From Oakland's Maynard Institute for Journalism Education

Media Programs for Journalists of Color

The Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education (MIJE) is the leading organization dedicated to training journalists of color and to helping the nation's news media reflect the nation's diversity in staffing, content and business operations.

MIJE began as the volunteer project of nine working journalists who believed the nation's news media could never fulfill its obligation to society with its entrenched segregation. Over the years the Institute has literally changed the face of journalism by designing programs that meet industry needs.
Today, those programs reach a broad group of journalists and fulfill the training needs of hundreds of news organizations. Each is open to participants of all ethnic and racial groups.

The Caldwell Journals: Nearly 40 years ago, a young black man took a job at his hometown daily newspaper in rural Pennsylvania. It was a rare occurrence for that generation.
Earl Caldwell, then 22 years old, could not grasp the significance of that event, nor could he forecast the tempestuous decades that would sweep him and hundreds of other journalists of color into the thunderous fold of civil rights history.

The Chauncey Bailey Project: Renewed Investigation in the Death of a Black Leader

New America Media and the Maynard Institute have convened an array of Bay Area journalists, as well as highly respected media organizations and local university journalism departments to form an investigative team to honor and continue the work of journalist Chauncey Wendell Bailey Jr., and answer questions regarding his death. Bailey, the editor of the weekly Oakland Post, was murdered on Aug. 2, 2007 while reporting on a story regarding the suspicious activities of the Your Black Muslim Bakery.

Health and the Media: Helping reporters do a better job covering health issues for men and boys of color.

In his book Whistling Vivaldi, Columbia University Provost Claude Steele recounts how New York Times editorial writer Brent Staples whistled Vivaldi when he walked down city streets in an attempt to reassure white pedestrians that they had nothing to fear from the tall black male.

The Oakbook: Oakland Voices is on hiatus while we wait for our new class. In the meantime, we are offering a live feed from The Oakbook. Get updates on Oakland issues and events from a unique perspective.

Oakland Voices: Oakland Voices is The Oakland Tribune’s 9-month program that trains East Bay residents to tell the stories of their neighborhoods. The Tribune created Oakland Voices  as a vehicle for community members to become multimedia storytellers, and to be new voices directly shaping the coverage of this region.

Jackson Voices: Jackson Voices is a project of The Clarion-Ledger and The Maynard Institute, which supports diversity in American journalism. The nine-month program was created to put the power of storytelling in the hands of Jackson residents with the goal of elevating voices not often heard, particularly within the African-American community. The Clarion-Ledger wants the community correspondents to be new voices in coverage of Jackson. The program will enable people from the community to report on what they think is most important. Ten community correspondents will report, write and take photos.

Reality Checks:  Reality Checks is a Web-based diagnostic tool that allows news organizations to quickly and easily assess the diversity of its sources and the completeness of its coverage.

Plug in the information of the demographics, placement and story type for each article, and the Reality Checks software crunches the numbers and generates the reports.

Media Center on Structural Inequity: The media has made great strides since the days when mainstream newsrooms were mostly male, almost exclusively white and often declined to report on communities of color. Yet even today people of color too often find themselves over represented in stories about crime, sports and entertainment and too infrequently in stories about business, lifestyle and everyday life. The problem is compounded by the fact that news stories still rely on the personal narrative, often ignoring the structures and policies in place that go a long way toward defining our lives. With support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Maynard Media Center on Structural inequity is providing coverage analysis, a research library, reporting tips and a daily analysis that looks at coverage of people of color in the digital space. It is our hope that this  will help journalists provide comprehensive reporting on the complex issues that create structural inequities in our society.

Maynard Institute Webinars: In 2011, we produced our first webinar through a grant provided by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. In the coming months we will expand our online library. While we encourage people to participate on the day of broadcast to engage with presenters and ask questions, we make these webinars available on our site indefinitely for viewing at your convenience.

Media Academy: This program prepares individuals for promotions to entry level management roles on both the editorial and business sides of newspapers. This innovative year-long training experience is run by Maynard in partnership with the Newspaper Association of America.

Editing Program: An immersion program that hones participants' professional copy-editing skills.

Fault Lines: An innovative framework that allows journalists to analyze and discuss their coverage in the context of the communities they serve.

Oral History Project: An ongoing effort to document and preserve an untold era of American journalism by chronicling the contributions of a generation of black journalists who changed general circulation news coverage. Highlights include an online serial, "The Caldwell Journals," a personal account of the black journalist movement written by legendary reporter and columnist Earl Caldwell and a unique oral/video collection of journalists' stories.

•