The Michigan Daily conducted its third annual Demographics Survey for the fall 2022 semester, and the results reflect similar trends we have seen across the newsroom over the past couple of years. The survey was created using Qualtrics and was distributed to The Daily staff for two weeks, collecting responses from 213 staff members. We recognize that this data is not representative of every individual in The Daily, as people were given the option to refrain from answering certain questions. The Daily believes collecting this data is important to acknowledge the clear socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, gender, religious and sexuality disparities within our community and are committed to establishing informed practices in response to this data.

When it comes to class standing, survey results reported an even spread of staffers on The Daily across all undergraduate years. From the survey results, only one out of the 206 respondents to this question self-identifies as “post-grad or other.” In comparison to last year’s Demographic Survey, this year’s staff saw a substantial increase in first-year students, from 9.5% in 2021 to 26.5% in 2022. However, the amount of staffers in junior standing decreased from 35.1% in 2021 to 25.9% in 2022. 

Responses to the question about a staffers’ age reflected a similar trend to class distribution. The majority of respondents, 26.29%, are 20 years old. The next-largest group is 18-year-olds at 24.57%. Similarly, 24% of respondents are 19 years old. Next, 21.71% of respondents are 21 years old. Only 1.71% of respondents are 22 years old, and 1.14% of respondents are younger than 18 years old. Lastly, 0.57% of respondents are 23 years old. 

A relative majority of staff members identified as being from Michigan. This residential make up reflects the University of Michigan’s undergraduate population, where 52% of undergraduates are in-state students. Following Michigan, 9.8% of staffers are from New York, 8.8% are from California and 6.2% are from Illinois. There is also a decrease in staffers from Michigan, as last year, 50% of staffers were in-state students. 

According to the responses, only 3.86% of students at The Daily are international students. The majority of The Daily is composed of non-international students, with 95.65% being from the U.S. Of those who identified as international students, there is representation from P.R. China, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Pakistan, and Europe. 

When it comes to race, the options on the survey staffers could choose from was modeled from the methodology of previous research from past Daily-administered surveys along with anonymous feedback from staffers. 

The Daily’s racial breakdown shows that a majority of the staff, approximately 58%, is represented by white-identifying individuals. This decreased by 4.5 % from 2021. Among populations of Color, multiracial staffers are the largest group with 15%. This is closely followed by Asian-identifying staffers being the third largest group, with 14.5% of staffers identifying as East Asian, and 8% identifying as South Asian. Only 0.5% of staffers identify as Pacific Islander.

Approximately 1.5% of staffers identify as Black. 0.5% of the respondents identified as Hispanic/Latinx. Both of these rates are lower than previous years and campus representation levels. Middle Eastern staffers make up 2.5% of the respondents.

The majority of respondents of the fall 2022 report identified as cisgender women, accounting for 66.67% of the total. The second highest total, 27.36%, identified as cisgender men. Only 2.99% of respondents identified as non-binary and 1.49% identified as gender fluid. Additionally, 1.49% of respondents declined to answer. These results were rather similar to the 2021 demographic survey. 

The majority of respondents, 66.67%, use she/her/hers pronouns. He/him/his pronouns are used by 27.42% of respondents. Only 5.38% of those surveyed reported identifying with “Other” as their pronouns and 0.54% of respondents use they/them pronouns.

This year, 65% of respondents identify as heterosexual, 13% identify as bisexual, 5.5% identify as queer, 5.0% identify as lesbian and 4.0% identify as questioning. Only 2.5% identify as gay, 2.5% said they didn’t know, 2.0% identify as asexual and 0.5% identify with a sexuality not on this list. The Daily acknowledges that there is a spectrum of sexual identities and has used numerous resources to create an inclusive environment. For example, when formulating the options to this question, The Daily referred to methodology from previous Daily-administered surveys and incorporated feedback provided in response to the surveys.

According to the 2022 demographics survey, The Daily continued becoming a more diverse organization in regard to the sexual orientation of its staff. Currently, 35% of respondents identify as LGBTQ+, which is a 2% increase from last year. In comparison, this is twice as large as the University’s undergraduate LGBTQ+ population from 2019.

