The Lenfest Constellation News Leadership Initiative provides career coaching and resources to Philadelphia-area media professionals of color pursuing senior leadership positions in local news media organizations. Ray Boyd, KLN ‘13, was recently named a fellow of the inaugural program. Boyd is the deputy editor for audience development at The Philadelphia Inquirer.
A Philadelphia native, Boyd was drawn to Temple University because of its endless possibilities for impactful storytelling. Choosing broadcast journalism as his major in the Klein College of Media and Communication led him to many of the student activities available at the university including The Temple News and WHIP Radio.
“If I was going to learn to be a storyteller and be able to serve audiences that look like me and that don’t look like me and that come from different walks of life, I felt like Temple was the best environment to learn those lessons,” he says. “I think my four years at Klein kind of proved me correct in that.”
Boyd has worked with several news organizations since then, but he has spent more than three years with the Inquirer in a variety of positions that focus on audience engagement and development. Managing director of student media John DiCarlo advised Boyd when he was a student journalist, and currently works with him as a fellow director at large of the Klein College Alumni Association. DiCarlo is confident that expertise in audience and engagement and development is beneficial for the media professionals of today and tomorrow.
“I think that it’s something that current students really need to be mindful of when we talk about audience engagement, what are your readers thinking, how are you engaging with them — it’s such an important piece and I think some students are kind of slow to embrace that,” DiCarlo says. “They think ‘I just have to write, I just have to report, and I’m not going to pay as much attention to how my story performs or how I’m communicating with my readers on social media.’”
The News Leadership Initiative is hosted by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism and supported by the Independence Public Media Foundation. The seven-month program aims to help fellows by providing them with leadership training and curriculum from resources like the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and Crawford Leadership Strategies. Each fellow is also advised by an executive advisor from a leading Philadelphia-area news organization who has senior-level management experience. Sandra Clark, who serves as vice president for news and civic dialogue at Philadelphia’s WHYY, is Boyd’s executive advisor.
“I was thrilled to be paired with Ray,” she said in an email. “We speak the same language of community engagement and the importance of listening to communities and infusing journalism with voices and priorities of everyday people who are impacted by issues. Even with the limitations of the pandemic, Ray is finding ways to convene conversations among people with different perspectives and backgrounds and connect the public to journalists. He is driving culture change and helping build trust.
“Not everyone understands the value of this type of engagement, but Ray does. I’m excited to see what lies ahead,” she said.
Although he has already learned about ways to enhance his audience engagement and development practices through the News Leadership Initiative, Boyd is most looking forward to exploring how the Inquirer’s journalism can reflect the lives of all Philadelphians and their diverse experiences and perspectives even further.
“I think that for a long time, legacy media organizations haven’t served everyone well, haven’t served everyone equally,” he says. “For me, that’s what motivates me day-to-day to do the work that I do. So I’m really just looking for perspectives on that: how to make media more equitable, more inclusive.”