Race and leadership in the news media 2023: evidence from five markets

Report

In this factsheet, we analyse the percentage of people of colour in top editorial positions at a strategic sample of 100 major online and offline news outlets in five markets across four continents: Brazil, Germany, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Building off work started in 2020, we find in 2023 that only 23% of the 81 top editors across the 100 brands covered are people of colour. In every country, the percentage of people of colour in the general population remains higher than among top editors. There continues to be no simple relationship between the percentages of journalists of colour and top editors of colour. We find some evidence of increasing racial diversity among top news editors in South Africa and the United States – but it continues to be the case that there are few or no top editors of colour in our sample in three countries.

Authors: Eddy, K; Ross Arguedas, A; Mukherjee, M; Nielsen, RK

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Reviewed (other)
• Publisher: Reuters Insitute for the Study of Journalism
• Place of publication: Oxford
• Publication date: 2023-03-21
• DOI: 10.60625/risj-f9b1-e375
• Language: English
• Keywords: media leadership; race; newsroom diversity; FFR; representation; inequality; ethnicity