From ASNE to API
For over four decades, the Newsroom Employment Diversity Survey has been one of the industry’s primary benchmarks for tracking newsroom representation. Launched by the American Society of News Editors in 1978, the survey evolved to include gender representation, newsroom leadership diversity, and digital-only outlets, reflecting the changing media landscape.
In 2019, the newly formed News Leaders Association took over the survey. However, declining participation rates led to a pause in data collection in 2020, and despite efforts to relaunch it in 2022, response numbers remained historically low.
Now, the American Press Institute has revived the survey under a new name: the API Media Diversity Survey.
Background
The Newsroom Employment Diversity Survey was first conducted by the American Society of News Editors to track the racial and ethnic diversity of U.S. newsroom staff. ASNE originally set an ambitious goal: to ensure that the percentage of journalists of color in newsrooms would match the percentage of people of color in the U.S. population by 2000. When that goal was not met, ASNE extended the target to 2025.
The survey became an important tool for tracking employment trends among Black, Hispanic, Asian American, and Indigenous journalists. As the media industry evolved, the survey expanded to capture broader identity categories and reflect changes in the journalism workforce.
In 2016, ASNE rebranded the survey from the Newsroom Employment Census to the Newsroom Employment Diversity Survey, reflecting an industry-wide shift toward measuring inclusion and representation beyond numerical counts.
Following the 2019 merger of ASNE and the Associated Press Media Editors to form the News Leaders Association, the administration of the survey transferred to NLA. However, participation rates declined, with newsroom leaders citing resource constraints, transparency concerns, and survey fatigue. As a result, many newsrooms decided to share their diversity data independently.
Evolution of the Survey’s Methodology
The survey has undergone multiple methodological changes to improve accuracy and inclusivity. These changes reflected the increasing diversity of newsrooms and the industry’s shift from legacy print structures to digital-first and nonprofit models.
Trends in Newsroom Diversity (1997-2019)
Over more than four decades, the survey has captured critical insights into representation in journalism. These major trends reflect data from a key period in the survey’s history. More on data integrity.
Overall representation of people of color
While these numbers show incremental progress, the rate of increase has been slow—especially compared to the shifting demographics of the U.S. population.
1997
The first year with detailed race and ethnicity data showed that 11.4% of newsroom employees were people of color.
2007
Representation increased to 13.4%, but progress stalled as the Great Recession led to widespread newsroom layoffs.
2017
The percentage of journalists of color rose to 16.6%, with online-only newsrooms having a higher proportion of journalists of color (24.3%) compared to print/digital outlets (16.31%).
2019
In the last full survey conducted before API’s acquisition, 21.9% of journalists in participating newsrooms were people of color.
Gender representation in newsrooms
While women have made steady gains in newsroom representation, leadership roles remained a challenge—especially for women of color.
1998
The first year gender was measured, women comprised 36.9% of newsroom employees.
2008
Women comprised 36.6% of newsroom staff in daily newspapers.
2017
Women made up 39.1% of newsroom employees overall, with higher representation in online-only newsrooms (47.8%) than in traditional newspapers (38.9%).
2019
Women accounted for 41.8% of newsroom staff, with representation higher in digital newsrooms (50.1%) than in traditional print/digital outlets.
Newsroom leadership diversity
These findings highlight persistent challenges in newsroom leadership diversity. While hiring efforts may have improved at entry levels, leadership representation did not keep pace.
2014
The survey began measuring racial and gender diversity in top-three newsroom leadership roles. That year, 63% of surveyed news organizations had at least one woman in a top-three leadership position, while 15% had at least one person of color in a top editorial role.
2018
The percentage of organizations with at least one leader of color in a top-three newsroom role was 27.8%, reflecting slow progress in newsroom leadership diversity.
2019
The percentage of organizations with at least one top-three newsroom leader of color declined to 26.4%. Among print and digital newsrooms, representation dropped to 25.6%, while online-only newsrooms saw a slight increase to 29%. Overall, 18.8% of newsroom managers were people of color.