Responses on Daily staffers’ family income remain similar to the data collected in 2021. 38% of the staff members reported coming from a combined family income of more than $200,000, nearly one-fifth of all staffers have families earning less than $100,000. With the median family income for students at The University is $154,000, this data is reflective of The University’s larger socioeconomic makeup. The Daily continues to strive to make the newsroom an equitable place for students to work through scholarships and work study opportunities.

Several different religions are present among The Daily staffers, the most prominent ones being Christian (23.47%), agnostic (22.45%), atheist (15.82%) and Jewish (14.80%). Christianity remains as the dominant religion at The Daily, as it was in 2021 and 2020 as well. About 12% of staffers either identify with a religion that is not present on the list given or chose not to answer this question.

The Daily’s staff continues to primarily consist of students in LSA. In line with 2020 and 2021, the large majority of The Daily’s staff is in LSA (81.07%), while the next most prominent school is the College of Engineering (8.74%). None of The Daily’s staffers belong to the School of Kinesiology, School of Social Work, School for Environment and Sustainability, Law School or Medical School.

This year’s survey data shows that 89.17% of staffers report English as their first language. However, staffers also speak 22 languages other than English, with Spanish being the most popular at 9%. The multitude of languages spoken by The Daily Staff include Chinese, French, Arabic, Korean, Hindi, Tamil, Urdu, Italian, Bengali, German, Hebrew and many more. 

Moving forward, we hope our staff continues to grow more diverse and provide a larger platform to the often underrepresented storytellers and their incredibly valuable contributions to journalism. As we continue to hire new staffers each semester, we aim to be an open and fair workplace for people of all identities and backgrounds. 

CTI Chair Akshara Koottala can be reached at akshara@umich.edu and CTI Assistant Chair Pauline Shin can be reached at pshin@umich.edu.

Nazim Ali, Spencyr Aronson, Meredith Knight, Melia Pan, Amanda Picariello, Eric Lau and Lily Wang contributed to the report. 

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The Michigan Daily’s second annual demographics survey found the editorial staff remains largely white, cisgender, female and upper-class.

The survey, conducted in October 2021 by The Daily’s Culture, Training and Inclusion section, received 264 responses — approximately 75% of the 354 total staffers who were on payroll for that month.

These results show The Daily’s continued shortcomings in representation — particularly among low-income and minority communities — on a college campus that similarly skews white and wealthy.

The Daily’s racial breakdown shows two-thirds of staffers identify as white, in line with the racial breakdown of campus as a whole.

For communities of color, levels of representation are disparate between communities. 

Asian-identifying students are overrepresented on staff, with 25% of staffers identifying as Asian and Pacific Islander Americans compared to 15% of students on U-M’s campus.

Approximately 8% of staffers identify as Black or Hispanic/Latinx, both slightly below campus representation levels for each racial group. Middle Eastern and North African-identifying people make up 6.3% of staff, though there is no data on this group to compare campus-wide. Bi-racial or multi-racial respondents make up just under 12.6% of staff.

Nineteen different ethnicities are present among staffers. The most prominent among them were European (52.9%), Jewish (19.7%), East Asian (16.8%) and South Asian (14.7%).

For the first time, the demographics survey asked about mental and physical disabilities. One out of every 10 respondents reported having some type of disability.

As part of an ongoing conversation about wellness and burnout at The Daily, staffers were also asked for the first time about how much stress in their life is caused by their work. Nearly half of respondents said they would rate their Daily-related stress level a 2 out of 5 (with 5 being the highest level of stress). Five percent rated their stress a 5, 7% rated it a 4, 29% rated it a 3 and 16% rated it a 1.

A large majority of The Daily’s staffers are between the ages of 18 and 21, with the youngest staff member being 17 and the oldest being 26. The vast majority are also undergraduate students and four-fifths of students are in LSA, making the school overrepresented on staff.

The majority of staffers are in their first, second or third semesters on staff — meaning most of the editorial staff has been on The Daily for less than two years. 

Approximately half of staffers are from the state of Michigan. New York, California, Illinois and New Jersey  were home to the most out-of-state students.

