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Who’s Telling the News?
Race and gender representation in Canada’s daily newsrooms

A new study from Ryerson University shows that Canada's daily newspapers continue to lag behind in hiring racial minority groups. Comparing a census of Canadian newsrooms from 1994 and 2004, researchers John Miller and Caron Caron have found that the percentage of minorities working in daily papers is well short of their share of the Canadian population. The study also show that editors' commitment to hiring minorities has dropped. Just over 13 percent of editors participating in the study had a very strong commitment to improving diversity, down from 26 percent in 1994. In explaining the lack of representativeness, a large number of editors said, "minorities just don't apply here."

Table of contents
Introduction
Study highlights
Breakdown by racial group
Hiring in the last year
Editors' commitment to hiring diverse staff
Why do so few minorities work at Canada's papers?
Barriers to improving diversity

Introduction
Racial minorities have slightly increased their presence in the newsrooms of Canada’s daily newspapers in the last decade, according to a survey done by researchers at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism. Non-whites now constitute 3.4 per cent of the newsgathering staffs of 37 papers that returned questionnaires, compared to 2.6 per cent of staff at papers which responded to a similar survey in 1994.

Now the bad news: The gains do not keep pace with the huge increase of non-whites in the Canadian population. People of colour, including Aboriginals and those who self-identify as visible minorities, made up 16.7 percent of the population in the 2001 Canada Census, up from 11.7 percent in 1991. So the gap between minorities in the newsroom and in the communities they serve has widened during the last 10 years.

Moreover, significant gaps in minority employment exist in all circulation groupings, not just at the biggest papers. On average, at any given daily newsroom in the country, minorities are more than six times under-represented.

The research was carried out in summer and fall, 2004, by Professor John Miller and researcher Caron Court. Questionnaires were sent out to managing editors at 96 of the country’s 102 dailies. The response rate of 36 per cent was disappointing, said Miller, especially since the research was endorsed by the Canadian Association of Newspaper Editors.

This year’s census included gender, which was not measured in 1994 when Miller and researcher Kimberly Prince did the first diversity census for what was then the Canadian Daily Newspaper Association. It shows that 34 per cent of news professionals at daily papers in 2004 are women.

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Study highlights
Only 72 minorities were identified by managing editors as being on staff at 37 daily newspapers in all 10 provinces. Total staff at those papers was 2,119. This compared to 41 papers that answered a similar questionnaire in 1994, identifying 67 minorities in a total staff of 2,620. The difference in staff size is accounted for by the fact that some large newspapers that reported in 1994 chose not to do so this time. In fact, 21 newspapers in the 1994 survey did not return questionnaires this time. This made direct comparison difficult. To get an indication of how much has changed in newsrooms in 10 years, we identified newspapers that answered both questionnaires, and compared their newsroom staffing for diversity and gender over the 10-year period. This included six papers in the over-100,000 circulation group, three in the 25,000-100,000 group, and 10 in the under-25,000 circulation group.

Changes in staffing over 10 years:
Over 100,000 circulation

25,000-100,000 circulation

Under 25,000 circulation

In this direct paper-to-paper comparison, we see that 57 of the 61 minority journalists work for the largest newspapers, with the biggest gains being in the job category of reporter (31 positions, up from 12). Minority managers – those key people who set the news agenda – seem to be scarcer at the largest papers than they were in 1994. Minorities also seem to have less presence than they did 10 years ago at the three medium (25,000-100,000 circulation) newspapers that we compared. They remain largely excluded from the staffs of under-25,000 circulation papers. This seems to indicate that minorities do not benefit from the traditional training ground that reporters, editors and photographers find at smaller papers.

These figures also show that women are more likely to be represented in all job categories at large papers than they are at medium or small papers. This holds true for minority women, who are largely absent in medium and small newsrooms. Overall, women’s representation increased from 28 per cent of news gatherers in 1994 (Robinson and Saint-Jean 1998), to 34 percent at the newspapers polled in 2004.

What’s interesting in this comparison is the decline in the total number of jobs in the newsrooms of medium and small newspapers in the last 10 years. While the staffs of larger metropolitan papers have increased, there are 35 percent supervising editors at papers with circulations under 25,000 than there were in 1994. At medium-sized papers, the reporting staff has been cut by 31 percent and copy editors by 37 percent. Overall staff levels at the medium-sized papers have been cut by nearly one-third.

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Breakdown by racial group
When we look more closely at the 72 minority journalists identified as full-time news gatherers at the 37 newspapers which answered the survey this time, we see some notable under-representations (see Chart 4). Chinese were the largest minority grouping, with 27 journalists employed, followed by 16 South Asians and an equal number of Blacks. But there was only one journalist representing the second-largest non-white group in the general population – Aboriginal people, at 3.29 percent. That means Aboriginal Canadians are 70 times less likely to be employed by daily newspapers than their numbers in society would seem to warrant, a shockingly bad inclusion rate and one that may help explain the endemic stereotyping and marginalization of native people in the press.

