Carl E. Morris, a former newspaper reporter and editor who then held several influential posts as an advocate for hiring black journalists, died Aug. 27 at his home in Reston, Va. He was 73.
The cause was complications from heart surgery, his wife, Kelda, said.
In 1984, he became the first minority affairs director of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Before that, he was executive director of the National Association of Black Journalists, where he had helped establish its first national office.
He next founded the National Association of Minority Media Executives, where he continued to track media companies’ records in hiring minorities, a project he had begun while working with the black journalists’ group. He continued this monitoring after his retirement in 1995.
Mr. Morris was born in Pittsburgh in 1931. He attended local public schools, then served in the Air Force. He graduated from West Virginia State College.
