Author: Merissa Green
Published: April 01, 1998
Last Updated: April 02, 1998
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Ford Foundation Approves $1 Million for Maynard Institute

By Merissa Green
Staff Reporter

Steve Montiel, president of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, expressed delight about the news--and with good reason.
On Tuesday, the Ford Foundation approved a $1 million grant to the institute. The money, which will be used to promote and improve multicultural community news coverage, will be distributed over three years.
The institute, co-founded by Maynard, the first African American owner and publisher of a major U.S. newspaper (The Oakland Tribune), received $450,000 from the foundation over the previous three years. Maynard is a nonprofit organization that provides an array of journalism programs and services.
"This grant, our largest ever, is critical to our efforts to bring about news coverage that helps us all see ourselves whole," Montiel said.
Jon Funabiki, the foundation's program officer, said the increase will allow the institute to do more work and to help newspapers' efforts in coverage of multicultural communities, a concept that the institute began and dubbed total community coverage.
"When it was created, the Maynard Institute was a trailblazer, and over the last 20 years, it has provided creative and inspirational leadership," Funabiki said. "Journalists and news companies must do more to address the systematic problems and biases that prevent them from accurately reporting on the multicultural reality that exists in America."
On Monday night at an institute reception at the ASNE convention, Montiel delivered a speech on integrity in journalism and the profession's "values, vision and language."
He also gratefully acknowledged the Ford grant and fondly remembered his late friend Maynard, a journalism trailblazer. In his talk, he cited Maynard's words:
"It matters that those who lead the newsroom understand every facet of the community they cover."