Blog
ASNE prepares to launch 2015 Newsroom Employment Census
- By: ASNE staff
- On: 03/04/2015 10:20:03
- In: Newsroom diversity survey
We're getting ready to launch the 2015 newsroom census. An email will be sent to the main contact of your organization this week. Please respond promptly to our completely annonymous survey and help us get a step closer to achieve our long-term goal of increasing diversity in U.S. newsrooms.
ASNE has been an industry leader in helping newspapers better reflect their communities. Knowing that a diverse staff provides fuller coverage of a community and that diversity is important to the financial well-being of our industry, ASNE has conducted the newsroom census and released the results annually since 1978.
As an industry, we have made strides, but we are not where we want or need to be. Although there has been progress, the racial diversity of newsrooms does not come close to the fast-growing diversity in the U.S. population as a whole. Click here to read more about the Newsroom Employment Census and see the results available since 1997.
A primary mission of ASNE is to have the percentage of minorities working in newsrooms nationwide equal to that of minorities in the nation's population by 2025. The census has become a tool for measuring the success of this mission, and that's why we need your participation.
The Robert R. McCormick Foundation, the census sponsor since 2012, will provide funding for the 2015 census. For the first time, we are partnering with the School of Journalism & Mass Communication (SJMC) at Florida International University to conduct this year's census. Yu Liu, assistant professor at SJMC, will lead the project.
Your participation means a lot to the success of the project. When you receive the email with instructions, please fill out the completely anonymous survey. We will follow up with phone calls as necessary.
The census is consistent from year to year to analyze change in our industry over time. Knowing the industry has changed dramatically and considering the feedback from many of you, however, we added questions last year about gender and diversity among those in top editorial positions.
The 2015 census results will be announced this summer.
In addition to spearheading the newsroom census, ASNE leads a number of other initiatives focused on improving diversity in leadership and coverage.
The Minority Leadership Institute, launched in 2012 by the ASNE Diversity Committee, helps train and develop up-and-coming, mid-level newsroom leaders and connect them with a network of established ASNE leaders. There have been a total of seven institutes since the launch, and we plan to host as many as three this year.
The diversity committee also has partnered with Journalism That Matters, a nonprofit that convenes conversations to foster collaboration, innovation and action so that a diverse news and information ecosystem can thrive.