Source Diversity at WSHU for 2023
A note from the General Manager:
At the start of our Diversity and Inclusion work for WSHU in 2019, I reached out to colleagues at WHYY who helped inform our thinking and strategy for source diversity in the WSHU newsroom. Here is the thinking they shared: https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/public-radio-cultural-competency.php
Since then, we have replicated best practices from WHYY, NPR, America Amplified and our colleagues at the New England News Collaborative. We are happy to share our Source Diversity reports with you.
— A. Rima Dael, WSHU General Manager
Surveying our sources
Over the last year, WSHU journalists asked our sources questions about how they identify in terms of race and gender so that we could keep track of our statistics and share them with our audience. Sources were always allowed to decline to respond to these questions, as well.
Below are the results of 324 stories.
In terms of racial identity, we compared our results with the demographics of our communities of Connecticut and Suffolk and Nassau counties on Long Island.
The 2020 Census showed that in Connecticut, those who identify only as white make up 61.6% of the population. Similarly in Suffolk and Nassau counties on Long Island, 63% of the population identifies only as white.
The population demographic level for Black residents in Connecticut is 12.4% and is 9.2% on Long Island.
2020 Census numbers show those who identify as Hispanic account for 18.7% of Connecticut and 20.2% of Suffolk and Nassau counties, and Asians make up 7.9% of both Connecticut and Long Island.
1.2% of Connecticut residents and 0.5% of Long Islanders identify as Native American.
WSHU journalists asked sources to self identify their race, which can be seen in this chart.
In the chart below, we also kept track of the proportion of stories that were about race, either touching on the subject or entirely about it.
We also kept track of what types of stories we were writing.