Newspaper Newsroom Investment

2006 Annual Report

Minorities and Women

March 13, 2006

There was some good news in the number of minority people working in newsrooms across the country. By the end of 2004, minorities represented 13.42% of newsroom staff — an increase of nearly half a percentage point over 2003, according to the annual newsroom census conducted by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. That marks the fourth consecutive year of growth, and since 2001 newsrooms have added 700 minority employees, with the largest number being Asian Americans.

The percentage of women in newsrooms increased a bit in 2004, and women now account for 37.5% of all newsroom employees. Yet the total number of women has increased just half of 1% since 2001. And while the number of white women has declined nearly 7 percentage points since 2001, the number of minority women has surged 20%.16