INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The leader of JPMorgan Chase bank says local partnerships in communities, even partnerships that may seem smaller, can have tremendous impact.

Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive officer of the world’s largest bank, sat down this week for an exclusive interview with News 8 Senior Daybreak Anchor Scott Sander.

In terms of collaboration and working together, JPMorgan Chase Foundation has done a remarkable thing in supporting what we call the Multicultural Media Producing Program. It’s a one-year certificate program at Ivy Tech Community College in Indianapolis that examines how newscasts are written, produced, and broadcasted.

The idea behind the program was to ensure more voices from more backgrounds are involved in television production.

Sander asked why that program — in other words, collaborating with someone else — was a good idea.

Dimon says the foundation looks for programs that can actually add value and can help grow businesses.

“So when you have good local partners, that’s where you partner up. If they’re bad local partners, we will not do it. We actually try to evaluate who are they, what are they hoping to accomplish. We have a huge outreach in the minority community, which we will continue.”

During his visits to community bank branches, he says, he met with local news publishers. “I didn’t know there were so many of them, and they really reach into those communities in a way that other people don’t, and they have very good reporters.

“I remember reading one of the newspaper things from the Amsterdam News, and I said, ‘That’s far better than the Wall Street Journal.’ They actually took the time to go through all of it.

“They sat in the branch, and instead of us trying to sell them on what a great job we do, they saw the community there. They ate the food. They saw the pictures, the paintings done by local artists. They saw the small businesses come in.

“They saw segments where women would come in to learn about how to get a mortgage or start a business, something like that.

“That’s how you outreach into these communities: Find them where they are.”

WISH-TV provides instruction for the Multicultural Media Producing Program, and its first class graduated in December. The second group is underway and set to graduate this spring.

This story was created from a script aired on WISH-TV.