The Daily Tar Heel conducted its fourth internal diversity audit. Here are the results.
The Daily Tar Heel has conducted its fourth internal audit to analyze the diversity of our newsroom.
The audit, completed earlier this year, asked our staff their opinions on diversity, equity and inclusion within The DTH’s coverage and in the newsroom. The last audit was released in April 2022, two years ago. A previous audit was published in May 2021 and our inaugural audit was published in November 2020. This data — including the most recent survey — will be used to aid in prospective change within the newspaper.
With the potential guttingof DEI initiatives across the UNC System, The DTH remains firm in its commitment to improving internal diversity and coverage of underrepresented populations. To make our coverage more inclusive, we must ensure newsroom members represent our community.
The 200-plus responses to this internal audit prove our newsroom has more to do. As editor-in-chief, I believe we should continue to transform and take strides to improve internal DEI — thus increasing the scope of our reporting.
Newsroom demographics
The current audit's findings are consistent with those of 2022 — although this year's audit had significantly more responses. In total, 237 staff members fully completed the 20-question survey, and 291 submitted it but did not answer every question.
Of the staff members who answered a question about their racial and ethnic identity, 171 respondents were white, 49 were Asian, 14 were Black, nine were Hispanic and 15 identified as two or more races.
These numbers demonstrate the DTH’s newsroom remains predominantly white — a finding that follows the trends of our previous three audits.
The percent of DTH staff members who identified as only Black decreased to 5.4 percent in 2024, lower than the previous three audits. The number of Hispanic staffers also saw an alarming decrease to 3.4 percent in 2024.
However, the number of staff members who identified as Asian increased to 18.8 percent in 2024, higher than any previous audits.
Our newsroom has significantly more white representation than UNC. The DTH has a 65.5 percent white population, compared to UNC's 54.5 percent. The newsroom also has less representation of Black and Hispanic students than the University. To have a notably less diverse institution within a predominately white institution is unacceptable.
When it comes to gender diversity, The DTH staff is 78.5 percent female and 17.6 percent male. A combined 3.8 percent identify as nonbinary, genderqueer or other.
As for sexual orientation, 61.9 percent of the newsroom identified as straight, 18.1 percent identified as bisexual, 8.1 percent identify as queer, 5.3 percent identified as gay or lesbian and 5.4 percent listed a different identity or preferred not to share.
Newsroom culture and coverage
When asked to rate their agreement with the statement, “The Daily Tar Heel is a welcoming environment” most respondents strongly agreed. Somewhat agree was the second-most selected choice.
However, a combined 8.4 percent of staff members either somewhat or strongly disagreed with the sentiment.
“Oftentimes, I don't enter the office because it feels like it's a majority white staff,” one respondent said. “I recognize the diversity among DTH staffers, but I feel out of place in the office. I also don't feel a sense of community among staff members.”
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About 76.4 percent of staff members said they somewhat or strongly agree that The DTH creates a space for underrepresented groups to begin pursuing a career in journalism. Nearly 18 percent said they neither agreed nor disagreed, 4.2 percent somewhat disagreed and 1.7 percent strongly disagreed.
Of the respondents, 81.1 percent said leadership at The DTH (editors, management, etc.) strikes them as capable of handling issues of identity discrimination. Almost 16 percent said they neither agreed nor disagreed. The remaining 2.9 percent said they somewhat disagreed with the statement — none said they strongly disagreed.
The final question of the audit asked staff members to write about their experiences with DEI at The DTH. Here are a few responses:
“Fostering diversity in the newsroom should be a top priority of the DTH. I don’t think the organization, as it stands, is successfully doing this. Our DEI measures seem to be focused on teaching the primarily white staffers/editors about diversity, instead of actually making the DTH more diverse.” —Anonymous
“I think DEI this year is much more active and involved (from what I have seen) and takes on a larger role within the production process and in the newsroom that is necessary and thoughtful. I'm very glad we've done away with the Elevate section. It felt really weird and segregated. That coverage, at least on my desk, is normal and expected and I think that's what it should be.” — Anonymous
Other audit findings
81.1 percent of respondents said they think The DTH will be capable of properly representing the community they serve in the next five years. 16 percent said they were unsure and 2.9 percent responded with no.
When asked to choose an area of DEI that the newspaper most adequately addresses, 77.4 percent of respondents selected gender, and 75.7 percent selected race and ethnicity. When asked which area of DEI The DTH inadequately addresses, around 56 percent of respondents selected immigrant status, and 55 percent selected socioeconomic status.
77.3 percent of respondents said they felt supported approaching stories related to their identity, 19.3 percent neither agreed nor disagreeing. 3.3 percent said they somewhat or strongly disagreed with the statement.
When asked if they felt supported approaching stories unrelated to their identity, 74.4 percent said they did and 20.2 percent neither agreed nor disagreed. The majority of the remaining 5.4 percent said they felt somewhat unsupported.
When asked for elaboration on feeling unsupported, some respondents cited their own lack of education as well as concern that they would not receive “automatic support” on how to cover a topic. They suggested editors provide more support to reporters when assigning stories.
Steps toward the future
I recognize that one year of work cannot rectify past harms inflicted by The DTH in our coverage of underrepresented and marginalized communities, nor can it fully address the lack of diversity in the newsroom.
Throughout my tenure as editor, it has been imperative that the newsroom takes steps toward repairing our relationship with the Black Student Movement. In the fall, leaders of both organizations sat down together in an effort to begin reopening lines of communication. This spring, The DTH covered the BSM Ball in the lifestyle section and published an op-ed from the organization in our opinion pages.
Joann Obioma, BSM president, said the BSM has a long-standing history for advocating for underrepresented communities on campus.
"We are pleased to begin reopening the lines of communication with The DTH to amplify our stories," Obioma said in a statement. "In this reconciliation, we addressed our concerns and recommendations to ensure that journalism in this space uplifts our community, promotes diversity and celebrates Black Joy. We hope that our recommendations continued to be addressed to foster a more inclusive and representative journalism."
While there is still a lot of work to be done by this newspaper to continue improvement, I am excited by these beginning steps.
Each recruitment cycle this academic year, we contacted several campus organizations to encourage students from underrepresented communities to join our staff. I hope to see this outreach continue.
Furthermore, DEI Coordinator Makayla Key has hosted regular inclusivity and accountability trainings for the newsroom. She has led our DEI Committee, made up of representatives from each desk, in analyzing DTH coverage of underrepresented groups.
We have worked to improve the range of perspectives included in our articles, implementing a revised source database where we ask writers a series of questions about their sourcing. We also ask reporters to reflect on other perspectives they could have included to expand the story's scope. As of Monday, 76 percent of sources interviewed were personally impacted by the story's topic and 46 percent of sources interviewed were members of underrepresented communities.
The DTH must continue to prioritize diversity and inclusivity within its newsroom and coverage if we wish to earn the trust of our community. This year, we have built initiatives on the foundation laid by those who came before us. I look forward to seeing the inclusive plans future newsroom leaders continue to build.
Emmy Martin is the 2023-24 editor-in-chief of The Daily Tar Heel. She has previously served as the DTH's city & state editor and summer managing editor. Emmy is a junior pursuing a double major in journalism and media and information science.
