The Daily Trojan published its first Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Report in Fall 2020. Since then, the Daily Trojan has conducted a staffwide DEI survey every semester. The newspaper’s leadership team uses the survey results to evaluate changing demographics and experiences of staff as well as determine ways the Daily Trojan can diversify its recruiting, improve newsroom culture, and better engage the USC student body and surrounding community through its reporting.

Methodology
The Daily Trojan’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Fall 2024 DEI survey was distributed to staff in mid-November — late enough into the semester to eliminate people who left early on, were largely uninvolved or were dismissed from the Daily Trojan from data collection. This was done to ensure that responses accurately represented the active members of staff.

The survey collected a variety of information on staff demographics, including race/ethnicity, gender identity, sexuality/romantic attraction, religious affiliation and record of disability, in addition to class standing, financial aid and occupational status. Most questions had a “prefer not to state” option should respondents wish not to share.

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In line with past semesters, the DEI survey included a section on staff retention. This question is used to measure what percentage of staff members intend to return to the paper in future semesters. In this section, the staffers were also asked how their experience at the newspaper and interactions with editors has informed their decision to return in future semesters. We track this data in order to create strategies to improve retention, newsroom culture and staff development.

This semester, the DEI director added a question about religious affiliation to the demographic section of the survey so that leadership could track another important aspect of our staffers’ identities.

The Daily Trojan’s Fall 2024 DEI Survey had a 53.2% response rate, with a final total of 156 responses out of a staff of 293. Our staff size increased by 25.2% since Spring 2024.

All six of the Fall 2024 managing editors responded to the DEI Survey. The Daily Trojan’s managing team consists of the editor in chief, the managing editor, the digital managing editor and three associate managing editors.

Last semester, the Spring 2024 DEI Survey had a much smaller sample population, with 59 fewer staff than this Fall; however, it had an 84.6% response rate compared to this semester’s 53.2% response rate. Due to this discrepancy, the comparative analysis below may not fully capture the changing demographics of the Daily Trojan. Since respondents were able to select multiple options in certain demographic questions, some percentages below may add up to greater than 100%.

Analysis
Race and ethnicity
Thirty-six staffers who filled out the survey identified with more than one ethnicity/race. These staffers are represented in both the multiracial category and the individual race category data.

There were significant decreases in the percentage of Black, South Asian and Southeast Asian people on staff. There was a significant increase in the percentage of East Asian, white and Hispanic/Latine people on staff, and a slight increase in Native/Alaska Native/Indigenous people on staff.

Black, South Asian and Southeast Asian staffers made up 6.4%, 9.6% and 5.1% of responses, a decrease of 2.2, 2.5 and 6.5 percentage points from Spring 2024, respectively.

White and Hispanic/Latine staffers made up 44.2% and 26.9% of responses, increasing 6.3 and 12.3 percentage points from Spring 2024, respectively. Native/Alaska Native/Indigenous staffers constituted 2.6% of responses, a 1.6 percentage point increase from last semester.

Religious Affiliation
The Daily Trojan’s staff consists largely of Christians, Atheists and Agnostics, as well as notable Jewish and Hindu populations.

Atheists make up 21.8% of the staff and Agnostic individuals make up 19.2%.

Christian staffers compose 28.8% of staff, of which Catholic staffers make up the largest denomination with 14.1%. 8.3% of staff identified as generally Christian, 6.4% as Protestant and 0.6% as Orthodox Christians.

Jewish staffers account for 8.3% of staff, while Hindu staffers make up 7.1% of staff.

Gender identity
The staff overwhelmingly identifies cisgender, with 89.1% of staff identifying as such. This is a decrease from last semester when 91.9% of staff members identified as cisgender. The breakdown of cis men remained relatively the same, with cis men constituting 30.8% of staff, compared to 29.3% of staff last semester.

The percentage of cis women on staff decreased from last semester, constituting 58.3% of staff compared to 62.6% from last semester. The amount of noncisgender staffers increased by 2.7 percentage points, with 8.3% of staffers identifying as either trans men, agender, genderfluid, gender nonconforming or nonbinary.

