Does your newspaper's staff
reflect the racial diversity
of the community it serves?

Discussion:

1. How many communities are still getting their news from all-white newsrooms?

No people of color work in 374 American newspapers. (And that's not counting the 481 newspapers that didn’t reply to the most recent ASNE survey.)

Many of these 374 all-white newspapers are small, but they have a combined weekday circulation of 3,790,285 -- well more than USA Today and The New York Times combined.

Some of these all-white newspapers are in communities that are themselves nearly all white. Even in those communities, ASNE's goal calls for employment of at least one journalist of color. But many of the all-white newsrooms are in communities with substantial non-white populations. The list is led by The Independent, in Gallup, N.M., where the circulation area is 93 percent non-white. And one-third of the all-white newsrooms serve communities that are at least 10 percent non-white.

Here are the 20 least-white communities with all-white newsrooms:

A full list of the all-white newsrooms is in
Table 9: All-white newsrooms: Newspapers reporting no journalists of color, ranked by non-white population in circulation area (PDF format)
or see the table in Excel format

2. How close are most newspapers to parity with their circulation areas?

The rarities are still the dailies who have reached ASNE's goal. Only 13 percent of newspapers responding to the survey have reached parity between the newsroom and community minority, up slightly from last year's 11 percent.

Only 34 percent of newspapers are even halfway to the goal, up from 32 percent last year.

Here's how newspapers were dispersed by Newsroom Diversity Index:

	% of Newspapers Reporting		No. of Newspapers Reporting
	2003	2004	2003	2004
100 percent parity or better	11%	13%	101	123
75 to 99 percent	7%	7%	61	61
50 to 74 percent	14%	14%	129	132
25 to 49 percent	21%	18%	195	169
1 to 24 percent	8%	8%	75	73
All-white newsrooms	40%	40%	372	374

3. How many newspapers are increasing their employment of journalists of color?

More than half of the largest newspapers employed a higher percentage of non-white journalists than a year earlier.

Looking at the raw ASNE figures, among the top 100 newspapers:

• 55 newspapers improved, raising newsroom minority percentages in the past year
• 31 newspapers declined, lowering minority percentages
• 2 newspapers stayed the same
• 12 newspapers didn't answer the survey in one year or both

Among newspapers of all sizes, gainers and losers were about even. Looking at the raw ASNE figures:

• 265 newspapers improved, raising minority journalist percentages in the past year (19 percent)
• 224 newspapers declined, lowering minority percentages (16 percent)
• 292 newspapers stayed the same (21 percent)
• 632 newspapers didn't answer in one year or another (45 percent)

Another way of examining the pattern is a statistical analysis of the data, which does offer evidence that many newspapers are sensitive to building newsrooms that look something like the communities they serve. The analysis shows a moderately strong relationship between the percentage of non-white employees in newspapers' circulation areas and the percentage of non-white journalists. In other words, the greater the community minority percentage, the more likely a newspaper is to have a larger proportion of minority journalists.

But the analysis shows that the trend across the industry does not come near the ASNE ideal of parity. Of the newspapers who reported to ASNE, the analysis shows that every 10 point increase in community minority percentage is accompanied by only about a 3.4 point increase in newsroom percentage. But this is an overall view; there is a great deal of variation from newspaper to newspaper. The outliers are the few newspapers that have reached the goal of parity, and the many others still stuck at zero minority journalists.

The analysis also shows that about 32 percent of the variation in newsroom percentage across newspapers can be predicted by the corresponding community percentage, but other factors figure heavily as well. Ownership clearly is one. But some other factors that can't be measured play a role, such as desire to meet the goal, desirability of the community as a place to live, racial change in the community, the reputation of a newspaper, supply of non-white journalists in that area, and extent of the newspaper's recruiting.

Most newspapers sell more copies per household in white neighborhoods than in neighborhoods of color, which is not surprising considering the general differences in income and education. But there are exceptions. The following newspapers have higher sales per household in minority areas than in white areas: The Boston Herald, The Connecticut Post, The Denver Post, The Jersey Journal, The Daily Press of Newport News, The Oakland Tribune, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Record of Stockton, and The Tampa Tribune. (This list includes only those newspapers that reported sales to at least 10 majority-white ZIPs and at least 10 majority-minority ZIPs within 20 miles of the newspaper's home office.)

4. How many newspapers are at their high-water mark?

The study looked at ASNE surveys from 1990 through 2004:

Only about a quarter of the 100 largest newspapers are at their high-water mark in non-white share of newsroom seats.

Out of the top 100 newspapers:

• 27 employ a larger share of minorities than ever.
• 62 had a greater minority employment in some earlier year.
• 11 didn't fill out the survey this year.

The nation's four largest newspapers have fallen from their peak: USA Today peaked in the 1994 report (employment at year-end 1993), The Wall Street Journal in the 2000 report, The New York Times last year, and The Los Angeles Times in 2000.

