India RPCV Michael Maidenberg, a Pulitzer prize-winning publisher with the Grand Forks (N.D.), Herald for 21 years until his December 2003 retirement, is vice president and chief program officer at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Maidenberg joins Knight Foundation
Michael Maidenberg, a Pulitzer prize-winning publisher with the Grand Forks (N.D.), Herald for 21 years until his December 2003 retirement, is vice president and chief program officer at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Maidenberg's April 19 appointment by Hodding Carter III, president and CEO, was approved by the Knight board of trustees at its quarterly meeting. He replaces Penelope McPhee, who will become president of the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation in Atlanta.
Maidenberg will direct an annual payout of $90 million and manage a staff of 25 involved in three programs: Journalism Initiatives; the Community Partners Program, which funds non-profits in 26 U.S. communities; and the National Venture Fund, which funds innovative leadership and national organizations with the ability to have an impact on the Knight communities.
A Knight trustee since 1999, Maidenberg also sat on the Grants Review Committee. A career newsman, he joined Knight Ridder in 1968 and worked at the Detroit Free Press, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and at corporate headquarters in Miami. He became publisher in Grand Forks in June 1982 and served as publisher and president at the time of his retirement.
Maidenberg was born in 1942 in Marion and graduated from the University of Michigan in 1964. He spent two years in the Peace Corps in India. He received a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in 1967. The school presented him its Distinguished Alumni Award in 1998.
