Maynard, Robert Clyve

▪ 1994

      U.S. journalist and newspaper publisher (b. June 17, 1937, New York, N.Y.—d. Aug. 17, 1993, Oakland, Calif.), inspired and was mentor to hundreds of minority journalists as the first African-American to gain, through sheer determination, a prominent position in U.S. publishing; he was the first black national correspondent and the first black editor and owner of a major daily newspaper. Though Maynard dropped out of school as a teenager, he remained single-minded in his pursuit of a journalistic career. He served as a cub reporter for the black weekly New York Age but was turned down for more than 300 jobs at white-owned papers. In 1961, however, he finally landed a job in Pennsylvania with the York Gazette and Daily. After making his mark there and gaining a Nieman fellowship to Harvard University, Maynard was offered a position with the Washington Post, where he became a national correspondent in 1967. He rose in prominence and served as the paper's ombudsman and in 1976 was chosen as one of the three who questioned Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford in their final presidential debate. The following year he cofounded the Institute for Journalism Education in Berkeley, Calif., where hundreds of aspiring minority journalists learned their craft. Maynard believed that "this country cannot be the country we all want it to be if its story is told by only one group of citizens." In 1979 he was hired by Gannet Co. to serve as editor of the Oakland Tribune. In 1983, with not a penny of his own money, he bought the financially troubled paper from that company for $22 million and embarked on massive improvement efforts. Under his direction the Tribune garnered hundreds of awards for editorial excellence, but Maynard, battling prostate cancer, was forced to sell the unprofitable newspaper in 1992.

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