Richard Kipling, a champion of newsroom diversity and direction, has died at 81

Richard Kipling, the longtime editor of the Los Angeles Times who started a program to create opportunities for minority journalists, died Monday after suffering a heart attack. He was 81 years old.

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, a 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 the model for diversity programs across the industry. Some of its graduates have gone on to leadership roles at markets 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 with resistance.

MetPro has placed young journalists in training and reporting roles at dozens of 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.

Richard Kipling, right, poses with former Metro classmates and Times colleagues during a surprise party for his 80th birthday last year.

(Photo courtesy of Colin Kipling Mujadadi

“There was resistance in the beginning and there is still resistance, considerable resistance, when I took it: ‘These are not the quality people of the LA Times,'” Kipling told a graduate student at the University of Missouri for a 2009 thesis. “But in the mid-’90s, people would come up to me and say, ‘When are we going to get Metro?’

As newspaper industry funding declined, Kipling struggled to maintain the Metpro program.

“What’s unique about Richard is that he brought in a whole generation of journalists of color and really focused on nurturing talent from communities that people should look up to,” said Erica Hayasaki, a former Times reporter.

He left the Times in 2009 and became director 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 Streit, who now works at The New York Times.