Two out of every three staffers identify as a woman. Just under 30% of those surveyed identified as a man. Only 1.5% identified as nonbinary.

This marks a difference from industry-wide trends of men being overrepresented in newsrooms. Women made up 41.2% of daily newspaper employees in 2018, according to a survey from the News Leaders Association. 

Just over one-third of staffers identified as LGBTQ+. This is higher than the ratio in U-M’s student body in Ann Arbor, where 17% of students identify as LGBTQ+.

However, some communities under this umbrella are less represented than others at The Daily. For example, no students surveyed identified as transgender. 

The vast majority of staffers identified as non-transfer students and taking a full-time course load, defined as taking 12 or more academic credits. Under 7% of respondents identified as first-generation college students — meaning first-generation students are less represented in the newsroom than in the undergraduate population as a whole, where they make up 14%.

As a whole, The Daily’s staff can speak 24 languages. Nine out of every 10 staff members speak English as their primary language at home.

Half of respondents said they work part-time jobs excluding work for The Daily. Of the 221 respondents who work, 15% said they participated in a work-study program.

Of respondents who reported family income, one out of every four had an income of under $100,000. Another one out of every four students had a family income between $100,000 and $199,999. And half of all respondents reported a family income higher than $200,000.

The average family income of students at the University of Michigan in 2017 was $154,000, according to an analysis from The New York Times. The same analysis found that approximately 66% of students came from families in the top 20% of incomes in the country.

Alex Harring and Mae Veidlinger of The Daily’s Culture, Training & Inclusion team ran this survey and created this report. Data journalists Eric Lau, Zach Breger and Vishal Chandra created the data visualizations.

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The Michigan Daily conducted a demographics survey during the summer of 2020 to gain a better understanding of the barriers to access in our newsroom. After keeping the anonymous survey open for one month, 282 staffers responded to the survey out of 488 staffers total in both the Editorial and Business halves of The Daily, a 57.8 percent response rate. 

The recently formed Access and Inclusion Committee created a report summarizing the findings. We created another survey asking anyone in the newsroom to share their thoughts on the results, anonymously if preferred, and have included all responses.

The 2020 Demographics Survey largely confirmed that our newsroom is a majority rich, white, hetero and cis organization much like the rest of the University of Michigan. Latinx, first-gen and low-income students in particular are underrepresented at The Michigan Daily compared to the general campus population.

While we acknowledge that this data is not entirely reflective of our newsroom because of non-response, the numbers still hold great value. The Daily has clear socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, gender and sexuality disparities. Acknowledging this, The Access and Inclusion committee and the newsroom as a whole can move forward prioritizing diversity and inclusion. 

The Daily created two Access and Inclusion co-chair positions in 2018 for students outside of the newsroom to help with conflict resolution and diversity, equity and inclusion work. This summer, Access and Inclusion has expanded to a committee of four students, and we’re looking to hire one more.

We are committed to ensuring that The Daily grows more representative of all identities on our campus. Without this, we know our newsroom and our coverage suffer because we do not accurately reflect the communities that we serve. 

Our purpose is not to fill some diversity quota or to uphold an appearance of diversity. Rather, we are committed to making sure that people from all backgrounds and experiences, especially those with marginalized backgrounds, feel welcomed at The Daily and feel encouraged to make their voices heard. 

Income Level and Student Status 

The Daily does not pay its staffers much for their work, and the survey reveals that we are not accessible to lower-income students as a result. 

Here are some of the most telling statistics:

• There are three times more staffers from families making $200,000 per year than staffers from families making less than $75,000 per year. 

• Though 14.8 percent of undergraduates at the University come from families making less than $50,000, only 6.8 percent of The Daily’s staffers do. 

• Only 16 staffers who responded to the survey said they were work-study students.

One staffer said he wants to know if the socioeconomic divide is even more apparent among editors at The Daily. He noted that editors have to commit large amounts of time to the newspaper before and during their tenure, which is less possible for lower-income students. 

Though the survey didn’t ask for the positions of those who responded, we believe an even greater stratification of income is very likely among editors based on the nature of editor roles. 