Sexuality and romantic attraction
Heterosexual/heteroromantic/straight individuals still represent the majority of staff at 52.6% of respondents. However, this is a significant decrease from last semester, when 60.6% of staffers identified as heterosexual/heteroromantic. This continues a downward trend from previous semesters.

Bisexual/biromantic representation jumped from 14.1% to 17.9%, following the upward trend from last semester. Asexual representation jumped from 2% to 4.5%, as did aromantic representation, which increased from 0.5% to 3.2%.

Disability
The percentage of staff with a disability stayed relatively consistent, making up 17.9% of staff compared to last semester’s 17.7%.

Class standing
Underclassmen make up 61.5% of staff, with sophomores making up the largest proportion of staff at 32.7% of respondents. The number of sophomores on staff increased by 6.4 percentage points compared to last semester. Freshmen represent 28.8% of staff, which is a large decrease from last semester when they made up 37.4% of staff. The proportion of juniors on staff decreased from 20.2% to 16.7%. Senior representation increased from 13.1% to 17.3%, and fifth-year or beyond students made up 0.06% of staff. Graduate students made up 3.8% of staff, similar to the 3% of staff they represented last semester.

Semesters at Daily Trojan
For a majority of staffers — 59.6% — Fall 2024 was their first semester on staff. Staffers in their first or second semester working at the Daily Trojan made up 69.2% of all staff. Staffers who have worked at the Daily Trojan for seven semesters made up 3.8% of the staff.

Student status
Staff was overwhelmingly composed of traditional applicants, making up 65.4% of staff — a large jump from 58.6% in Spring 2024. Continuing a downward trend from the last two semesters, 4.5% of staff were transfer students, compared to 9.6% last semester. First-generation students increased from 18.7% to 22.4% of staff, as did low-income students, who increased from 12.6% to 17.9%. Similar to last semester, 7.7% of staff were international students. Spring admits dropped from 18.7% to 5.8%.

University scholarship recipients made up 41% of staff, similar to the 41.4% last semester; 30.1% of staff are receiving need-based financial aid, consistent with the last three semesters.

Outside jobs

The majority of staff work a job outside of their time at Daily Trojan — making up 62.2% of staff, an increase from 58.6% last year.

Semester recap, and moving forward

The DEI Committee continued the work of last semester’s DEI staff through their continued commitment to making our newsroom a more diverse, inclusive and equitable place. They achieved this goal through weekly meetings, as well as thoughtful and in-depth projects aimed at improving the Daily Trojan experience.

Most of the DEI Committee members this semester, aside from the director, were new to the newspaper, bringing with them fresh ideas on how to improve newsroom culture and the organization overall. We added to the DEI section of the Daily Trojan’s style guide, adding new sections on immigration, the Middle East and North Africa, and financial disparities. The updated Style Guide will be implemented ahead of the Spring 2025 semester, standardizing the language we use to report on these topics.

In conjunction with members of masthead, the DEI director worked to build upon the existing methods for reporting instances of bias, harassment and discrimination. The Daily Trojan Bias, Discrimination & Harassment Report Form was posted both in the newsroom as a QR code and in the Daily Trojan Slack channel. Alongside the Bias, Discrimination & Harassment Form, we implemented the DEI Comment Box, where staffers could suggest ways to improve DEI in the newsroom.

The feedback received this semester will be used by the incoming DEI director and managing team headed by editor in chief-elect Stefano Fendrich to make improvements moving forward. Internally, the feedback will be used to analyze points of weakness in the organization and build upon our strengths in our continuous goal to improve our newsroom.

The incoming DEI director should continue to build upon the projects started this semester, and create new initiatives to address the shortcomings of our organization. A few of the areas that the survey and DEI Committee pinpointed as places of improvement include further implementing DEI liaisons both internally and externally, fostering more connections between staffers, and implementing a system of feedback between editors and managing editors throughout the semester. The DEI Committee must continue its unwavering commitment to representing and fostering relationships with USC’s diverse student body and surrounding community.

In order to be most effective moving forward, the DEI staff must continue to be actively engaged in the newsroom and all of its staff. The DEI staff must connect with everyone from the editor in chief to brand new photographers in order to best serve the entire Daily Trojan staff.