This is the seventh edition of the Daily Bruin Diversity Report, created to publicize the demographics of the Daily Bruin staff and be transparent about the steps The Bruin is taking to improve its diversity, equity and inclusion.
Introduction
For the seventh consecutive year, the Daily Bruin has reflected on its progress toward becoming a more diverse and representative source of journalism for the UCLA community.
The Bruin strives to tell the stories of diverse communities across UCLA and Los Angeles. Paramount to this goal is ensuring our own staff reflects the diversity of UCLA’s student body. Just as The Bruin seeks transparency and truth in its reporting, we believe it is important to be honest about ourselves.
This report provides insight into the makeup of our staff, our shortcomings and the steps we are taking to reflect on and improve the way we cover historically underrepresented groups.
Here are actions we have taken to improve diversity at The Bruin this year:
- Initiated a review process for our month-long tag pages, including those around Hispanic Heritage Month, Native American Heritage Month and Black History Month. These tag pages are curated collections of articles from the past year that highlight existing coverage of cultural groups and events.
- Hold weekly Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee meetings, with weekly formal reports made to the editor in chief.
- Partnered with the Daily Bruin Alumni Network to provide scholarships and a funded summer fellowship for a staffer to work in a professional newsroom.
- Invited an external guest speaker to talk about the history of racial tensions and reporting in Westwood at our editor training.
- Hosted a broader range of guest speakers than ever before to share their experiences working in media.
- Introduced quarterly critique meetings for editorial staffers to discuss and reflect on the impact of their work, including through comparison to industry leaders in student and national media.
- Conducted our largest-ever hiring outreach initiative, promoting The Bruin at events specifically aimed at commuter, transfer and graduate students, among others.
The Daily Bruin has continued to work toward telling stories that matter to our communities throughout the year.
While the Bruin is proud to have increased the proportion of its staff that identifies as Hispanic or Latino, we recognize that there is still room for growth in our approach to belonging and inclusion. We plan to increase the frequency of formal meetings to discuss the longitudinal impacts of our work and further institutionalize the EDI committee, including by creating a paid position for the committee’s facilitator. We welcome your ideas and suggestions for improving this report and our approach. Please contact us via social media or email or submit an op-ed/letter to the editor at dailybruin.com/submit.
About the Data:
Data about the Daily Bruin staff was collected through a survey sent during winter quarter. All visualizations and analyses are representative of the data collected in winter. Staff members self-identify their answers to every question, and the data is collected anonymously. A total of 261 responses were collected this year out of a total of 531 staffers. Last year, 247 responses were collected.
Data about UCLA’s demographics is collected from data provided on ucla.edu. This report uses data from the 2024-25 academic year, with the most recent updated data from January 2025.
Looking Forward
This report demonstrates both the areas in which we’ve worked to promote diversity and where our approach could still improve. Ensuring our staff reflects the realities of the community we cover ensures that our coverage is delivered in the most sensitive, detailed and nuanced manner possible.
We look forward to sharing our progress in the future.
