THE 2024 DEIB REPORT

In the five years since The Daily Princetonian created its Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) Committee and published its inagural DEIB report, the national landscape and the world of higher education has changed dramatically. Attacks on DEI efforts have taken center stage in American politics. As conversations and attitudes surrounding DEI continue to shift, the work of the DEIB board of the ‘Prince’ remains essential.

As a campus paper, we strive for rigorous and faithful reporting. To cover our campus’ diverse communities responsibly and meaningfully, we must recruit and retain a diverse staff. And to recruit and retain a diverse staff, we must cover diverse communities responsibly and meaningfully. Both are worthwhile goals, and each reinforces the other.

The DEIB Committee strives to create a diverse and inclusive newsroom and to continuously reflect on ‘Prince’ coverage and journalistic practices.

Last year, the 148th Board took some concrete steps in this direction. The new Director of Outreach connected with underrepresented campus communities outside of reporting settings. We re-established the beat system, where specific writers develop expertise in a specific subject, allowing for deeper reporting. These changes allow the ‘Prince’ to not only be there in moments of crisis not just to get the story, but also to understand our campus community so that we’ll be ready to tell your stories.

But the work is not over. As the 149th Board begins, we are inviting more staffers onto the DEIB Committee to conduct comprehensive content reviews. We aim to not only have editors in the room when we talk about coverage, but also the writers who are directly connected to their beats.

While we continuously assess the representativeness of our coverage, the annual DEIB report aims to assess progress and areas for growth made as an organization on diverse staffing. The 203 staffer and editor responses illustrate the ‘Prince’s successes and failures, and serve as an accountability measure for the paper.

With this report, readers can see the demographics and attitudes of our organization, as well as our enduring commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. As the 149th Board begins its tenure, they will use this report to inform their vision and goals.

We wish to acknowledge and thank all those on the 148th Board who contributed to this work. In particular, we would like to thank Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko for cleaning the data and making the accompanying data visualizations and graphs, and Cole Ramer and Lauren Pak for designing the web project. Thank you to Juan Fajardo, Anastasiya Chernitska, Iman Monfopa Kone, Sena Chang, Olivia Sanchez, and Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko for their written contributions and editing work. Thank you to the editors and staffers who filled out our survey. And finally, a thank you to the campus community — for its continuous engagement, trust, and feedback.

Lucia Wetherill
Managing Editor for the 148th Board