Maynard Institute Gets Grant to Probe Structural Racism

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has made a $1.2 million, three-year grant to the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education to establish the Maynard Media Center on Structural Racism (MMCSR). The MMCSR will encourage the media to provide comprehensive coverage of structural racism and its impact on American society.

The MMCSR will sponsor programs that will include professional development sessions for reporters, editors and producers; training and recruitment of people of color for positions in new media and talk radio; workshops for news media executives; workshops with entertainment industry executives; an interactive Website dedicated to coverage and analysis of structural racism; and a new wire service that will produce and distribute enterprise and investigative print and broadcast stories on structural racism in society and those affected by it.

“We want to thank the Kellogg Foundation for sponsoring this effort to improve media coverage of the barriers that people of color face today because of structural racism,” Dori J. Maynard, CEO and president of the Maynard Institute, said in a statement. “Changing the way that the media cover people of color will have a tremendous impact on our society.”

According to Maynard, one of the root causes of divisiveness across the country is that many people are unaware that structural racism continues to create barriers for people of color. “The lack of comprehensive reporting on structural racism and its impacts is one of the reasons that so many Americans believe discrimination has been eradicated from our society or reduced to such a minimum level it is no longer important,” she said in a statement. “These misconceptions are harmful to our nation. They make it more difficult to rally government, private and nonprofit resources to improve the social, health and economic conditions that many people don’t even realize still exist.”

To shape and implement MMCSR programs, Maynard has recruited such professionals as Michael K. Frisby, President of Frisby & Associates public relations and a former White House Correspondent for The Wall Street Journal; Denver Post  Editor Gregory L. Moore; Sally Lehrman, Knight-Ridder/San Jose Mercury News Endowed Chair for Journalism at Santa Clara University; Kenneth J. Cooper, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former National Editor of the Boston Globe; Renee Warren, President of Arielle-Wren public relations and a former producer at CNBC; and Evelyn Hsu, Director of Programs at the Maynard Institute and a former Washington Post reporter.

Established in 1977, the Maynard Institute is committed to helping the nation's news media report fairly and accurately on all segments of American society, particularly communities of color. It has trained thousands of journalists and media managers of color, including the national editor of the Washington Post, the editor of the Oakland Tribune, and the only Latino to edit a major metropolitan newspaper. 

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation supports families and communities as they create conditions that encourage vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society.