Our latest newsroom diversity census passes a milestone on race but slips on gender

The news we report needs to cover the entire community with accuracy, authenticity and insight, so our newsroom needs well-trained journalists who reflect the character of the community.

In other words, it must be diverse.

The Gainesville Sun, and more than 200 local publications that are part of the USA TODAY Network across the nation, have made a commitment to reflect the diversity of our communities by 2025. And we have promised to report back to our communities on progress toward this goal. We are doing that today.

Our local numbers for racial demographics show progress. The census figures from our survey taken July 1 show 21.4% of our newsroom is Black. Latinos also are well represented at 7.1%. White staff members are shown, likely for the first time ever, at 64.3%, which is below the area's population figure of 68.5%

Diversity in the newsroom: Gainesville Sun makes progress on racial diversity in newsroom in latest census

USA TODAY:Gannett newsrooms making steady progress in overall diversity

While we've made significant progress in growing the racial diversity of our staff over the past three years, we've slipped in the percentage of women in the newsroom. Women compose 14% of our staff now, down from 25% in recent years.

A bright spot there is that Arnold Feliciano's successor as sports editor is Shelly Darby, the first woman to lead our sports department. In fact, including high school sports writer Ainslie Lee, women now make up 50% of our sports staff.

Kevin Brockway rejoins that sports staff beginning this week. Longtime readers of The Gainesville Sun may remember Brockway covering men's basketball for us until about three years ago, when he left to take a job with a newspaper company in Indiana. He'll now be our lead Gator sports writer, primarily covering the football program.

Percentages for representation shift quickly in a small newsroom like ours. We have 14 staff members currently, so each person represents 7.1% of the total.

We are recruiting to fill two open positions for news reporters. Clearly, finding well qualified women to include in our pool of candidates is a priority.

All of that points out that diversity and inclusion are values, not goals. We won't cross a finish line and be able to sit back on some accomplishment. The goal is to serve you, our readers and community partners, with news, information and commentary that helps build a vibrant, healthy community that provides opportunity for everyone.

Our focus on diversity will continue because it's the right thing to do and is necessary in accomplishing our mission.