Staff Demographics

The News is committed to building a diverse newsroom that reflects its readership. To track our progress and hold ourselves accountable to that commitment, we will publish our staff demographics on this page at least once a year.

The News conducted its first demographic survey in the 2018-19 school year, beginning solely with the managing board. The past three years’ surveys were sent to our entire staff. The following data comes from the most recent survey, conducted in the spring of 2025 by the News’ Managing Board of 2026. In total, 109 staff members responded to this survey. Not all News staffers responded to the survey, and not all respondents elected to respond to every question. 

Some of the figures below compare our newsroom demographics to those of the University broadly; sources are generally listed below each figure, but where omitted, Yale demographic data comes from the Office of Institutional Research‘s 2024-25 factsheet.

Quick Facts

  • 61 percent of our staffers identify as female. 39 percent identify as male. 93 percent identify as cisgender.
  • 24 percent of our staffers identify with the label LGBTQ+. 63 percent of our staffers do not. 13 percent preferred not to answer. 
  • About 16 percent of our staffers are international students, as compared to 11 percent of Yale College students.
  • 20 percent of our staffers are the first in their families to go to college.
  • 48 percent of our staffers had no prior journalism experience before joining the News. 
  • 55 percent of our staffers attended public high schools, while 44 percent attended private high schools. 

Where did the News go to high school?

103 of our 150 respondents shared information about where they attended high school.

Race and ethnicity

107 students responded to a question asking about their racial identity. The News’ survey included options for Asian respondents to specify South, East or Southeast Asian.

109 students responded to a question asking how they identified their ethnicity on their Yale College applications. For the purpose of aligning this data with Yale University’s published data on ethnicity and international students, international students’ responses were grouped into the “International” category for this visualization.

Financial aid