January 23, 2023

By Susanna Dilliplane and Emily Roseman

The INN Index is our annual census of more than 400 news organizations that are members of the Institute for Nonprofit News. Since 2018, members have completed the survey in a commitment to collective transparency and contribution to the nonprofit news sector. Their participation in the Index generates knowledge, benchmarking data and support for the rapidly growing field.

This year’s Index stands out: the survey is INN’s second deep dive into diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

In the spirit of transparency, we want to share our process for this survey (including where we struggled) and our hopes for what this research can contribute to the field. We’re also sharing our early thoughts and process because we want to hear from the journalism and philanthropy communities. Which of the research goals described below are most interesting or important to you? How can and should INN share out these findings, or create spaces to discuss these findings? More on that below.

What we hope to learn about DEI in the nonprofit news sector

INN’s 2023 deep dive into DEI is centered around four main research and learning goals.

1. Understanding the demographic composition of nonprofit news staff, leadership and board members, and how these demographics have changed over time.

One of our major research goals is documenting the racial, ethnic and gender composition of our sector’s staff, executives and managers, and boards. This gets at the “D” (diversity) in DEI. It is the most frequently asked question by many of our member news organizations, funders and partners. We will be examining the diversity of INN membership as a whole, as well as disaggregating the data to explore diversity among different types of organizations. Where possible, we will compare this year’s data with prior years to see whether and how the composition of newsrooms has changed over time.

2. Capturing internal practices that aim to advance diversity, equity and/or inclusion within nonprofit newsrooms.

What efforts are newsrooms making to advance DEI — for example, through changes in operations, ways of working or investment of resources? How do newsrooms assess whether they are becoming more diverse, more equitable or more inclusive? What are the primary challenges they face in their efforts to improve DEI — and are there specific capacity-building resources that could help address those challenges? Through a combination of closed-ended and open-ended questions, we aim to deepen our understanding of DEI practices in the nonprofit news sector and offer insights into where the sector should invest moving forward.

3. Exploring how INN’s membership serves the information needs of communities of color and other groups historically and intentionally excluded by mainstream media.

Previous Index surveys have asked about target audiences, including a question about whether outlets have a primary mission to serve communities of color. This year, in response to feedback about the limitations of that question wording, we sharpened the definitional clarity of the question. Respondents are now asked: Does your organization focus primarily on serving the information needs of communities of color? By “focus primarily,” we mean that people of color comprise a majority of your audience and your organization spends a majority of its funding, resources, and staff time on stories for people of color. For those who answer “yes,” we ask a follow-up question exploring the input and feedback methods they use to ensure they are serving the information needs of these communities.

We ask a similar question to identify members who primarily serve other groups that have historically been marginalized or underserved, including the LGBTQIA+ community, low-income communities, people experiencing homelessness or housing instability, and incarcerated or formerly incarcerated people, among others.

Responses to these questions will allow us to better understand the prevalence and growth of nonprofit journalism dedicated to serving underserved or excluded groups. We will also be able to explore any distinct patterns in staffing or leadership demographics, practices, challenges and opportunities among these news organizations.

4. Examining revenue patterns with a DEI lens.

One exciting part about this year’s survey is our team’s ability to cross-tabulate many of the survey questions discussed above with Index questions about revenue. For example, we will explore how the amount of funding and the type of funding (e.g., restricted vs. unrestricted) from foundations and major donors compares between news outlets led by and primarily serving people of color vs. news outlets not led by or serving people of color. This speaks to a salient question we hear from various stakeholders who want to better understand how funding is distributed. This survey aims to contribute useful evidence to help inform sector discussions about equity in funding and inform INN’s investment and programming to better support organizations serving the information needs of communities of color.

How we’re approaching this research

A lot has happened since INN’s last DEI report published in 2020. We knew that there would be exciting new questions to explore, as well as some difficult challenges to grapple with.

As a first step in our process, we synthesized what we were hearing from our members, partners, funders and INN colleagues regarding the information they need to work towards a more diverse, equitable and inclusive nonprofit news sector. This is how we landed on the four research goals described above.

We also assembled a group of advisors to provide guidance and feedback on our survey scope, language, process and (down the line) our analysis and reporting. We thank many individuals for their invaluable contributions to the process so far, including Steve Dubb, Sanjay Jolly, Gabe Schnedier, Mc Nelly Torres and Sisi Wei. We also drew insights from the DEI measurement and research efforts of others in the journalism industry and nonprofit sector, including Chalkbeat, ProPublica, Southern California Public Radio, Carla Murphy’s Leavers Survey, the Building Movement Project’s Race to Lead survey, and Funders for LGBTQ Issues, among many others.

