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Dori Maynard, Diversity Champion, Dies at 56

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Updated February 25, February 26

President of Maynard Institute Succumbs to Lung Cancer

Maynard Memorial Service Scheduled  Monday in Oakland

One-Third of Americans Say Obama Doesn’t Love America

Media Said to Downplay Crimes Against Latinos

FCC Expected to Ban Paying for Faster Lanes on Internet

Jeb Bush Took Columns to Heart, and to His Dad

Asian Americans Duel Over Who Is the Angriest

Lester Holt Stays Ratings Course for 2nd Week

Fox News Stands Behind O’Reilly on Embellishment Charges

Columnist Tells Fellow Whites About Unconscious Bias

Short Takes

President of Maynard Institute Succumbs to Lung Cancer

Dori J. Maynard, president of the Robert C. Maynard institute for Journalism Education and longtime champion of diversity in journalism and civic life, died Tuesday at her West Oakland, Calif., home, the Institute announced. She was 56.

Maynard died of lung cancer and kept her illness closely held. “It was a gentle passing surrounded by family and close friends,” longtime friend Sally Lehrman said.

She was active until the end. Latoya Peterson wrote Wednesday for Fusion, “I visited her last October, her illness was beginning to take hold. At the time she hadn’t put a name to it — I don’t know if she knew then and was just trying to shield us from the knowledge or if her doctors hadn’t figured out what it was yet. Richard Prince reports the cause of death was lung cancer.

“Dori kept asking me to work on things: she wanted to build [a] presentation [to] take to venture capitalists to recast the Maynard Media Academy toward digital entrepreneurship; she wanted to host intimate events that would reshape the idea of talent acquisition by introducing the greatest minds of color in dinner parties and salons. As we talked, she tired easily, and I started to see that something was very wrong. We conducted most of these meetings from her bed, swaddled in blankets, bottles of red wine on the floor, Dori still rocking her hospital tags as she scheduled meetings and made plans. . . .”

Maynard became president of the Institute in 2001. In that role, she kept alive the memory and the goals of her father, Robert C. Maynard, a co-founder of the Institute and publisher of the Oakland Tribune, and Nancy Hicks Maynard, also an Institute co-founder, co-publisher of the Tribune and Dori Maynard’s stepmother.

Mark Trahant, chairman of the Institute, tweeted, “Sad that and her father, Bob, died at the same age. They both had so much to do and yet contributed so much.”

Bob Butler, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, said in a comment on the Institute site, “You can hardly put into words how important the work Dori and the Maynard Institute did to train young people of color for careers in journalism and how the institute trained the media to write fair stories about communities of color.”

Tuesday’s announcement said, “Maynard advocated tirelessly for the future of the institute and its programs, reminding all that the work of bringing the diverse voices of America into news and public discourse is more vital than ever.

“Under her leadership, the Institute has trained some of the top journalists in the country and helped newsrooms tell more inclusive and nuanced stories. New programs are empowering community members to voice the narrative of their own lives. On the morning of her death, she was discussing plans with a board member to help the institute thrive and to attract funding to support that work.”

It was Dori Maynard’s idea to begin a column about developments in the news industry geared toward diversity and journalists of color. “Journal-isms” had been such a column in the printed NABJ Journal of the National Association of Black Journalists.

This columnist and Maynard conferred, and an online “Journal-isms” debuted on the Maynard site in 2002. At the time, the online media column by Jim Romenesko was a staple of the industry, but Maynard considered its focus too limited.

“That’s why we started it, actually,” Maynard said. “I was so disturbed by Romenesko. There was [rarely] any notice of people of color.”

S. Mitra Kalita wrote Wednesday for the Poynter Institute, “As we watch (mostly white, mostly male) colleagues highlighted or celebrated in gossipy media blogs, Prince writes about the rest of us.”

