Memphis Media
Diversity Survey

Examining the racial diversity of journalists in America’s Blackest city

Memphis recently became the largest majority-Black city in the U.S., yet the racial diversity of the journalists covering the city’s population has been unknown. The Memphis media landscape has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. New outlets have cropped up, ownership of flagship news media has changed hands, and overall employment in journalism has fallen. But researchers have not examined how the racial diversity of the city’s journalists stack up against the area population.

MABJ partnered with the University of Memphis in spring 2024 to survey more than 200 journalists in the city

To establish a baseline of the racial diversity of journalists covering America's largest majority-Black city
And gain insight on how local journalists view the cultural competency of their news organizations and their own cross-cultural skills when reporting in Memphis

We sought to answer these questions:

How does the racial diversity of Memphis journalists line up with area demographics?
Is there a difference in roles for journalists of color versus white journalists in terms or supervisory positions?
Is there a difference between the diversity in legacy outlets vs. new digital outlets?
How confident are Memphis journalists in their cultural competency to cover race-related stories and that of their news organizations?
Are there differences in confidence levels in newsrooms’ cultural competency between white journalists and journalists of color?

We received 116 responses, 77 of which were usable.

Survey results revealed white journalists are vastly overrepresented, despite the population of Black journalists being higher than average. This held true even between for-profit and nonprofit news organizations. Still, journalists of color were just as likely as white journalists to hold a supervisory position. Journalists gave themselves and their newsrooms mostly high marks in cultural competency but identified some areas of improvement. Journalists of color were less likely than white journalists to rate their newsroom as culturally competent.

Conclusions

Racial representation of local journalists severely lags the Memphis area population.
Contrary to national estimates, racial representation in Memphis nonprofit news organizations is not significantly different than legacy for-profit news organizations.
When considering cultural competency, survey results were similar to other places
Memphis is ahead of the nation when it comes to racial representation in newsroom leadership

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Considerations

A larger sample size would have allowed for further public analysis of racial representation and perceptions of cultural competency by newsroom.
Turnover prevents more accurate picture.
At least three local TV stations have changed ownership since last diversity report
Most nonprofit news organizations are small. But in Memphis, the nonprofit Daily Memphian is the largest local news
Longtime publisher of the The New Tri-State Defender died, causing instability

Note on methodology: We limited our survey to local news organizations that publish at least weekly. The survey was open for three weeks between March 25 and April 15, 2024 and disseminated through personal email invitations, social media, word of mouth, and member newsletters.