Here is this year’s Index survey instrument.

Our challenges so far

We are excited about where we landed with the survey, and we can’t wait to begin analyzing the data once all the responses are in. But we also want to be transparent about some of the challenges we encountered as we developed the survey.

• Wide variation among INN members: The INN Network encompasses a diverse array of newsrooms, with differences in their respective history, mission, size and ways of working. For example, many outlets led by and/or primarily serving people of color have forms of DEI implicitly built into their work and may approach DEI work differently than historically white-led and serving outlets. As a result, the meaning of “DEI” — and the extent to which certain questions about DEI practices resonate — is not the same across all member newsrooms. This is something we flagged for respondents in the survey instrument itself. And it is something we’ll keep top of mind as we analyze and disaggregate the data.
• Limits of INN’s “one-response-per-newsroom” model: This is a methodologically wonky one. Each year, the Index survey is completed by one person per organization. The Index is designed this way to reduce the burden of completing such a lengthy comprehensive survey, recognizing that the staff capacity of many members is already stretched thin. But a key challenge with this model is it can be difficult for one person to provide accurate information about the race, ethnicity, and gender of their colleagues, bosses, and board members, especially if their organization does not already track this information. In lieu of asking all members to conduct an internal demographic survey, we decided to ask the one respondent per newsroom to report the information they have about how their colleagues describe themselves. We encourage respondents to select the “don’t know” option if that information isn’t available. Our team plans to follow up individually with respondents, where relevant, to determine if any additional information can be gathered to help fill in any “don’t know” gaps. It’s not the perfect solution, but it was our best effort to gather valid data without overburdening our members.
• Lack of consensus about how to ask about racial, ethnic and gender identity: We deliberated a lot about how to word questions about race, ethnicity and gender. As we scanned the landscape for relevant examples and consulted our advisors, we were struck by the lack of consensus around what language to use and which response categories to offer. Our questions attempt to reflect best practices for inclusive language, while also striving for clear and straightforward response categories that help respondents more easily determine how to accurately report the demographic information they have. We expect the data will yield lessons about what worked well (or not well) that we can apply to future surveys.
• Challenges in going beyond “check the box” DEI: Meaningful measurement of DEI is difficult. The temptation is to focus only on a few high-level diversity metrics, or to ask about easily measurable things like “did members do X.” It is harder to capture the longer-term and nonlinear processes through which newsrooms can become more diverse, more equitable and more inclusive. With guidance from our advisors, we tried to craft questions that aren’t just about what members do, but also how they do it and with what impact. We also encourage respondents to distinguish between the definition of diversity v. equity v. inclusion to help sharpen clarity around where there’s progress and/or challenges.
• Problems with over-time comparability: Our original expectation was to repeat many of the questions from the 2020 DEI deep dive for purposes of exploring evidence of change over time. But we came to realize what we wanted to learn in January 2020 is significantly different from what we most want to learn now, three years later. As a result, many of the 2023 questions are new or significantly reworded. This was a wrench because it limits our ability to examine change. But we felt we’d get more meaningful and relevant data by updating the questions to reflect the sector’s current context and learning priorities, rather than adhering to questions simply because we asked them previously.

How INN will use and share the Index findings

INN will publish its 2023 DEI Index report in summer 2023. This report is the primary way we’ll share findings from the survey with INN’s member news outlets, partners and the sector’s funders. INN also presents findings at industry events, including our own INN Days, and often hosts briefings for our member newsrooms, funders and partners by request.

Academics, funders and partners often request slices of anonymized and aggregated Index data for their own grant portfolio analysis or research. Only de-identified Index data is shared externally outside of INN, unless the member newsroom gives their consent to INN to share identifiable data with their funder or partner organization.

Individual news outlet responses are frequently used internally within INN to track members’ work and progress and to identify members for different opportunities (including NewsMatch bonus funds, our Emerging Leaders program and other trainings and cohorts). Individual responses are also used by the research team to identify case study topics and other write-up subjects, allowing for more practical and specific examples of diversity, equity and inclusion work.

Share your questions and ideas

If you’ve made it this far, we know you are one of our key stakeholders. So we want to know more about what you and your team needs. Which of the research goals described above are most interesting or important to you? How can and should INN share out these findings, or hold space to discuss these findings? Do you have any questions about the survey? Please let us know by sending a note to INN’s research director, Emily Roseman, at emily.r@inn.org.

This piece was first published on INNsights.