Under Maynard, the Institute’s training included Fault Lines, “an inclusive framework that looks at diversity through the prisms of race, class, gender, generation and geography and BrotherSpeak (video), a video series looking at the lives of black men through the eyes of black men, done in partnership with The Washington Post.”

Woody Lewis, a technology consultant and friend of the Institute, said of father and daughter, “In addition to upholding his standard of journalistic excellence, she took his Institute to new heights of relevance. Her work with news organizations on both coasts was without parallel. To say that she will be missed is an understatement.“

David DeBolt wrote for the Bay Area News Group, “Dori Maynard knew from an early age she, too, wanted to be a journalist, her mother Liz Rosen said Tuesday.

“Once asked what her middle initial ‘J’ stood for, she quipped: ‘Journalism.’ . . .”

DeBolt also wrote, ” ‘Dori was an amazing force for good in journalism,’ said Dawn Garcia, managing director of the Knight Fellowships at Stanford University. Maynard served on the Knight board. ‘She was the voice that must be heard.

” ‘When others were shying away from speaking about race, Dori was fearless. She made an amazing difference for so many people and was just a fabulous person, quirky in the best sense of the word. She will be remembered in every newsroom where journalists are trying to make a difference for diversity and for equity in coverage.’ “

A 2000 news release announcing her appointment as Institute president said:

“Dori J. Maynard is at home at the Institute for many reasons.

“She is the daughter of Institute co-founder Robert C. Maynard for whom the Institute is named.

“She began working full time at the Institute after her father’s 1993 death when she edited ‘Letters to My Children,’ a compilation of her father’s newspaper columns for which she wrote additional essays.

“Maynard currently is the director of the Institute’s History Project, which preserves the stories of courageous journalists of color who broke into the mainstream media against the backdrop of the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. She also directs the Fault Lines Project which is designed to help journalists reflect more accurately their multicultural communities and organizes other Maynard Institute events.

“Before joining the Institute, Maynard worked as a reporter at the Bakersfield Californian, the Patriot Ledger in Quincy, MA, and the Detroit Free Press, where she covered senate and mayoral campaigns and City Hall.

“In 1993 she and her father became the first father-daughter duo ever to be appointed Nieman scholars at Harvard University. She worked regularly with her father, researching and preparing for his appearances on ‘This Week With David Brinkley‘ and the ‘MacNeil/Lehrer Report.’

“Dori J. Maynard graduated from Middlebury College, Vermont, with a BA in American History.”

Another bio adds:

“In 2001, the Society of Professional Journalists named her a Fellow of the Society, in 2003, she was named one of the 10 Most Influential African Americans in the Bay Area and in 2008 she received the Asian American Journalists Association’s Leadership in Diversity Award. The editor of ‘Letters to My Children,’ a compilation of her late-father’s nationally syndicated columns, Maynard’s writing has also appeared in the Oakland Tribune, The Huffington Post, American Journalism Review and Nieman Reports.

“She is on the board of the American Society of News Editors, Homeland Production, Sigma Delta Chi and on the board of visitors of the John S. Knight Fellowship and the Journalism and Women Symposium advisory board. . . .”

Maynard’s husband, Charles Grant Lewis, the principal of an Oakland-based architectural firm bearing his name, died in 2008 at 59. He had been diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2006, the year of their marriage. In addition to her mother, she is survived by two brothers, David Maynard, of Long Beach, Calif., and Alex Maynard, of San Diego, Calif., and a sister, Sara-Ann Rosen, of Los Angeles.

Maynard Memorial Service Scheduled Monday in Oakland

A memorial service for Dori J. Maynard, the president of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education who died at 56 on Tuesday, is scheduled for Monday at 11 a.m. in Oakland, with an East Coast service anticipated at a later, undetermined date in Washington.

Meanwhile, Mark Trahant, chairman of the Maynard Institute, said by telephone that “every board member I’ve talked to is committed to preserving both the operations and the legacy” of the Institute.

