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Tribune Publishing Names Efrain Hernandez
Jr. Director of Reporting, Minority Editorial Training Program
CHICAGO, September 30, 2002 --
Tribune Publishing, a unit of Tribune
Company (NYSE:TRB), today
announced that Efrain Hernandez Jr. has been named to direct
the reporting arm of METPRO, the company’s two-year
program designed to prepare African Americans, Latinos, Asian
Americans and Native Americans with limited journalism experience
for full-time reporting/editing positions at one of Tribune’s
12 daily newspapers. METPRO (Minority Editorial Training Program)
has two tracks, one for copy editors at Long Island-based
Newsday and the other for reporters at the Los Angeles Times.
Hernandez will oversee the Los Angeles training.
"Efrain brings all the right qualifications
to run METPRO/reporting," said Howard Tyner, Tribune
Publishing vice president/editorial. "Since joining the
Times in 1994 he has been involved with METPRO both as an
editor and as a member of the selection committee. Such lengthy
experience will be invaluable as METPRO expands and evolves
to address Tribune Publishing’s growing newsroom diversity
needs."
METPRO was introduced at the Los Angeles Times
in 1984 and is one of the industry’s premier newspaper-based
training program for journalists. More than 250 journalists
have participated in the program since its inception. METPRO
recruits up to 25 students each year to participate in the
editing and reporting programs.
"I’m proud to be the new director,"
Hernandez said. "METPRO is known nationally as a top-notch
journalism training program. It has done an excellent job
of developing journalists of varied backgrounds whereas the
industry in general has not done enough."
Hernandez has been an assistant metropolitan
editor at the Los Angeles Times since 1998. He succeeds Richard
Kipling, who became editor of the Times’ Orange County
edition in August after 10 successful years running METPRO
in Los Angeles.
Hernandez has more than 18 years of experience
in newspaper reporting and editing. Last spring he was named
interim city editor of the Los Angeles Times’ San Fernando
Valley edition during a particularly intensive period of local
news there. Prior to that assignment he worked out of the
Times’ downtown newsroom as an editor on the criminal
justice team. Earlier he was metro morning assignment editor.
Prior to joining the Times, Hernandez worked
as a reporter and editor at The Boston Globe from 1990 to
1994. In addition to reporting and writing during those years,
he co-hosted and co-produced a weekly news program for WLVI-TV
in Boston, a Tribune station. From 1985 to 1990, Hernandez
was a reporter at The Hartford Courant, where he covered education,
city government and urban affairs. He started his journalism
career as a reporter for Hispanic Link News Service in Washington,
D.C., a national news agency that focuses on Hispanic issues
and trends.
Hernandez is active in several professional organizations
including Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Society
of Professional Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic
Journalists and the California Chicano News Media Association.
He is president of the Los Angeles chapter of CCNMA and belongs
to the association’s board.
METPRO participants in the reporting
program begin their training with a year-long stint at the
Los Angeles Times. The program places trainees in the Times
newsroom as reporters covering breaking news and features
while also providing classroom-style instruction from editorial
staff members on reporting, writing, editing, interviewing
and researching. Following the completion of the first phase
of the program, trainees are assigned to the staff of one
of Tribune’s 12 daily newspapers.
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Tribune Publishing is the leading U.S.
major-market newspaper group, with the third-largest total
circulation. The company operates 12 leading daily newspapers:
Los Angeles Times; Chicago Tribune; Newsday
(Long Island, N.Y.); The Baltimore Sun; South
Florida Sun-Sentinel; Orlando Sentinel; The
Hartford Courant; The Morning Call (Allentown,
Pa.); Daily Press (Newport News, Va.); The Advocate
(Stamford, Conn.); Greenwich Time (Greenwich, Conn.);
and Hoy, a Spanish-language newspaper serving New
York. Additional newspapers for Hispanic consumers, each published
weekly, are ¡Exito! in Chicago and El Sentinel
in Orlando. Tribune also owns 50 percent of La Opinión,
a Spanish-language daily in Los Angeles. Tribune Publishing
includes Tribune Media Services, a leading provider of entertainment
listings and content syndication to print and electronic media,
and two 24-hour cable news channels: CLTV in Chicago and News
13, a partnership with Time Warner Communications in Orlando.
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