Richard Kipling, a longtime Los Angeles Times editor who pioneered a program to create opportunities for minority journalists, died Monday days after suffering 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 New York Times, Los Angeles 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 Baltimore Sun — with the goal of bringing new voices and perspectives to an industry often criticized for overlooking minority communities.
Richard Kipling, right, poses with former Metpro classes and Times colleagues during a surprise party for his 80th birthday last year.
(photo courtesy of Kalin Kipling-Mojaddedi)
“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 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 Reporting 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.
