Journalists give industry mixed reviews on newsroom diversity, lowest marks in racial and ethnic diversity

The responses from the almost 12,000 journalists surveyed suggest that newsroom diversity is a work in progress: Journalists give their news organizations mixed grades on how well they are doing in building a sufficiently diverse staff. There is broader agreement that organizations generally treat staff fairly, regardless of age, gender, or race and ethnicity. Still, fewer than half of journalists say their organization makes issues of diversity and inclusion a major priority, and about half have participated in a formal training session about diversity in their workplace in the past year.

Along with the makeup of the newsroom itself, many experts say diversity can have a significant impact on the quality of journalism because a more diverse staff is likely to produce a wider range of stories and perspectives. As discussed in Chapter 4, fewer journalists say that news organizations do a good job at giving voice to the underrepresented than they do for a number of other core functions of journalism.

Read Full Article by Carrie Blazina, Amy Mitchell, Mark Jurkowitz and Jacob Liedke at Pew Research Center