Dori J. Maynard, a journalist and champion of diversity in news coverage, died Tuesday at her Oakland home, the journalism education institute she presided said. She was 56. The Oakland-based Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education confirmed Maynard's death in a brief statement posted on its website. It didn't give a cause of death.

"Dori was an amazing force for good in journalism," Dawn Garcia, managing director of the Knight Fellowships at Stanford University, told the San Jose Mercury News (https://bayareane.ws/1ahiIg8). Maynard served of the Knight board. "She was the voice that must be heard." "When others were shying away from speaking about race, Dori was fearless. She made an amazing difference for so many people," Garcia added.

The daughter of Robert C. Maynard, the former owner of the Oakland Tribune, Dori Maynard was herself a journalist, working at the Detroit Free Press, the Bakersfield Californian, and The Patriot Ledger, in Quincy, Mass.