Racial groups in newsrooms

*Not measured in 1994.
**Other included Filipino and Arab/West Asian in1994.

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Hiring in the last year
Given the slow progress women have made in reaching critical mass in newsrooms, it is useful to study recent hiring trends to see if the same pattern may be facing minority journalists. Editors were asked to account for their full-time and part-time newsroom hiring for the past year. As we see (Chart Five), editors in all three circulation groupings did considerable hiring during this time, but hiring diversity was only evident in the large and medium newsrooms, and more often for part-time positions than permanent, full-time jobs. All 17 full-time and 35 part-time hires at under-25,000 circulation newspapers were white. In fact, 22 out of 37 newspapers (59 percent) reported all-white staffs in 2004, up from 16 of 41 (39 percent) in 1994. In the United States, where this has been monitored since 1978, only 34 percent of newsrooms still are all-white (Dedman and Doig 2004)

How many minorities did you hire for full-time and part-time positions?

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Editors' commitment to hiring diverse staff
What is the commitment to hire minorities at daily newspapers? In contrast to 1994, when 26.8 percent of editors in all three circulation groups said they had a “very strong” desire to hire a diverse staff, only 13.5 percent felt the same way in 2004. The largest dropoff was in medium papers (see Chart 6). The most common reason given by the papers is that they “hire the best person regardless of race or gender.” Most often, the “best person” is white. Many papers said there aren’t enough minorities in their area for diversity to be an issue.

How strong is your commitment to hire more racial minorities in your newsroom?

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Why do so few minorities work at Canada's papers?
A majority of managing editors agreed with the statement that “minorities just don’t apply here.” Yet only one mentioned taking any steps to ensure they were attracting minoritiy candidates, such as recruiting at journalism schools or ethnic publications. None said they were training existing staff, including minorities, to take newsroom leadership roles. The responsibility for getting jobs seems to be shifted to the minority journalists rather than taken on as a recruiting challenge for the paper. Asked how minorities could improve their chances of getting hired, the editors most often said “just apply.”

The survey also asked if editors felt their newsroom’s tradition and culture are impeding the hiring and progress of minorities, and they were almost unanimous: No, it was not.

Do you feel your newsroom’s tradition and culture are impeding the hiring and progress of minorities?

*Note: The missing percentages are from papers in the category not answering the question.

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Barriers to improving diversity
When asked what is standing in the way of minorities being hired, 54 percent of the papers cited a lack of minority applicants, and 34 percent cited minimal hiring and low turnover of existing staff. Only two papers said there were no problems standing in the way.

The good news is that a majority of Canadian editors now believe that journalism schools are producing qualified visible minority candidates. Fifty-seven percent (21 of 37) agreed with that statement.

The best stimulus for a newspaper to take initiatives to improve coverage of minorities is the most obvious one: When it gets complaints about coverage. There was a very close correlation between the number of papers reporting such initiatives and the number that had been approached by one or more racial minority groups within the past year to discuss coverage. Most often, the reason for the approach was “problems with coverage.” The second most-cited reason was the lack of diversity of staff. This indicates that minority communities can achieve results when they take their concerns to the editors.

Eighty percent of the newspapers agree that diversity coverage is a job for everyone, and it shouldn’t depend on hiring diverse reporters.

Eight of the nine papers in the largest circulation group, two out of eight in the middle group, and six out of 20 of the smallest papers managed to list at least one initiative to improve coverage, outreach and recruitment of minorities. This represented a decline from the number of papers that responded to a similar question in 1994. Many of the mentions were general, such as “increased awareness resulting in more diverse coverage” or “younger reporters are more in touch with younger readers.” Four papers mentioned efforts to increase diversity through internship programs. Three mentioned establishing “diversity beats.” Two others have hired minority columnists to write about issues relevant to their communities, and a similar number have appointed external advisory boards.

There was a significant shift of opinion in 10 years when editors were asked, “Do you feel you and/or your top managers need more background knowledge on race and ethnocultural relations to effectively manage your newsroom?” Only six of 37 papers (16%) answered yes. Five of them were in the over-100,000 circulation category. In 1994, 19 of the 41 papers (46%) answered yes to that question.

NOTE: The 2004 Newsroom Diversity Census Report includes responses from 9 of the 17 daily newspapers in Canada with circulations over 100,000; 8 of the 27 papers with circulations between 25,000 and 100,000; and 20 of the 58 with circulations under 25,000.

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