Our goal is to make our workforce match the racial, ethnic and gender mix of the community by 2025

We know that a diverse newsroom makes our journalism better. It helps us better connect and serve our community.

That is why it is once again time for us to share our progress in strengthening the diversity of our newsroom staffs with the release of our 2022 Diversity Census.

This is happening across our USA TODAY Network, which is made up of more than 200 local publications and USA TODAY. 

We should have a workforce that reflects the diversity in the communities we serve. Our goal is for our workforce to match the racial, ethnic and gender mix of our community by 2025. And as part of that commitment, each year we are publishing the makeup of our newsroom staff.

This information, a snapshot as of July 1, 2022, includes the gender and racial makeup of our news workforce and our coverage area, as well as for managers within our newsroom.

On the gender side, our newsroom is reflective of our community, almost evenly split among men and women.

While a third of our community — nearly 32 percent — is made up of residents who are Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native-Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, our newsroom still falls short. We have improved, however. Nearly 25 percent are people from racially or ethnically diverse backgrounds, compared to only 15 percent a year ago.

And we are proud of that progress we have made in the last year as they are all passionate and talented journalists, and we know their additions will only help us do better.

But we won’t stop there because we are still a long way from parity in many areas.

To further help us to connect with our ever-growing diverse community, we meet regurlly with our community advisory group that is made up of five local citizens to help be our eyes and ears on topics such as public service, education and healthcare. These trusted voices from diverse backgrounds have opened our eyes to stories that we might not have covered otherwise and have helped us with that coverage.

We have also launched a digital advisory group made up of members of the Latino population, another way for us to evolve from where we stop telling stories about people and tell them for people, to get their feedback on the stories we are telling and ideas for ones we should be telling.

In addition, we hired a new reporter to focus solely on underserved communities.

And with her arrival, Erica Van Buren brought her successful series called The Gem Next Door, which highlights local entrepreneurs' journey to entrepreneurship, and that will allow us to connect and tell stories of more residents from diverse backgrounds.

We are committed to continuing to grow the diversity in our newsroom and to strengthen our diverse coverage of Southwest Florida.

Please know that we are laser focused in our efforts at making our newsrooms and our news coverage better reflect the communities we serve.