From the Editorial Board:

In what is now a three-year tradition, Pipe Dream conducted a diversity survey of all our staff and contributors. As a media organization, we hope to use this data to reflect on how we can best represent our readers — and we choose to make this data public to promote transparency. After receiving anonymous responses from 29 out of our 30 staff members, as well as 72 of our contributors, we have identified shifts in our demographics — the most notable of which include discrepancies in gender and race. These results show that our paper needs a more critical look into staff recruitment in order to properly represent our readership.

We recognize that disparities between us and those we cover — the student body — can have a real impact on coverage, and we aim to reduce these disparities going forward. Regarding gender, we are working to make our newsroom as inclusive as possible. This year, this included opening up our editorial discussions to broader staff, beyond our largely-male editorial board. We also note that our contributor-base is largely women, which is not reflected in our current staff. As we pushed for more contributors and staff members to have an in-person presence in our office, we have found we are able to create a more inclusive environment in which different voices are heard. This is only the beginning — we are committed to creating an inclusive workplace that does not privilege any one group over another.

Regarding race — we believe more expansive recruiting strategies can assist us in fostering a more diverse newsroom, which will in turn create more diversity in content. Pipe Dream should not remain as simply a newspaper to be read — it should be an outlet in which the campus community finds a voice. Our staff next year plans to hold meetings with leaders in the multicultural community, discussing how we can best represent their events and addressing concerns in our coverage. Further, we believe that a diversity in content can in turn promote diversity in staff — and are planning on tracking the depth of our coverage in our 2024 Diversity Report. Through both such initiatives we aim to be proactive, rather than simply waiting to react to new concerns as they are raised.

In socioeconomic diversity, our data was varied, but we believe this survey can be enhanced for future use. We noted that 20 percent of respondents declined to respond, and feel we can broaden the categories to allow for our staff to be more comfortable with reporting their socioeconomic status. Religious data appeared to be more evenly spread, with nearly equal parts agnostic, atheist, Christian and Jewish staff. Still, we hope to see more religious representation in the future, and will examine the effects of expanded coverage of different communities.

We also recognize that our staff’s range of sexual diversity has shifted vastly over the years. This year, Pipe Dream continued its annual Sex Issue — in both print and digital formats — in which we published resources for LGBTQ+ students. We also conducted and published our campus Sex Survey for the first time since 2020, with the goal of providing an outlet for the campus community to express its sexual diversity in our paper. We will continue to explore ways to make our publication as inclusive as possible.

As a newspaper, our commitment to diversity must be strong to reflect the community we serve. Diversity can guide and influence our content, and in turn, strengthen our coverage. We will continue to publish our Diversity Report annually, but beyond this, our staff will continue to analyze this data and develop ways to improve.

Most encouraging to us is the diversity of our contributors — which more closely aligns with that of the University — as they are the future of our paper. Through continued and more comprehensive reporting of such trends, and through continued conversations with contributors and staff about the impact and importance of their coverage, we hope to make Pipe Dream as reflective of the campus community as possible. We recognize that our publication does not yet reflect the student body in its diversity and are committed to changing this.

If you have any questions or concerns, contact editor@bupipedream.com