The 2023–24 Diversity & Inclusion Report continues The Tufts Daily’s effort to gather insights into the composition of our staff and their experiences in our organization. The report was created by a group of Daily student leaders under the purview of the paper’s Intentionality & Inclusivity Committee.
The Daily is committed to upholding accuracy and inclusivity in our coverage and fostering an equitable environment for all staff. We seek to continually move the organization forward by improving in both our internally and externally facing practices. To this end, the Intentionality & Inclusivity Committee has compiled this second annual report to offer transparency into our newsroom, identify ways in which we can work to better inform our coverage, and assess how to make the Daily more inclusive and representative of the communities we serve and cover.
It has been two years since the first Diversity & Inclusion Report was released. Many initiatives that were either established, already in progress or proposed upon the release of the previous report have been acknowledged at the end of this one. We remain committed to publishing a report every year, which we hope will spark conversation and track organizational changes over the short and long term.
The data in this report was collected in November 2023 via a staff survey and thus represents the composition of the Daily’s staff at that point in the fall 2023 semester. It does not represent the spring 2024 recruitment cycle, nor any staff turnover during that time period. The Committee circulated the survey through staff-wide communication channels and asked that executive board members complete it during a meeting. In total, 77 members of the Daily responded to at least one question on the survey.
Overall, the survey indicated that the Daily is less diverse than the Tufts community, especially in regards to race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. For example, a majority of survey respondents identify as white, which is inconsistent with the composition of the Tufts undergraduate student population. 27% of our staff is on some form of financial aid, which is less than the 44% of undergraduates university-wide.
The survey also assessed feelings of inclusivity at the Daily. Most respondents reported feeling comfortable and included in the Daily. Generally, respondents felt comfortable raising concerns to their executive editors and participating in section meetings. A vast majority of respondents also indicated that they had made at least one friend at the Daily.
Of respondents, 40% served at least one semester on the Daily’s executive or managing boards, which together comprise about 30 people each semester. While our leadership boards turn over twice a year — allowing members to cycle through masthead and elected positions rather quickly — we estimate that members of the Daily leadership are overrepresented in this report. All charts that include “leadership” are filtered from those who answered “yes” to the question: “Have you ever been on the Executive Board or Managing Board of the Daily?”
Some questions by their nature allowed respondents to select more than one option. The number of responses (as indicated by “n=” at the bottom of each chart) for these questions is therefore higher than the number of total respondents.
The Daily’s staff is estimated to be around 175 people, but we do not have organization-wide data available and cannot determine whether the sample of respondents is representative of the paper as a whole. Additionally, as this survey was optional for staff members, it is prone to self-selection bias — those who chose to participate may not accurately represent the whole of the Daily’s demographics. Several sections are also underrepresented. Nevertheless, this data offers useful insights into our organization and highlights key issues to focus on in the future.
We are open to further feedback and ideas, so we encourage you to fill out this anonymous Google form. If you have questions, suggestions or would like to reach out, please email iandi@tuftsdaily.com or daily@tuftsdaily.com.
Finally, we would like to thank everyone who worked on the 2021–22 Diversity Report for paving the way for this and future reports.
Diversity & Inclusion Report Committee
Josue Perez, Sarah Feinberg, Guillem Colom, Ty Blitstein, Natalie Bricker, Henry Chandonnet, Ben Choucroun, Chloe Courtney Bohl, Julieta Grané, Aaron Gruen, Rachel Liu, Maxwell Shoustal, Charlene Tsai, Caroline Vandis
