New Program to Develop Minority Managers

By: Jennifer Saba As outgoing chairman of the Newspaper Association of America, Tony Ridder planted one last flag to help his personal cause of furthering the careers of minorities in the industry. Last week, he announced that the NAA is launching a new training and development program for first-time minority newspaper managers called the Media Academy. The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education in Oakland, Calif., will run the yearlong program endorsed by the NAA board of directors.

"It is absolutely critical for the health and vitality of our business that we do everything in our power to ensure that our newspapers reflect the diversity of the communities we serve," said Ridder in his outgoing speech at the NAA conference last week. "The point [of the Media Academy] is to help more people from within our ranks, particularly minorities, to increase their contributions to their newspapers and to become excellent managers. It is also to help us do a better job of retaining talented minorities over longer periods of time."

Managers on both the business and editorial end are encouraged to apply. While the academy is targeting minorities, it's reaching out to all those interested. The NAA will select 48 participants sponsored by their newspapers each year and those participants are expected to attend two nine-day classroom-training sessions to be held at the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University as part of the program. Sponsoring newspapers will supplement $2,500 per participant (plus travel expenses).

Knight Ridder Chairman and CEO Ridder urged those executives attending the session to become involved: "How can you help? You can contribute mentors. We want each participant to have a mentor... I truly believe that the Media Academy will be one of the NAA's greatest achievements, but it will only work if we all get behind it."