Other papers in the top 25 that are below their peak level of minority employment are the New York Daily News (peaked in the 1995 report), Chicago Tribune (1998), Newsday (2002), San Francisco Chronicle (1998), The Arizona Republic (2003), The Miami Herald (1999), The Star Tribune in Minneapolis (2001), and The Plain Dealer in Cleveland (1995).

Papers in the top 25 that reached their peak employment of non-whites this year are The Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Detroit Free Press, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Oregonian, and The St. Petersburg Times.

And papers in the top 25 that didn't respond to this year's ASNE survey include The New York Post, The Chicago Sun-Times, and The Star-Ledger in Newark.

Looking more broadly at all newspapers:

• 167 employ a larger share of minorities than ever. (12 percent)
• 593 had a greater share of minority employment in some earlier year. (42 percent)
• 348 are at zero and have never been above zero. (25 percent)
• 305 did not fill out the survey this year. (22 percent)

5. Are the larger newspapers the ones with more diverse news staffs?

There is a wide variation among newspapers of the same circulation. And some smaller newspapers employ a greater share of minorities than many larger newspapers.

Here's how the Newsroom Diversity Index breaks out by size of newspaper:

Size matters, judging from the median index. Among larger newspapers, the typical Newsroom Diversity Index is higher.

But there is a wide variation in index scores within each group. For every large newspaper that has met the goal, several have not. And many small newspapers are above parity, or close to it, while hundreds of others are still at zero.

How many of the largest newspapers have staffs that are as diverse as their communities?

Among the top 100 newspapers in circulation:

	% of Newspapers Reporting		No. of Newspapers Reporting
	2003	2004	2003	2004
100 percent parity or better	11%	11%	10	10
75 to 99 percent	14%	17%	13	15
50 to 74 percent	40%	40%	36	36
25 to 49 percent	33%	29%	30	26
1 to 24 percent	2%	2%	2	2
All-white newsrooms	0%	0%	0	0

(This year, 11 newspapers in the top 100 didn't respond to the survey; last year, 9.)

As this chart shows, there was some improvement at the top for the largest 100 newspapers this year, with two more newspapers reaching at least 75% of parity, for a total of 25. But nearly one out of three large newspapers remain below half of parity.

Among the top 100, the highest Newsroom Diversity Index was at these 10 newspapers:

Rank	Newspaper	Newsroom Diversity Index (100=parity)
1	The Beacon Journal, Akron	169
2	The Des Moines Register	150
3	The Detroit News	132
4	The Knoxville News-Sentinel	128
5	The Post-Standard, Syracuse	125
6	The Boston Globe	110
7	Lexington Herald-Leader	109
8	The Tennessean, Nashville	102
9	The Oregonian, Portland	100
10	Star Tribune, Minneapolis	100

And the lowest Newsroom Diversity Index was at these newspapers:

6. Which newspaper companies better reflect their communities?

Among the larger newspaper groups, the average index of all their newspapers (weighted by circulation) is:

Newspaper Company	Average Newsroom Diversity Index (100=parity)
Gannett Co. (Va.)	88
Knight Ridder (Calif.)	76
McClatchy Co. (Calif.)	72
New York Times Co. (N.Y.)	66
Advance (Newhouse) (N.Y.)	65
Cox Enterprises (Ga.)	60
Freedom Communications (Calif.)	60
Pulitzer (Mo.)	55
Tribune Co. (Ill.)	54
Ogden Newspapers (W.Va.)	52
Scripps (Ohio)	52
Community Newspaper Holdings (Ala.)	51
Liberty Group Publishing (Ill.)	51
Washington Post Co. (D.C.)	50
Belo (Texas)	49
Dow Jones (N.Y.)	47
Copley Press (Calif.)	41
Hearst Newspapers (N.Y.)	40
MediaNews Group (Colo.)	40
Lee Enterprises (Iowa)	38
Hollinger International (Ill.)	36
Media General (Va.)	33
Morris Communications (Ga.)	26
Journal Register (N.J.)	19
Paxton Media Group (Ky.)	5

(These are circulation-weighted averages, with larger newspapers in the group counting more toward the average. Only groups with at least 500,000 total circulation, or at least 20 newspapers, are included.)

The list is led by companies with well-known programs of rewarding managers -- with bonuses -- for recruitment of journalists of color.

Some of the larger chains appear to have a farm team of journalists at the smaller newspapers, ready to move up to the larger newspapers. Leave out USA Today, and Gannett's other newspapers have a combined score of 102, or greater minority employment than the minority share of their circulation areas.

The rankings of larger newspaper groups are in
Table 7: Large newspaper companies, ranked by Newsroom Diversity Index (PDF format)
or see the table in Excel format.

