Fall 2021 Diversity Staff Report
Fall 2021 Diversity Staff Report
For the past two semesters, the Daily Trojan has collected data for the diversity report as a way to hold ourselves accountable for the makeup of our staff and how newsroom diversity affects the paper’s reporting. This semester, we used the Spring 2021 Diversity Staff Report as a guideline for recruitment, especially considering we could expand recruitment with USC’s return to in-person classes.
This report intends to both highlight diversity’s importance in the newsroom and to highlight the Daily Trojan’s areas of improvement.
It is also important to reflect on areas of improvement to maintain and cherish inclusive spaces for reporters who come from different backgrounds and identities. Throughout the spring 2021 and fall 2021 semesters, 12.54% of staffers identify as bisexual. And the number of staffers with a disability increased from 10.88% to 11.23%, bringing forth a voice so often lost in a majority non-disabled newsroom.
Ultimately, the Daily Trojan conducts the following report because representation and inclusion are of paramount importance to both the Daily Trojan and journalism as a whole.
Methodology
As done in the previous two semesters, the report asked staffers their class standing, race/ethnicity, gender identity, sexuality, student status — which includes the following identities: international, low-income, first-generation, spring admit, those receiving need-based financial aid and transfer status — and record of disability.
The report documented these responses for both the entire staff and the individual Daily Trojan sections: news, opinion, arts & entertainment, sports, copy, features, photo, video, online projects, design, art, audience engagement, diversity & inclusion, data & investigative, podcasts, wellness & outreach, managing and the masthead, which consists of managing and section editors.
The Daily Trojan recorded 204 staff responses to the survey out of 252 staffers, which is a 80.95% response rate — a 3.35% decrease from the Spring 2021 report’s 84.34% response rate. Sections with 100% responses from staffers included opinion, art, design, audience engagement, copy, diversity & inclusion, managing and the masthead.
Analysis
Most numbers from the Spring 2021 Staff Report remained consistent in the fall. For example, the number of staffers who receive need-based financial aid was 22.57%. The number of transfer, first-generation and low-income staffers also remained consistent. The number of Black staffers, 5.13%, slightly increased from the spring 2021 semester of 4.35% but decreased from the fall 2020 semester, where Black students made up 6% of staffers. The number of Latinx staffers slightly increased for the fall semester, 15.95%, compared to the 15.68% of the spring 2021 semester.
Areas where the Daily Trojan has usually reported high numbers experienced some declines.
South Asian staffers decreased from 14% to 10.54%; women on staff decreased from 72% to 63.58%. The number of male staffers in sports remains the majority, while the number of women staffers in both news and arts & entertainment make up the majority.
However, the number of staffers who are trans women and nonbinary increased. Last semester, zero trans women were on staff, which increased to .33% in Fall 2021, while the number of nonbinary staffers increased from 1% to 3.31%. This increase is not sufficient but can be a stepping stone to curate a more welcoming environment for non-cis USC students.
The masthead, which is made up of managing and section editors, is split almost 50-50 between men and women, 22.5% white and 53.33% straight. About 14% of the masthead disclosed living with a disability, 13.04% who are low-income, 30.43% who receive need-based financial aid and 21.74% are first-generation.
Recognizing the masthead makeup is important because this group communicates most with the majority of staffers, who come from different backgrounds and identities.
Next Steps
The Fall 2021 staff saw new increases in inclusive representation, particularly in the numbers of trans women, nonbinary staffers and disabled people. To maintain an increase in representation from groups who are often not represented in reporting, the Daily Trojan must reflect on how to be more accessible and inclusive to these communities.
The newsroom should also determine the reasons behind decreases or stagnant low numbers in key populations such as the number of Latinx staffers and its impact on reporting. For example, how did returning to campus either encourage or discourage students from joining the Daily Trojan?
While this reflection on the staff report is only the first step toward creating a more diverse newsroom, we must also recognize the staff’s composition now and tend to the needs of the Daily Trojan for the semester. This attention means cultivating an inclusive community and communicating with the masthead so that staffers feel like a meaningful part of the newsroom and return in future semesters.
In addition to this reflection, we must acknowledge our shortcomings in addressing our newsroom diversity from the goals outlined in the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 Diversity reports. We must go beyond simply reflection and outline tangible goals so that future reports actually depict progress in newsroom diversity.
In Spring 2022, the Daily Trojan must use the opportunity of in-person learning to conduct outreach to specific underrepresented populations and work to encourage student participation in the physical newsroom. For instance, the Daily Trojan can expand its recruitment efforts beyond the Involvement Fair and reach out to student organizations to connect with students from diverse backgrounds and magnify underrepresented voices in our newsroom.
We will also reach out to other underrepresented groups by communicating with student leaders in campus organizations, such as the Latinx Student Assembly, LGBTQ+ Student Center, Native American Student Assembly and Asian Pacific American Student Services. From these communications, we hope to establish new avenues for inviting students into the Daily Trojan.
In addition to creating new outreach with underrepresented groups, we plan on gauging current staffer attitude toward newsroom bias and representation through a survey, which we will send out before recruitment for the spring 2022 semester. These results will highlight current newsroom factors that contribute to a lack of inclusive representation and possible steps to remediate these issues, such as mandatory diversity and awareness training for all staffers.
We also look to enact an effort to analyze internal roadblocks in our newsroom work environment that may contribute to insufficient representation for students with disabilities. We acknowledge newsroom culture can exacerbate stress, especially for students with disabilities, and we understand how this culture may reduce involvement from these students.
To continue combating this issue, we plan to expand our wellness & outreach coordinator responsibilities and support specific students whose disabilities may compromise their newsroom involvement. As a result, we hope to accommodate students with disabilities appropriately so they feel welcomed and supported at the Daily Trojan.
Through these efforts, we will continue expanding newsroom perspectives to reflect our commitments to diversity and inclusion.
Design by Alyssa Shao. Data visualization by Myriam Alcala. Contributions by Lois Angelo, Matthew Eck, Vincent Leo, Shaylee Navarro, David Ramirez and Lauren Schatzman.
Editor’s note: This article was updated on Dec. 2 at 1:23 p.m. to reflect section specific data for class standing, sexuality, race and ethnicity, disability, gender identity and student status.