Media businesses are slowly getting less white, male-dominated, stats from Condé, WSJ, NYT, others show

By Sara Guaglione

This article is part of a limited editorial series, called The 2023 Notebook, and is designed to be a guide to marketing and media buying in the new year. Explore the series here.

Over two years ago, a reckoning shook up the media industry: companies were too white and too male-dominated.

The murder of George Floyd in May 2020 put a spotlight on newsrooms’ lack of coverage and attention on racial and social justice issues. It spurred media organizations to improve the diversity of their workforces — diversity, equity and inclusion leaders were hired, new teams were created, training was required. And new goals were set.

But how are these efforts stacking up, almost three years later?

“Having a diverse workforce, diverse reporters and diverse editors — and even people who are not particularly diverse but who are sensitive to those issues — makes a difference,” Richard Prince, a columnist at Journal-isms.com who covers diversity in the media, told Digiday. “And we have made a lot of progress in that area, in certain places. I wouldn’t deny the industry that. There can be some improvements but there have been some already, which should be recognized.”

Diversity stats from 2020 to now

Digiday has tracked publishers’ self-reported diversity statistics as there is not a consistent, wholistic measurement of this across the industry.

“First and foremost, any journey in any improvement in representation at any organization starts with understanding the data and the transparency of the demographics of the makeup of the workforce, which is so critical,” said Terri McClements, PwC’s senior partner and DEI consulting leader.

Here’s how they’re faring, from 2020 to now, based on the latest data these companies have shared:

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The biggest differences are at BuzzFeed (an eight percentage point difference), NPR (a six percentage point difference), Condé Nast (a four percentage point difference) and The New York Times (three percentage point difference). The other publishers have moved the needle by a few percentage points.

“We didn’t get into this problem overnight. And you can’t just hire your way out of it. You’ve got to have the infrastructure in place with the environment where people feel like they belong, that they have a seat at the table. And you also have to have room for people to grow,” said Angel Jennings, assistant managing editor for culture and talent at the L.A. Times.

Source:: Digiday