Content diversity tracker

CONTENT DIVERSITY TRACKERS

At the start of the fall 2020 semester, The D.O. created content trackers for its News, Opinion, Culture, Sports, Video and Podcast sections, modeled after the trackers in the Minnesota Daily’s 2019-2020 End-of-Year Report. All writers, whether they were members of the editing staff or contributors, were responsible for answering the questions on the tracker for stories they wrote.

The trackers allow us to examine our coverage, including the racial and gender diversity of our sources and how frequently we tell stories that focus on topics relevant to marginalized communities. They also serve as an opportunity for each reporter to reflect on how they could have better included or represented marginalized communities in their reporting.

Marginalized communities

One of the questions on the trackers asked reporters if their stories highlighted marginalized community members or focused on a topic relevant to marginalized community members. A notes sheet with guidelines on how to fill out the content trackers states that we consider race, gender (nonbinary or trans), sexuality, ability, language, nationality, religion, age and socioeconomic class for our reports, but the sheet did not include guidelines on how to determine whether or not a story highlighted or was relevant to marginalized community members. Thus, individual reporters may have had different interpretations of whether or not a story highlighted or was relevant to marginalized community members, and it is unclear how they made this determination for their stories.

Stories and sources

Our content trackers included enterprise stories in which reporters interviewed multiple sources and coverages in which reporters interviewed or quoted at least one person. They did not include stories based on emails, press releases or information from spokespeople whom reporters did not directly interview, however. A change from last semester’s report, our source breakdowns excluded university spokespeople and officials. The D.O. decided to exclude these types of sources from our source breakdowns in order to focus on the diversity among the sources whom our reporters actively seek out and choose to speak to.

CONTENT DIVERSITY TRACKERS (CONT.)

During the spring 2021 semester, The D.O. included a notes sheet detailing guidelines for reporters on the first page of our content tracker spreadsheets. It instructed reporters to ask if sources would be comfortable with anonymously sharing their race and gender after interviews for the report. Reporters may have assumed the race and gender identities of their sources if they did not state them during the interview, though. We plan to hold an in-depth workshop to guide staffers on how to tactfully ask sources if they would be comfortable sharing their race and gender identities. Asking sources to self-identify their race and gender identities will provide more accurate insight into which specific communities and voices we are neglecting to include in our coverage or are covering insufficiently.

Questions included

Our content trackers primarily asked questions relating to source demographics and coverage of marginalized communities. The source demographics questions asked reporters to separately list the number of their sources who identified as white, people of color, women, men, nonbinary and transgender. Another question asked reporters to list the gender of any expert sources quoted in the story.

Other questions focused on representation of marginalized community members. In addition to noting whether each story highlighted or focused on a topic relevant to marginalized community members, reporters reflected on how the specific story and the day’s coverage as a whole could have better represented and included marginalized community members. Following the Minnesota Daily, the trackers asked reporters who else they could have sought to interview for the story. The trackers also asked where the story idea came from.

To track the diversity of the visuals included in print editions of The D.O. and on the website, other questions on the tracker asked if the primary visual accompanying each story prominently featured a person of color.

Reporters also noted whether or not a story had any corrections on the trackers. The purpose of that question was to determine if our coverage represented marginalized communities with accuracy and fairness.

Gaps in data

The content trackers were not filled out for multiple stories across sections, so the data in this report does not provide as comprehensive of a look at our coverage during the spring 2021 semester as we had planned to provide. The trackers were not updated or filled out for weeks 13 and 14. Additionally, the News section tracker had missing stories for weeks one through nine and was not filled out for weeks 10 through 12, and the Sports section and Podcast trackers were not filled out for week 12.

For the graphs in the following pages, we calculated the percentage of stories that focus on marginalized communities out of the total number of stories we had data for. Stories published during the spring 2021 semester for which the coverage trackers were not filled out are not included in the total number of stories or reflected in the graphs. To reduce gaps in data in future diversity reports, we are working to incorporate filling out the coverage trackers into our daily production schedule and will seek feedback from past and current staffers on how we can improve the process of filling out the coverage trackers. We will also emphasize to the staff that filling out the tracker is mandatory and necessary for holding The D.O. accountable in our commitment to diversify our coverage.