And groups with fewer newspapers, or lower total circulation, are in
Table 8: Small newspaper companies, ranked by Newsroom Diversity Index (PDF format)
or see the table in Excel format

How the study was done

The analysis used three types of data: (1) ASNE's survey of newsroom staffing, (2) audited circulation data to determine a circulation area, and (3) the 2000 Census to determine the demographics of that area.

The report includes all information on the communities of 1,413 newspapers surveyed by ASNE. Of those, 932 responded to the ASNE survey, a response rate of 66 percent.

Each newspaper was given a score, or Newsroom Diversity Index, to indicate its relative success in reaching parity with its community. A newspaper scored 100, for example, if its news staff and its community had the same percentage of non-whites.

The newsroom staffing figures came from the annual surveys of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. ASNE counts as minorities Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians and Native Americans. Its survey includes newsroom supervisors, reporters, copy editors, photographers and artists. ASNE reports only a single "minority" percentage for each newspaper, not the percentages for individual racial or ethnic groups. ASNE provided a list of newspapers surveyed, allowing the researchers to list the newspapers that did not respond.

The most precise available figure to represent the circulation area was used, following these rules:

1. For the four national newspapers without circulation centered in any one community -- USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the Christian Science Monitor -- this study used the U.S. non-white population (30.9 percent in Census 2000) as the target. The four national newspapers are marked as "USA" in the reports.

2. If a newspaper filed circulation figures for ZIP Codes with the Audit Bureau of Circulations, those figures were used to draw the circulation area. In all, 857 newspapers filed ZIPs. Most large and medium-sized newspapers are in this category. These newspapers are marked as "ZIPs" in the reports.

3. If a newspaper filed only county-level circulation reports with ABC, those figures were used. These 13 newspapers are marked with "Counties."

That leaves 539 (mostly smaller) newspapers with no ABC data to describe a circulation area.

4. Most of those newspapers are the only newspaper in their home county, and for those the home county was presumed to be the circulation area. Those 427 newspapers are marked as "Home County."

5. The remainder of those newspapers posed the Palo Alto problem. When a newspaper was not the only one in the county, and was located in a smaller city in the county, it wouldn't be fair to assign the demographics of all of, say, Santa Clara County (56 percent non-white) to the newspaper in Palo Alto (where the city is only 27 percent non-white). So the home city was used to look up the demographics. These 112 newspapers are marked as "Home city."

In looking up the demographics of these areas in the 2000 U.S. Census, ASNE's definition of minority was used, which includes everyone except non-Hispanic whites.

To determine the top 200 newspapers by circulation, this report used the weekday average circulation reported in the online version of Editor and Publisher magazine in April 2004. This is also the daily circulation figure listed in all tables.

About the researchers

Bill Dedman is a correspondent for The Boston Globe, where he writes investigative articles, helps other reporters and editors, and trains the staff in computer-assisted reporting. In 1989, he received the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting for "The Color of Money," a series of articles in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on racial discrimination by mortgage lenders. His Power Reporting site on the Web is used by many journalists as a starting point for research, and he has led seminars in more than 100 newsrooms. He was the first director of computer-assisted reporting for the Associated Press. Bill started in journalism at age 16 as a copy boy at The Chattanooga Times, and has reported for The Washington Post and The New York Times. He has taught advanced reporting at Boston University, the University of Maryland and Northwestern University. E-mail him at Bill@PowerReporting.com .

Stephen K. Doig is interim director of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication of Arizona State University. He also holds the Knight Chair in Journalism, specializing in computer-assisted reporting. Before joining ASU in 1996, he was research editor of The Miami Herald, where he worked for 19 years. Various computer-assisted projects on which he worked at The Herald have won the Pulitzer Prize for public service, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, and other awards. He serves as a member of the board of directors of Investigative Reporters and Editors. Steve's research interests include helping journalists use social science methods and census and other demographic information to enhance their understanding of, and reporting about, community issues. E-mail him at Steve.Doig@ASU.edu .

The researchers thank the staff of the GIS lab at Arizona State University, which developed the online maps, and the staff of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, particularly Bobbi Bowman and Scott Bosley, for their cooperation.

About the Knight Foundation

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities.

Where to find more information:

This report is on the Web at www.asu.edu/cronkite/asne .

This is the 2004 report. The 2003 report is archived at www.powerreporting.com/knight/2003/ .

ASNE's survey report is also on the Web, with information on newsroom diversity, at www.asne.org .

Links to other readings on newsroom diversity are at The Freedom Forum .

Associations of journalists of color are joined under the umbrella group UNITY. Individual associations are listed at Power Reporting, along with resources on computer-assisted reporting.

Please send comments and questions to Bill Dedman at Bill@PowerReporting.com and Steve Doig at Steve.Doig@ASU.edu .