Trahant said the board has not had time to discuss a successor for Maynard. Current board members include Trahant, Dorothy Butler Gilliam, Christian A. Hendricks, Martin G. Reynolds, Warren Lerude, Paula Madison, John X. Miller, A. Stephen Montiel, Addie M. Rimmer and William Schmidt.

The Oakland service is planned for the Chapel of the Chimes, a funeral home at 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland 94611. The chapel holds about 175 people, a chapel spokesman said.

Christine Harris, a longtime friend, told Journal-isms by telephone Thursday that the family expects that a service for the MIJE president will take place in Washington, where her father, Robert C. Maynard, rests under a simple headstone in Rock Creek Cemetery. Her stepmother, Nancy Maynard, who died in 2008, shares his gravesite.

Plans for the Oakland service are incomplete, but Harris listed these friends, family members and associates who have confirmed their participation:

Perry Lang, a former vice president of the Maynard Institute who is executive director of San Francisco’s Black Coalition on AIDS and the affiliated Rafiki Wellness Center; Reynolds, senior editor for community engagement at the Bay Area News Group and Maynard Institute board member; Sally Lehrman, professor of science and justice at University of California, Santa Cruz; brothers Alex and David Maynard; mother Liz Rosen, and close friends Nina Ritter and Harris.

Friends and colleagues who have photos of Dori J. Maynard or who would otherwise like to help the memorial organizers are encouraged to leave a note in the “Comments” section below. These messages will not be published. [Added Feb. 26]

One-Third of Americans Say Obama Doesn’t Love America

“More than a third of Americans don’t think President Obama loves America, according to a new survey,” Jesse Byrnes reported Wednesday for the Hill newspaper.

Separately, “Over half of Republicans answered ‘Muslim’ when asked which religion describes President Obama’s ‘deep down’ beliefs, according to a newly released poll by Alex Theodoridis of the University of California at Merced,” Max Fisher reported Wednesday for vox.com.

On the survey on love of country, “Less than half of adults, 47 percent, said the president loves his country, while 35 percent said he doesn’t and 17 percent weren’t sure, according to a Huffington Post/YouGov poll [PDF] released this week.

“Sharp partisan differences exist on the subject, with 85 percent of Democrats and 11 percent of Republicans not questioning Obama’s patriotism. Twenty percent of Republicans and independents said they were unsure if Obama loves America, compared with 9 percent of Democrats.

“The poll was conducted amid furor last week over former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s comment during a dinner in Manhattan that ‘I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America.’

“Giuliani later clarified in a slew of interviews that he didn’t question Obama’s patriotism but the president’s apparent lack of expression about his love of the U.S. compared to previous presidents. . . .”

Media Said to Downplay Crimes Against Latinos

“Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Antonio Zambrano-Montes were all unarmed men who died at the hands of police officers, sparking protests from critics who questioned whether the killings were justified,” Roque Planas wrote Tuesday for HuffPost LatinoVoices.

“Michael Brown and Eric Garner are now household names in the United States. Antonio Zambrano-Montes? Not so much.

“Zambrano-Montes, a Mexican migrant worker, was shot and killed by police officers on Feb. 10 in Pasco, Washington. Video footage appears to show Zambrano-Montes throwing rocks at police and then running away with his hands raised before the officers shot him, though the Pasco Police Department has defended its officers’ actions. The New York Times called the killing the Latino community’s ‘Ferguson moment.’ “

Planas also wrote, “The episode was only the latest in a number of recent instances of police brutality against Latinos. Yet the media’s response fell far short of the constant coverage that followed the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. . . .

“Last year, a study published by Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race found that ‘stories about Latinos comprise less than 1 percent of all main news media coverage, and the majority of these stories feature Latinos as lawbreakers.’

