While McClatchy’s Vice President of Local News and Large Markets Monica Richardson was speaking to National Press Foundation Widening the Pipeline fellows on February 15, she was also preparing for a fancy dinner engagement later that day. Richardson’s remarkable career would be celebrated during NPF’s Annual Awards Dinner as she received the 2023 Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year Award.
Part of Richardson’s advice to 20 early career journalists of color was to stay curious and open to new skills and opportunities. She had settled on journalism as her life’s pursuit by middle school but admits she never really sought high-profile awards or top-level management positions.
“I am doing what I’ve always wanted to do. I never saw myself where I am today,” she said. “I always just saw myself as doing great journalism.”
Richardson certainly achieved that goal in numerous stints at newspapers including the Lexington Herald-Leader, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Miami Herald, whose staffers won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Coverage under Richardson’s leadership.
But though Richardson had only recently announced she was leaving her position at McClatchy before speaking to fellows, she didn’t reveal her next move. A week after that conversation, the news broke: In March, Richardson would begin a new tenure as Senior Vice President of USA Today, the flagship national newspaper for Gannett.
She shared insights into her early career and how staying open to new opportunities set her up for success.
Early Experiences Built Career Muscle
Richardson’s first reporting job after graduating from Old Dominion University was at the Culpeper Star Exponent newspaper, and she had a two-hour daily commute from her hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia.
“I was doing everything, like laying out lottery numbers in the paper. You went in this room and pulled wire stories. I was writing front-page stories. I was taking pictures. I was using a wheel to measure my pictures and a pica ruler and all that.”
But, just as she advised Widening fellows, Richardson always had a plan.
“I knew I wasn’t going to be there long. In fact, I remember telling myself I would be there six months and I was out. … I left there and went to the Charlottesville Observer to be a reporter because … I thought, ‘oh, I need to work on building my writing and being a better writer,’ so I thought working for a weekly would give me time to stretch that out.”
From there, she became a reporter at the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville and the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky.
That’s where the seeds of newsroom management were planted for Richardson, after stints covering the Kentucky legislature and state social services.
“I started there as a leader by volunteering. I wanted to try some other things. Actually, it’s why I left Jacksonville, because in Jacksonville I asked if I could start to just do some other things, and I’ll never forget the editor telling me: ‘We are not ready for you to do that yet.’ And anybody knows anything about me, knows that the worst thing you can do is tell me, no, I can’t do something.”
By the time the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Newspaper came calling, Richardson was an Assistant Managing Editor in Lexington. But a revered mentor named Angela Tuck told her she could rise even higher in management circles at the AJC. She spent 15 years there in roles ranging from bureau editor to Head of Digital to Senior Managing Editor. Richardson and her young daughter were quite content in Atlanta when McClatchy management reached out in late 2020.
“The person who called me said, ‘I’ll get right to it. I want you to be the next editor of the Miami Herald.’”
Richardson initially said no, that she was happy in Atlanta – just as she had when she was in Kentucky and got the offer for Atlanta.
“It’s like, ‘Well, I’m happy.’ That was more important to me. I wasn’t the person chasing titles,” Richardson said. “But then I started to think about how the other thing that’s really important to me is that every move that I make, I wanted to go to a place where great journalism was happening. That’s what I was about. Is there great journalism happening in that newsroom? The Miami Herald has a reputation for powerful journalism, and so that was the thing that got me.”
Making History
From the start, Richardson wanted her tenure in Miami to be framed by her deep well of experience. But there was one problem.
“They sent me the press release and the headline said, ‘Miami gets its first Black editor in 118-year history.’ I was like, ‘That’s real great, except I’m not just a Black person. I’ve got some skills. I’m coming from Atlanta as a digital editor. I’m a senior manager. And the whole press release basically said, in the bottom, it had a paragraph that talked about my skillsets, and I got into this big debate with them about why they believed it was important for the community and why, although I understood, I didn’t want that to be the headline necessarily.”
But then Richardson’s father weighed in.
“It took my dad who reminded me that it wasn’t about me, it was about the community there. It was about my daughter. It was about all the little girls who would want to be in my place one day. And so it was important. It was important for a man who grew up in the Civil Rights Movement, and it was a big deal.”
After two years of leadership and a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Surfside condo collapse, McClatchy named Richardson Vice President for Local News. And ahead of her NPF Award, she praised the staff of McClatchy’s Kansas City Star for their coverage of the gun violence that erupted during the victory parade for the Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs. Richardson said their tireless efforts underscored the value of local news coverage.
“As much as I love New York Times, Wall Street Journal, all the national, Washington Post, USA Today, as much as I love them, they are not about to come into my backyard and steal a story. Period. That goes back to the journalist in me. Just not happening. You’re not going to come into the local market and steal something. So we need to be on it.”
And as she read the content being produced by the Star staff, Richardson felt a surge of pride.
“I was like, ‘We’re on it.’ Right? This is what we do well as the local newsroom. What we do matters. Now, I would never tell anyone that we have people in our newsrooms who start their careers at the Miami Herald. I started in Culpeper, right? I wouldn’t trade my experience for anything because all the breadcrumbs got me to where I am now. But we have people who come to us, they’ve done their internships at the New York Times, they’ve been all the big places. But when you get back to local and the importance of local journalism, it will always be there.”
Watch Richardson’s NPF Editor of the Year acceptance:
Access the full transcript here.
The Widening the Pipeline Fellowship is sponsored by the Evelyn Y. Davis Foundation and Lenovo. NPF is solely responsible for the content.
