North by Northwestern (NBN) is an independent, student-run publication. We strive to uphold the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion within the newsroom and through our reporting. At a time when these principles are embattled, we believe that continuing to hold ourselves accountable for how we recruit our staff, choose our sources and tell our stories is the right path for student journalism.
We haven’t published a diversity report for several quarters. This has been a lapse in our newsroom’s integrity, and we regret this inconsistency. We are publishing this report in order to reaffirm our commitment to DEI in the year 2025 and beyond.
As with previous reports, we do not differentiate between our web editorial and print editorial staff, as some staff members work for both teams. In the Fall, our web editorial team was 36 strong, and our magazine team consisted of 50 staffers, including freelancers and those who also worked for the website. We welcome everyone to NBN and are proud to be a barrier-free organization on campus.
We received 33 responses to our Fall 2024 survey, a notably reduced response rate considering the size of our teams. In comparison, we received 55 responses last Spring. Nevertheless, we hope this data proves valuable in our work towards transparency.
Conner Dejecacion,
Editor-in-chief
Race & ethnicity
Although the NBN survey does not have a mixed category, staffers are allowed to choose more than one category. Nearly all the racial and ethnic categories during the Fall Quarter showed a slight increase compared to the Spring Quarter’s survey.
The percentage of white staffers remained our largest category; however, it slightly decreased from 47.3% in the Spring to 42.4%. The second largest category remained East Asian with 39.4% of staffers who filled out the survey selecting that identity. This is an increase from the Spring Quarter where 36.4% of staffers identified as East Asian.
The percentage of staffers who identified as Latino/a/x and/or Hispanic decreased to 9.1% compared to the Spring Quarter’s 12.7%. The percentage of Black/African American staffers slightly increased from 5.5% to 12.1% this quarter.
South Asian staffer percentages increased from 5.5% during the Spring Quarter to 9.1% during the Winter Quarter. The percentage of Southeast Asian staffers increased from 5.5% to 3% in the Fall Quarter. The percentage of staffers who identified as Middle Eastern/North African increased from 1.8% to 3%. Native Hawaiian and/or Pacific Islander staffers also increased from 1.8% during the Spring to 3% during the Fall. Central Asian staffers went from 1.8% to 3% in the Fall. The percentage of Indigenous and Native American staffers went from 1.8% in the Spring to 3% in the Winter.
Gender
Our survey still uses the same methods from previous quarters to break down gender identities. Staffers are able to select multiple categories. NBN recognizes that gender identification is a process in which our staffers may be in different stages, and therefore the results of the survey may not constitute a full picture of the newsroom’s gender makeup.
In Fall 2024, 84.8% of our newsroom identified as cisgender women – a 3% increase from Spring Quarter. In comparison, there was a 7.3% decrease in staffers identifying as cisgender men.
Non-binary staffers comprise 9.1% of NBN’s newsroom, a 5.5% increase from Spring Quarter. 3% of our newsroom identify as gender non-conforming and another 3% identify as transgender. This is an increase from 0% for both identities respectively in Spring Quarter.
Sexuality
The breakdown of sexuality in our survey has remained consistent with previous quarters. Staff members have the option to select multiple identifiers to reflect the fluidity of sexuality.
In Fall 2024, staffers who identified as heterosexual made up 54.8% of our newsroom. This is a 7.6% increase from Spring’s percentage of 47.2%. The next most predominant sexuality was bisexuality at 29%. Compared to Spring’s 39.6%, this shows a 10.6% decrease. The staffers who identified as asexual slightly decreased from 7.5% in the Spring Quarter to 6.5% in the Fall.
Staffers who identified as gay or queer both increased to 9.7% respectively. Gay-identifying staffers had a 7.8% increase from 1.9% in the Spring. Queer-identifying staffers increased from 5.7% in the Spring to 9.7% in the Fall, a 4% increase. The percentage of staffers who identified as lesbian slightly increased to 3.2% in the Fall from Spring’s 1.9%. Staffers who identified as pansexual fell from 3.8% in the Spring to 0% in the Fall. It should be noted that these percentage fluctuations could have resulted from a large reduction in our staff size in the Fall.