” ‘Violence or discrimination against Latinos does not tend to resonate among most Americans because Latinos are generally not perceived as Americans but recent immigrants or foreigners with no deep roots and histories in the U.S.,’ Frances Negrón-Muntaner, the center’s director and the lead author of the study, told The Huffington Post. ‘So, abuses of power or injustices toward Latinos remain out of sight and out of mind.’

“Gustavo Arellano, the editor of the paper O.C. Weekly, agreed.

” ‘When it comes to Latinos — American media still only thinks of them as immigrants,’ he said. ‘They can’t think of them as victims of police brutality or anything else but immigrants.’ . . .”

FCC Expected to Ban Paying for Faster Lanes on Internet

“Senior Republicans conceded on Tuesday that the grueling fight with President Obama over the regulation of Internet service appears over, with the president and an army of Internet activists victorious,” Jonathan Weisman reported Tuesday for the New York Times.

“The Federal Communications Commission is expected on Thursday to approve regulating Internet service like a public utility, prohibiting companies from paying for faster lanes on the Internet. While the two Democratic commissioners are negotiating over technical details, they are widely expected to side with the Democratic chairman, Tom Wheeler, against the two Republican commissioners.

“And Republicans on Capitol Hill, who once criticized the plan as ‘Obamacare for the Internet,’ now say they are unlikely to pass a legislative response that would undo perhaps the biggest policy shift since the Internet became a reality. . . .”

Jeb Bush Took Columns to Heart, and to His Dad

“The headline in The New York Times is strong, and an indictment that before he was a politician, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush used his name freely,” (accessible via search engine) Guillermo I. Martinez wrote Wednesday for the SunSentinel in Fort Lauderdale. “The headline read: ‘As dynasty’s son, Jeb Bush used his connections freely.’

“This is the story of how he used his influence in a case [in which] I was personally involved. But first, let me put the issue in proper perspective.

“This particular issue began on a weekend 30 years ago this month, when I was a member of The Miami Herald’s Editorial Board and a columnist. At the time I was also president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

“Early in 1985, NAHJ had a weekend board meeting in El Paso, Texas. Before the trip, I asked my editor for permission to extend my stay a day so I could interview a group of 77 Cubans who had arrived from Spain over the Christmas holidays with fraudulent papers and had been incarcerated at two Immigration and Naturalization Service facilities in El Paso.

“That Monday, with INS permission, I interviewed the men first at a detention facility. Later, I went to an old motel, with an eight-foot tall concertina barbed wire fence around it, where INS was holding the women and children.

“I remember interviewing the group and hearing a desperate plea for help, similar to those I had heard many times before. One came from a 9-year-old girl, Leisy Orozco, who broke my heart. Before the interview was over she told me all she wanted was ‘to see my father, to live in a free country and to go to school.’

“I promised Leisy I would do everything I could to make her wishes come true.

“It was a long process. I wrote more columns. I spoke personally to then Associate Attorney General Rudy Giuliani, and to INS Commissioner Doris [Meissner]. They were pleasant and promised nothing. They had to follow the law.

“The issue took months. The U.S. government wanted the Cubans deported to Spain, but the Spanish government wouldn’t take them. Sending them to Cuba was out of the question and in any case, Cuba refused to take back anyone who had fled the country.

“For me it was a clear case of doing the humane thing. Keeping these people — and in particular these children — in detention served no purpose. Finally in September, and with little fanfare, [Meissner] called and said most of the Cubans, Leisy and her family among them, would be released since all efforts to deport them had failed.

“My efforts had paid off.

“Little did I know back then I had another ally, one who described me as “a journalist for the Herald and a good friend.”

“I found out only this week that the good friend in question was Jeb Bush, then a Miami businessman and son of then-Vice President George H. W. Bush.

“Bush never told me what he was doing. On Sept. 9, 1995, he wrote a letter to his father enclosing the series or articles I had written on these Cubans. . . .”

