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ASNE releases details on diversity in 733 U.S. newsrooms
- By: ASNE staff
- On: 09/20/2016 10:00:40
- In: Newsroom diversity survey
Columbia, Mo. (Sept. 20, 2016) - The American Society of News Editors today released more detailed information on diversity in 733 individual U.S. newsrooms. The information was collected as part of ASNE's annual Newsroom Employment Diversity Survey, of which initial results were made public on Sept. 9.
ASNE made several changes to the 2016 survey to improve accuracy and increase response rates. Those changes include no longer estimating the number of journalists working in U.S. newsrooms or classifying employees by job category other than differentiating between newsroom supervisors and top leaders.
A third change was a decision not to release data on individual newsrooms, an attempt to improve response rates after a small number of respondents requested that their data not be disclosed as a condition of completing the survey. Following discussions with the ASNE Board of Directors at last week's News Leadership Conference in Philadelphia, ASNE is reversing that decision.
"The board concluded that the need for transparency outweighed a good-faith effort to improve response rates on the annual survey," said ASNE President Mizell Stewart III, vice president for news operations at Gannett and the USA TODAY Network. "The ASNE survey is seen in the industry as an important tool to measure newsroom diversity. Its value is diminished without highlighting progress, or recognizing the lack thereof, at the individual newsroom level."
A third change was a decision not to release data on individual newsrooms, an attempt to improve response rates after a small number of respondents requested that their data not be disclosed as a condition of completing the survey. Following discussions with the ASNE Board of Directors at last week's News Leadership Conference in Philadelphia, ASNE is reversing that decision.
"The board concluded that the need for transparency outweighed a good-faith effort to improve response rates on the annual survey," said ASNE President Mizell Stewart III, vice president for news operations at Gannett and the USA TODAY Network. "The ASNE survey is seen in the industry as an important tool to measure newsroom diversity. Its value is diminished without highlighting progress, or recognizing the lack thereof, at the individual newsroom level."
A list of participating organizations with their minority percentages is available here, with the exception of those organizations that specifically declined to have their data disclosed after a second contact.