Race and leadership in the news media 2025: evidence from five markets

Report

In this factsheet, we analyse the percentage of people of colour in top editorial positions in 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 on work started in 2020, we find in 2025 that only 17% of the 70 top editors across the 100 brands covered are people of colour—six percentage points lower than last year. In every country, the percentage of top editors of colour remains below the percentage of people of colour in the general population, and there is no simple relationship between the percentage of journalists of colour and top editors of colour. In countries where we previously saw small increases in racial diversity, this year we find evidence of backsliding, and in three of the countries there are no top editors of colour in our sample.

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

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Reviewed (other)
• Publisher: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
• Place of publication: Oxford, UK
• Publication date: 2025-03-20
• DOI: 10.60625/risj-vt3v-wx80
• Language: English
• Keywords: ethnicity; race; media leadership; newsroom diversity; inequality; representation