The Journalistic Diversity Problem: How is The Phoenix Responsible?

The Phoenix’s newsroom is incredibly talented, with a range of expertise over news, books, music, politics and science.

However, we’re not very diverse. 

At The Phoenix, most of the editorial staff are white. Like many newsrooms, The Phoenix doesn’t yet reflect the diversity of the community it serves. 

The Pew Research Center found that 52% of journalists say their organization lacks racial and ethnic diversity, compared to 32% who say it’s diverse. 

This racial disparity in journalism isn’t unusual, but it does raise important questions about the stories we’re able to provide — and our ability to fairly portray our student body. 

In the same study, 76% of journalists surveyed identified as white — higher than the share of U.S. workers nationwide who identify as white. 8% are Hispanic, 6% are Black and 3% are Asian. 

Journalists have been trying to solve the issue of racial and ethnic inequity for decades. 

In 1978, the American Society of News Editors created Goal 2000. Their hope was by the year 2000, newsrooms across the United States. would be filled with a diverse group of journalists who properly reflect racial and ethnic groups in our country.

However, we continue to fall short of the goal 20 years later, which is detrimental to aspiring journalists and audiences who consume news around the clock. 

When newsrooms remain racially homogenous, coverage often overlooks or misrepresents marginalized communities, leading to a larger distrust in media among communities of color.

Black Americans share concerns about racist and negative portrayals of their communities, as well as the media’s failure to represent their full diversity and experiences.

A lack of diversity shapes which stories are told, and journalists who come from privileged backgrounds are more likely to have biases covering labor, climate and inequality — issues that disproportionately impact communities of color.

Without diverse journalists, biases go unchecked and reinforce mistrust and harm.

Four-in-five Black adults say they’ve seen racist or racially insensitive statements either often or sometimes within journalistic publications, according to a Pew Research study. 

Consequently, nearly nine-in-ten Black Americans come across news they deem inaccurate, and 52% of Black Americans have reduced the amount of news they take in overall.

In the political climate of the U.S. today, the news already faces rising hostility. However, some of public suspicion is a product of people rarely seeing themselves depicted in media they’re forced to consume, according to The Guardian. 

The same dynamic exists on a small scale at The Phoenix. When the faces behind the bylines, laptops and cameras don’t reflect Loyola’s student population, it becomes harder for the paper to claim it’s truly telling everyone’s story. 

A student newspaper who doesn’t reflect the diversity of its own campus risks losing both credibility and readership — a risk The Phoenix can’t afford to take.

This issue isn’t about fault, it’s about perspective — and whose stories are consistently left out of a larger narrative. 

For instance, as a Black woman it’s easy for me to notice how Black communities are either misrepresented or missing from news coverage, yet I can’t fully speak to the experiences of Asian, Hispanic, Indigenous or other ethnic groups whose stories have also been overlooked by the media. 

Their exclusion carries its own types of harm, and yet I can recognize the pattern is the same. When newsrooms lack diversity, the stories of entire communities are filtered through limited, privileged perspectives.

Whether intentional or not, the result remains the same — a version of the truth that’s incomplete or alienating.

That’s why it’s on us — the writers, editors and readers — to demand better. To make space for new voices, new perspectives and new stories that reflect everyone who calls Loyola home. 

If The Phoenix wants to earn and sustain the trust and readership of Loyola students and staff, it must ensure that its newsroom looks and thinks more like the university it covers. 

We have to start asking why students of color don’t see themselves here — and how we can make space for them. 

Creating a diversity board, partnering with student organizations, advertising The Phoenix to a broader audience and listening to the communities we cover could help us tell stories that feel more honest and complete. 

A newspaper who represents all of Loyola can tell stories which matter to all of Loyola.