special to The Star
Meridian native Robert Naylor Jr. will be the keynote speaker during a commemorative program at Meridian Community College honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The program begins Jan. 12, at 11 a.m. at McCain Theater. Admission is free and a reception will follow.
Naylor is director of career development for the Global News division of The Associated Press, based in New York.
His primary responsibilities include management training and leadership development for editors at the world’s largest newsgathering organization. He also is responsible for developing strategies for effective recruitment, hiring, training and retention.
This year he is adding international crisis management to his portfolio of responsibilities. He created and manages AP’s leadership development program, one of the most successful efforts of its kind in the news industry.
Naylor’s work in diversity is well-known within the news industry and he is a frequent speaker for newsroom diversity groups.
He joined The Associated Press in Jackson in 1987, covering Mississippi state government and politics. He transferred to Washington less than three years later, where he was assigned to consumer issues, telecommunications, education, labor and Congress.
He also covered the 1992 presidential campaign, traveling with the first President Bush and then candidates Bill Clinton and Al Gore. He was assigned full-time to cover Gore. Naylor was part of a team of AP political reporters who were finalists for a 1993 Pulitzer Prize.
In early 1995 he returned to Mississippi to manage the Jackson bureau. He was only the second African American to be named an AP bureau chief. He is the only African American in the AP’s senior news leadership.
A native of Meridian, Naylor is a graduate of Meridian High School. He graduated with honors from Jackson State University, receiving a degree in mass communications with a concentration in journalism.
Naylor spent much of his career as a reporter focusing on public affairs, politics and government. He began his journalism career at his hometown newspaper, The Meridian Star.
He was assistant press secretary to Mississippi Gov. William Winter from 1980-82, returning to Meridian as assignment editor for WHTV. After working in television for two years, he returned to The Meridian Star as political reporter.
He subsequently became The Star’s state capitol reporter in Jackson and metro editor. He was the newspaper’s acting managing editor when he left in April 1987 to become a deputy metropolitan editor of the State newspaper in Columbia, S.C. It was from the State that he came to work at The Associated Press.
FIND OUT MORE
For more information about the Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative program at Meridian Community College, call Taurus Satterwhite at (601) 484-8669.
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