Asian Americans Duel Over Who Is the Angriest

“For 14 years, dedicated readers of the popular Angry Asian Man blog have delighted as Phil Yu, a 36-year-old Korean American from Los Angeles, mercilessly skewered mainstream media stereotypes of Asian Americans as the model minority — bookish, quiet and submissive,” David Nakamura wrote Tuesday for the Washington Post.

“Last week, Yu proved his point in a bluntly personal manner when he posted on his Web site a detailed account of his nasty nine-month legal dispute with another trailblazing Asian American activist — Lela Lee, 40, the creator two decades ago of the Angry Little Asian Girl comics and merchandise line that explores similar themes.

“In a lengthy post, Yu defended himself against charges from Lee that he had appropriated her material — including signing merchandise ‘stay angry’ and featuring an ‘angry reader of the week.’ The public spat had roots in Yu’s attempt last year to trademark his Angry Asian Man brand — only to be rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on grounds that it was too similar to Lee’s trademark from 1999.

” ‘You have been skating, riding off my work. You took my ideas and pretend like they are yours. STOP IT,’ Lee wrote in a series of e-mails between them that Yu posted online. Both sides quickly ‘lawyered up,’ as Yu put it.

“So much drama. So much anger.

“For a pair of advocates who had struck a nerve by satirizing racial tropes, the raw emotion shocked their readers even as it inadvertently validated their work: Asian Americans can, like all other racial groups, get truly angry in an ugly and embarrassing fashion — even though it distracted, in this case, from their common agenda. . . .”

Fox News Stands Behind O’Reilly on Embellishment Charges

“It’s official: Fox News won’t be debating every attack on the credibility of host Bill O’Reilly, who has spent several days fighting off allegations that he has embellished his exploits in foreign reportage over a long career in journalism,” Erik Wemple wrote Wednesday in his Washington Post media blog.

“In a statement to the Erik Wemple Blog, a Fox News spokesperson notes, ‘Bill O’Reilly has already addressed several claims leveled against him. This is nothing more than an orchestrated campaign by far left advocates Mother Jones and Media Matters. Responding to the unproven accusation du jour has become an exercise in futility. FOX News maintains its staunch support of O’Reilly, who is no stranger to calculated onslaughts.’

“On Thursday, Mother Jones (where, disclosure-wise, the wife of the Erik Wemple Blog works), published a story questioning O’Reilly’s claims to have braved ‘combat’ conditions in reporting on the Falkland Islands war. After days of shouting down those allegations, O’Reilly yesterday caught a Media Matters story alleging that he had lied about being nearby for the suicide of a Russian emigre who figured in the investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. And today, Media Matters writes that O’Reilly never witnessed the execution of nuns in El Salvador in 1981, as he has claimed. . . .”

Columnist Tells Fellow Whites About Unconscious Bias

“Supermarket shoppers are more likely to buy French wine when French music is playing, and to buy German wine when they hear German music. That’s true even though only 14 percent of shoppers say they noticed the music, a study finds,” Nicholas Kristof wrote for Sunday’s print edition of the New York Times.

“Researchers discovered that candidates for medical school interviewed on sunny days received much higher ratings than those interviewed on rainy days. Being interviewed on a rainy day was a setback equivalent to having an MCAT score 10 percent lower, according to a new book called ‘Everyday Bias,’ by Howard J. Ross.

“Those studies are a reminder that we humans are perhaps less rational than we would like to think, and more prone to the buffeting of unconscious influences. That’s something for those of us who are white men to reflect on when we’re accused of ‘privilege.’

“White men sometimes feel besieged and baffled by these suggestions of systematic advantage. When I wrote a series last year, ‘When Whites Just Don’t Get It,’ the reaction from white men was often indignant: It’s an equal playing field now! Get off our case!

“Yet the evidence is overwhelming that unconscious bias remains widespread in ways that systematically benefit both whites and men. So white men get a double dividend, a payoff from both racial and gender biases.’ . . . “

Short Takes

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