NEW RESEARCH
Only 23% of the top editors across 100 brands in five countries are people of colour
The factsheet. As they’ve done every year since 2020, our researchers have looked at the percentage of people of colour in top editorial positions in 100 major news outlets in five different markets. This analysis, that we published earlier this week in a new factsheet authored by Amy Ross Arguedas, Mitali Mukherjee and Rasmus Nielsen, doesn’t show any progress. Here are the key findings:
The topline figures. Only 23% of the 75 top editors across the 100 brands in the five countries covered are people of colour. This figure is even starker if we take into account that, on average, 44% of the general population across those countries are people of colour. If we set aside South Africa and look at the other four countries, 9% of the top editors are people of colour, compared with 31% of the general population.
Figures by country. As the chart above shows, figures by country vary widely. In South Africa, the percentage of top editors of colour dropped from 80% in 2023 to 71% this year. In the US, the percentage was 29% in 2024, four points lower than last year. In the UK this figure was much lower (7%). As has been the case for the past three years, none of the outlets in our sample In Brazil and Germany have a person of colour as top editor.
Any correlation? As we’ve observed in previous years, the percentage of top editors of colour in every country covered remains below the percentage of people of colour in the general population. As for the relationship between the percentage of journalists of colour and the percentage of top editors of colour, figures vary widely by country:
- In South Africa and the US, there are more top editors of colour than journalists of colour. In Brazil, however, there is not a single top editor of colour despite 34% of journalists in the country (and 57% of the general population) being people of colour.
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/race-and-leadership-news-media-2024-evidence-five-markets
