Minorities constitute less than 13 percent of newspapers’ editorial staff
Diversity in PR firms and departments isn’t much better. What, if anything, is your company doing to promote diversity?
The future of media looks awfully white.
Sadly, that characterization is more accurate than you may think. Despite the growing minority population in America, the percentage of minorities in America’s newspaper newsrooms is 12.79 percent, according to the American Society of News Editors (ASNE).
The group also noted that 441 newspapers have no minorities—zero—on their full-time staffs. That’s more than half of the 847 newspapers that responded to ASNE’s survey.
These numbers prompted The Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Annette John-Hall to observe: “The real question isn’t whether diversity can survive in pared-down newsrooms, but rather whether pared-down newsrooms can survive without diversity.”
John-Hall noted that minorities now make up 36 percent of the U.S. population.
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