Richard Kipling, champion of newsroom diversity and mentorship, dies at 81
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- Richard Kipling, former director of the Los Angeles Times Minority Editorial Training Program, has died at 81 after having a stroke.
- Metpro trained generations of journalists of color whose careers took them to leadership positions at the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the New Yorker and beyond.
- As newspaper finances declined, Kipling fought to preserve a diversity program that had become a model across the industry.
Richard Kipling, a longtime Los Angeles Times editor who pioneered a program to create opportunities for minority journalists, died Monday days after having a stroke. He was 81.
Kipling held many roles during his career at The Times, including editor of the Orange County edition. But he was best known as the longtime director of Metpro, the Minority Editorial Training Program, which trained generations of journalists of color at The Times and other Times Mirror and Tribune newspapers.
Under Kipling’s leadership, Metpro became a model for diversity programs across the industry. Some of its graduates went on to leadership roles at outlets including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and the New Yorker.
Kipling was an early and persistent advocate for newsroom diversity at a time when such efforts met resistance.
Metpro placed young journalists in training and reporting roles at more than a dozen newspapers — including the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun — with the goal of bringing new voices and perspectives to an industry often criticized for overlooking minority communities.
“There was resistance early on and there was still resistance, palpable resistance, when I took it on: ‘These are not L.A. Times-quality people,’” Kipling told a University of Missouri graduate student for a 2009 paper. “But by the mid-’90s, people would come up to me and say, ‘When do we get the Metpros?’”
As the newspaper industry’s finances declined, Kipling fought to preserve the Metpro program.
“What’s so special about Richard is he brought in an entire generation of journalists of color and really focused on training talent from communities that people might not necessarily look to,” said Erika Hayasaki, a former Times reporter.
He left The Times in 2009 and became the head of the Center for Health Journalism at USC. But he remained a close mentor to Metpro graduates.
“He was like a second father to me,” said Kurt Streeter, who now works at the New York Times.
