the California Endowment and the Akonadi Foundation.

For more than 45 years, the Maynard Institute has fought to push back against the systemic lack of diversity in the news industry through training, collaborations and convenings. Founded by Robert C. Maynard, the Institute promotes diversity and antiracism in the news media through improved coverage, hiring and business practices. We support efforts to change the narrative about Oakland by providing journalism training and a platform to amplify the voices of Oakland residents.

The Maynard Institute congratulates Community Engagement Manager Ava M. Macha on her new role as Audience Engagement Editor – Underrepresented Communities at The Guardian US. Macha joined the Maynard Institute in December 2019 a few months before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. She quickly adapted to the social climate by building the institute’s digital presence and increasing the visibility of the organization during the civil rights protests of 2020. She helped produce the popular Belonging in the News webinar series, which featured guest speakers such as Nikole Hannah-Jones, Maria Hinojosa, Wesley Lowery, Versha Sharma and more.

When sharing the news of her new role, Macha expressed gratitude for the opportunity to be part of the team and to contribute to the history of the Maynard Institute. “This amazing organization will continue to be so special to me, and has truly shaped my career trajectory,” said Macha.

Macha’s career journey since J-school

Currently based in Brooklyn, New York, Macha holds a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Southern California, but she remains loyal to the Northwest and her home state of Idaho. Prior to working with the Maynard Institute, Macha was the Visual Design Fellow for Santa Barbara-based social justice magazine, Pacific Standard. She also worked as the Audience Coordinator for Los Angeles-based data journalism website, Crosstown LA. In her role, she developed relationships with South LA neighborhood council leaders to understand their community’s crime reporting needs and presented them with monthly crime statistics.

When Macha joined the Maynard Institute team in late 2019, no one could have predicted the tumultuous year ahead. The skills and experience Macha gained at the institute helped her realize that what she loved most about journalism was audience engagement work. As a mission-driven organization dedicated to diversifying the media industry and helping journalists of color advance their careers, everyone at the Maynard Institute celebrates the next step in Macha’s journey with the Guardian US, where she will remain committed to bettering coverage and engagement with traditionally underserved communities.

Reinvigorating the Maynard Institute Community

Macha quickly grew her position beyond coordinating individual donors and alumni communications. She took on projects large and small. For her first 2 years at the institute, Macha served as the sole driver of the organization’s online presence. In 2020, she managed a website redesign project while growing our social media presence and establishing a bi-monthly email newsletter.

She continued to manage all the fundraising appeals, successfully growing the institute’s individual and recurring donor community. Macha also used her industry knowledge to leverage larger-scale funder relationships to strategically execute match challenges for greater impact.

Macha also represented the Maynard Institute in key stakeholder relationships such as the Maynard Institute’s partnership with OpenNews and the Online News Association, Vision25: Building Equity in Newsrooms. She was instrumental in creating a series of live webcasts on the topics of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging that featured industry thought leaders. More recently, Macha contributed to the Maynard Institute’s partnership with Politico by participating on the screening committee for the annual Politico Journalism Institute.

Photo: December 2022 Maynard Institute holiday happy hour mixer. Front row left to right: Jess Chou, Ava Macha, Thalía Juárez, Corinne Chin, Beena Raghavendran, Meena Ganesan. Back row left to right: Yasmin Namini, Manuel Smith, Anuz Thapa, Patricia Peart, Neena Satija, Stefanos Chen, Tekendra Parmar.

In 2022, as pandemic restrictions loosened and in-person convenings were re-established, Macha helped the institute produce successful networking receptions at key conventions. The Maynard Institute hosted popular happy hours at the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) convention in Los Angeles and the joint National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and National Association of Hispanic Journalists(NAHJ) convention in Las Vegas. Transitioning the Institute from virtual to in-person events was a huge lift, but Macha was up to the task.

What’s next for Macha and the Maynard Institute

In her new role at the Guardian US, Macha will focus on increasing audience diversity, both culturally and geographically, to increase the reach and engagement among underrepresented communities in the US. Her work at the Guardian is in some ways a continuation of her work at the Maynard Institute which supports wider newsroom efforts to create journalism that is more accurately representative of the US.

More about Maynard Institute Programs

Maynard Institute professional development programs have the goal of fueling the pipeline of journalists of color into the newsrooms of America. One of the Maynard Institute’s core programs, the Maynard 200 Fellowship provides advanced training and mentorship to mid-career journalists of color for promoting their career growth and expanded leadership roles.