Employment of
Women and Minorities
   
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The latest industrywide survey on employment of women and minorities by U.S. daily newspapers found:
  • Eighteen percent of employees are minorities with slightly more men than women, at 10 percent and 8 percent, respectively.
  • Representation by race and ethnic group remained stable with African Americans comprising the largest population at 10 percent; Hispanics, 5 percent; Asian Americans, 2 percent and Native Americans, 1 percent.
  • Minorities represent 11 percent of executives and managers overall.
  • Minorities represent 7.7 percent of news executives, an increase of 0.3 percent from 1995.
  • Women represent 43 percent of newspaper employees overall and 35 percent of executives and managers.
  • Female employment is highest in the accounting/finance (80 percent) and advertising (70 percent) departments; lowest in production (19 percent) and information services (28 percent). That latter number represents a 5 percent decline from 1995.
  • Minority employment increases as circulation size increases (e.g., newspapers with circulations below 10,000 have 7 percent minority employment, while newspapers over 50,000 circulation have 22 percent minority employment).
  • Minority employment is highest in the circulation (26 percent) and production (22 percent) departments; lowest in the news/editorial (12 percent) and new media/online (13 percent) departments.

The latest American Society of Newspaper Editors' annual survey shows that the percentage of minority journalists in the newsrooms of daily newspapers increased in 2002 from 12.07 percent to 12.53 percent. The number of minorities totaled 6,855, with 489 hires and 201 departures.

The percentage of minorities who are supervisors declined slightly to 19%. Of the 935 newspapers participating in the survey, 373—or 40 percent—report no minority staffers, down 20 percentage points from last year. Other detailed findings of the 2003 newsroom employment survey include:
  • The percentages of Asian Americans, Hispanics and African Americans in newsrooms all rose slightly in 2002. Only Native Americans decreased slightly.
  • The percentage of minority interns (30 percent) dropped slightly.
  • Nearly two-thirds of all minority journalists work at newspapers with circulations exceeding 100,000, emphasizing the need for more minority journalists at smaller-sized papers.
  • The percentage of women in newsrooms remained at 37 percent last year. Interestingly, these figures are pretty close for both large and small newspapers. Women represent 33 percent of all newsroom supervisors, slightly down from last year.
  • Of the 20,168 women, 15.9 percent are minorities.
  • The minority retention rate rose from 93 percent last year to 97 percent this year.
 

© 2003 Newspaper Association of America.
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