THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN THE U.S MEDIA 2015

WOMEN’S MEDIA CENTER
In traditional print and online–only
journalism
American newspaper editors:
Overall female, minority staffing inched up in 2014
In the 16 years since the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) has counted the
number of minority and female staffers in newsrooms, the percentage of women has
only incrementally changed. It spiked at 37.7 percent in 2005 and dropped to 36.3 percent
in the 2013 report.
According to ASNE’s 2014 report, which showed that newspaper newsrooms shrunk by
3.2 percent, the female staffing figure hovered at 37.2 percent. (ASNE’s annual reports
parse the prior year’s staffing data.)
Race representation in
newspaper newsrooms, 2014
WOMEN
MEN
0.16% Native American
0.27% Multi-racial
1.64% Asian
1.83% Hispanic
2.19% Black
31.1% White
0.23% Native American
0.26% Multi-racial
1.51 % Asian
2.63 %Hispanic
2.58% Black
55.59% White
100% Total number of all employees
Source: American Society of News Editors
Graphic produced by the Women’s Media Center
In other subcategories of ASNE’s 2014
report, black women staffers slightly
lost ground compared to black men;
Hispanic, Native American, multi-racial
and white women gained ground, compared
to their same-race males, since
ASNE’s prior year annual report.
“There is a lot of complexity to this,”
Karen Magnusson, editor of the Rochester
Democrat & Chronicle and chair of
the ASNE Diversity Committee, told the
Women’s Media Center.
She cited, for example, the recent years’
hiring of top female editors at several
U.S. newspapers owned by her parent
company, Gannett. “I certainly see
strides. … But when it comes to people
of color, we’re not making the same
progress,” she said, of the news industry
overall. “The editors I know are committed
to having inclusive newsrooms. But
the proof is in the numbers and the numbers
are not increasing … for people
of color. Recruitment and retention are
the issues there. We’re tending to lose
young people of color who are worried
about our industry’s future. … I’m disappointed
in what’s happening there.
“But let me say it’s a really exciting time to
be in the business. … I’m hopeful about
the innovations and how we are growing
audience. … As an industry, we don’t tell
our own story as well as we could.”
The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2015 TOC womensmediacenter.com 17