LSA senior Aria Gerson, a sportswriter on the football beat, said she “grew up solidly middle class, so I was pretty shocked to see that 70 percent of The Daily staff is richer than I am.”

Similarly, LSA sophomore Haley Johnson, an assistant social media editor, said, “As a low income student, I was really shocked by the income distribution of Daily staffers. I hope we can work to get better class representation on our staff.”

One thing The Daily should do is create an easily accessible list of Daily scholarships, third-party journalism scholarships and paid internship opportunities, Gerson said. Though The Daily sends these resources sporadically, Gerson said she’s largely had to find them on her own.

16.3 percent chose not to answer any income-level related questions. 

Race and Ethnicity 

The majority of staffers in the newsroom are white. Asian staffers, while still a minority in the newsroom, make up a much greater percentage of the newsroom than all other POC staffers combined. 

Here are the breakdowns by race at The Daily:

Gerson suggested that The Daily could work with other campus outlets to establish student chapters of certain national journalism associations, such as Association for Women in Sports Media, National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Association. 

“This would likely help recruit more diverse talent because students could see more people in this industry who looked like them and those orgs also provide tons of internship and scholarship opportunities,” Gerson said. 

Gender and Sexuality

LSA junior Alex Harring, a senior news editor, said The Daily should consider creating employee resources groups, which exist at many professional outlets. 

He pointed to NBC, which has a Black Employee Network, OUT at NBC, Women at NBC.

“(It’s a) great way to build community and have a space to share ideas and concerns,” Harring said. “Could be as simple as a pizza dinner once a month or something like that!”

The Daily: Post-COVID-19 and the death of George Floyd

About 9 percent of those who responded to the survey or their immediate families have contracted the coronavirus. Out of these 9 percent, about 16 percent said they or their family member could not access adequate medical care.

Only 27 percent of staffers said they thought about their race on a daily basis prior to George Floyd’s death. That number shot up to 81.9 percent after George Floyd’s death.

Other

All 50 states and four countries outside of the United States (Chile, Hong Kong, India and Taiwan) are represented at The Daily. The Daily has a similar in-state vs. out-of-state proportion as the general undergraduate population. 

The large majority of students (70.5 percent) are in the School of Literature, Science and the Arts.

Notably, a significant proportion of staffers are new. Close to 60 percent have been at The Daily for less than one year, while a bit more than a quarter of the staffers have been at The Daily for 4 semesters or more. 

Next Steps

With this information, the Access and Inclusion committee has been taking the following actions to ensure our goals are upheld. First, we have been communicating with several other newsrooms who have succeeded in their inclusion efforts in attempts to emulate their achievements and learn from their mistakes. 

In the future, we will continue conducting more demographic surveys, publishing the results and remaining transparent with our progress. In these surveys, Art and Design senior Emily Considine, editorial page editor, said she hopes to see more section-specific data, “if only to help recruitment committees and section heads understand the ways in which our specific sections need to improve in attracting and representing the rest of the University.”

This year’s Access and Inclusion committee chose not to ask staffers for their section. We thought some students might worry this information could be identifying, especially if there is only one person of a certain identity in a given section — which points to our newsroom’s lack of diversity. However, we will make this an optional question in the future, allowing for a deeper understanding of our demographics so that we can implement more effective recruiting strategies. 

In addition, we are in the process of planning a racial bias and reporting sensitivity workshop, and our hope is to make similar workshops routine every semester. This workshop will be mandatory for all students on staff. We will also compile past resources together to create streamlined guides on inclusive style and how to cover communities that one may not be a part of.

Lastly, we want to build stronger and more trusting relations with communities who have historically not had such relations with journalists. The News section has reached out and met with several prominent student groups about their thoughts on our past coverage and how we can work together in the future. 

We encourage members of our community to hold us accountable to make all the changes listed above become reality. We want to ensure marginalized voices on our campus are heard and that we end the historical trend of The Daily being a predominantly white, cis, hetero and rich institution.

To provide any feedback, you can reach us at the following email addresses:

Dannah Wilson (A&I Chair), dannahew@umich.edu

Noor Moughni (A&I Committee Member), nmoughni@umich.edu

Claire Hao (A&I Committee Member), cmhao@umich.edu

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