Our survey continues to offer staffers the option to select “questioning” for their sexuality because NBN recognizes that identifying with a sexuality is a process during which our staffers may be at different stages. The percentage of staffers who selected “questioning” fell from 1.9% in Spring 2024 to 0% in the Fall.
Language
Our staffers speak nine different languages other than English. This was a decrease from the 13 different languages reported in Spring 2024. In total, about 66% of our staffers speak another language.
Mandarin is the most common language among multilingual staff, spoken by 40.9% of staffers. French is the second most common language, with 31.8% of multilingual staffers speaking the language. Spanish is the third most common spoken language among multilingual staffers with 22.7% of staffers speaking the language. Amharic, Cantonese, Filipino, German, Korean and Mongolian are the other languages our Fall 2024 staff members speak.
International students
Staffers who are international students made up 12.1% of our newsroom in Fall 2024, a 2.4% decrease from 14.5% in Spring 2024. According to Northwestern’s 2023-2024 Common Data Set, international students make up 10.6% of the undergraduate student population. Our staffers are from Taiwan, Malaysia, Philippines and more.
Socioeconomic status
NBN saw an increase in staffers with low income backgrounds. In Fall 2024, 21.2% of our staff identified as low income, a 4.5% increase from 16.7% the previous quarter. The percentage of staffers identifying as first generation fell slightly from 16.7% in Spring 2024 to 15.2% in Fall 2024. Likewise, the percentage of staffers who shared that they receive financial aid from the University decreased from 50.9% in Spring 2024 to 46.9% in Fall 2024. 60% of undergraduate students receive financial aid, according to the University’s data.
Our survey also gauges the number of commitments our staffers have. Our staff experienced an overwhelming increase in the percentage of contributors who are employed outside of NBN, from 49.1% in Spring 2024 to 78.8% in Fall 2024.
Religion
In Fall 2024, staffers who practiced Christianity continued to make up the largest denomination within our newsroom. The percentage of staffers who identified as Christian grew to 40.6%, a 6.6% increase from 34% in Spring 2024. The second largest denomination in NBN continued to consist of staffers who identified as agnostic. In Fall 2024, agnostic staffers made up 18.8% of our newsroom, a 11.4% decrease from 30.2% in Spring 2024. Our newsroom also included staffers who identified as atheist, spiritual but not religious, not practicing or none. Each of these denominations made up 9.4% of our staff. Following that, 6.3% identified as Jewish, a 8.8% decrease from 15.1% in the Spring. As is consistent with the previous quarter, those who identified as Muslim made up the smallest percentage of our staff.
Disability
The percentage of staffers who identify as having a disability remained consistent in our newsroom from Spring to Fall 2024. This percentage slightly increased from 15.1% to 15.2% in the Fall. According to NU’s most recent diversity and inclusion report from 2020-2021, this percentage is greater than the 12.3% of all undergraduate students registered with AccessibleNU. NBN acknowledges that not all students with disabilities may register with AccessibleNU for a variety of reasons. However, the University’s statistics serve as the best metric available for us to measure how well our newsroom represents Northwestern’s undergraduate student population. A few staffers voluntarily described their disabilities in our survey, but NBN is choosing not to publish their responses in order to protect their identities.
Source tracking
Every quarter, NBN asks both print and website staffers to send all their interviewees an anonymous post-interview demographic survey. In Fall 2024, our survey received only five responses, making up less than 7% of the total number of sources our staffers personally interviewed and quoted.
Our diversity reports from previous quarters have included an analysis of the identity breakdown of our source demographics. However, given the number of responses we collected in Fall 2024, we are unable to draw any adequate statistical conclusions that accurately reflect our sourcing pool.
NBN remains committed to telling stories that represent and include voices from all communities at Northwestern. We recognize that we can not properly gauge the successes or shortcomings of our efforts towards inclusive sourcing without the data to support that. Thus, NBN aims to be diligent in ensuring that our staffers ask all their sources to complete the survey.
Takeaways
As the results of the survey make apparent, NBN has made progress in diversifying its newsroom across a broad range of demographic categories. While more work needs to be done, especially in tracking our source demographics to hold ourselves accountable in telling stories that represent NU’s student body fairly and accurately, we see these results bode well for our organization. We welcome everyone to NBN and strive to introduce new and valuable perspectives to our reporting efforts as our newsroom evolves and thrives.
