August 18, 2025 (Updated )
Almost a decade ago, researchers from City University and the Reuters Institute set out to explore the diversity of UK newsrooms. Their research made headlines after revealing that just 0.2 per cent of journalists were Black, despite making up three per cent of the population.
If this sounds familiar, it’s probably because it is; the 2016 study remains the most recent detailed look at diversity within UK newsrooms. In 2024 alone, it’s been cited in The Guardian, Refinery29, and the Voice Newspaper — mostly because no other stats are available.
The NCTJ’s ‘Journalists at Work’ Report does indicate some progress, with the number of people of colour rising from six per cent in 2018 to nine per cent in 2024. However, these reports don’t provide a detailed breakdown of how many journalists are Black.
According to the NCTJ, this lack of detail is due to “sample size restrictions”. The result is the same, though; we have no clear picture of the number of Black journalists in the UK, let alone how many are in leadership positions. The British media claims it cares about diversity in its newsrooms and supporting Black journalists — so why isn’t anybody keeping track of progress?
“The media industry as a whole felt like a closed shop until I started coming across other Black and non-white writers trying to make their way,” says Jendella Benson. Now the head of editorial at Black Ballad, she’s also written for MTV UK, The Sunday Times, and The Independent.
Diversity and representation also comes up when I speak to Jasmine Lee-Zogbessou, a freelance journalist for the BBC, Cosmopolitan UK, and Boiler Room: “I studied a journalism undergrad at Sheffield and there were, like, hundreds of people in my year, but I was one of four Black people, which I think immediately gave me a very interesting insight into what my career will be like. And that didn’t really change over the course of the years when I actually went into the workplace.”
Thinking further back, to her career education at school, she adds: “I never actually saw a Black woman as a journalist come in and say, ‘consider media as your career’. It’s never a Black person. It’s never a Black woman.”
Jendella Benson (L), Head of Editorial at Black Ballad and Jasmine Lee-Zogbessou (R), a freelance journalist for the BBC, Cosmopolitan UK, and Boiler Room.
Representation is crucial to progress and plays a key role in shaping news coverage, which, in turn, closes the loop to further representation. Dr Amy Ross Arguedas is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Reuters Institute, where she researches race and leadership in journalism across the globe. She explains: “Newsroom leaders can directly influence the kinds of decisions that are made at the editorial level, including the attention allocated to stories and experiences that reflect — well or poorly — the communities news organisations seek to serve.”
Leaders can also affect coverage indirectly, through the diversity of the newsrooms they create, she adds: “through hiring, retention, and promotion practices, or by shaping the professional culture and norms within newsrooms more generally.”
Dr Amy’s work shows that people of colour occupy seven per cent of senior editorial roles in the UK, up just one per cent from 2023. Similarly, her statistics are not broken down to show the percentage of Black leaders.
To change the picture, she believes there needs to be more concerted and meaningful efforts: “Whether newsrooms want to pursue more equitable representation in leadership roles — in a context of already strained resources and challenges on various fronts — is at least, in part, a matter of priorities. These kinds of disparities don’t often go away on their own and require concerted efforts, resources, and policies to help reduce barriers and attract and retain talent, for example, through training, bolstering institutional support systems, or promoting pay equity.”
It’s an idea that rings true for Dr Francesca Sobande, an author and researcher at Cardiff University, whose work centres on media, race, and intersectionality. She says multiple systematic factors impact Black journalists, including anti-Black racism, sexism and misogyny, ableism, colourism, capitalism, and classism.
These can all feed into and shape hiring places and workplace conditions, leaving Black working-class and disabled women particularly underrepresented in the media industry. When it comes to solutions, Dr Francesca adds: “[They] must go far beyond simply focusing on getting Black women into the industry, to ensure that they are actually supported when in it.”
This is also a key sticking point for Jendella, who points out the difficulty of building a career in journalism when so many are stuck in short-term contracts or freelancing. In 2024, more than 2,500 reporters lost their jobs in the UK and US alone, while the UK has more than 100,000 new solo freelancers than a year ago. She stresses the need for more well-paying, full-time roles to help writers progress, especially since the collapse of local newspapers has reduced entry points into the industry.
While mentoring schemes are common, Jendella also believes the real issue isn’t skills but sustainability. She asks: “If newsrooms don’t allow all kinds of people to thrive, and there aren’t enough long-term roles, how is anyone expected to show up day after day?”
All too often, there’s a “gatekeeping” mentality in the media, she continues, where Black journalists are often seen as being allowed in out of charity, rather than as equals. This creates an exhausting and unwelcoming environment, making it harder for them to thrive and tell authentic stories. “It’s about having a plethora of voices on staff, not seeing diverse approaches or opinions as personal threats and treating Black colleagues as equals — which is wild to say in 2024, but sometimes it still feels like it needs to be.”
It’s this environment which has led many Black journalists to create their own platforms. Leanna Grant is one example. She’s the founder of Frow magazine, for “forward-thinking, rebellious, opinionated women”. She explains: “Having ownership […] you can control the narrative to some degree, can’t you? That’s why you see a certain narrative on certain platforms.”
By building independent spaces, women of colour can represent their communities authentically and share stories often missed or misrepresented by mainstream media — and this independence is particularly important to Leanna: “I want Frow to remain a space where women can talk about whatever it is that we’re going to talk about. We still need to have a safe space where these open conversations and discussions can happen.”
It’s also an ethos at the heart of Black Ballad, which turned 10 in 2024. For Jendella, this means authentic storytelling that showcases the diverse stories within Black communities: “We focus on the ‘diversity within the diversity’ because Black British women are not a monolith; we have similar experiences sometimes, but they are not the same. So being able to directly address the multi-faceted nature of our existence is really exciting and rewarding.”
Similarly, Jasmine muses: “I think [such spaces] are definitely lacking in the wider community that it just means that we have to do it ourselves […] what we end up having to do is make our own platforms.”
• Black Ballad is a UK-based lifestyle platform that seeks to tell the human experience through the eyes of Black British women. Founded by Tobi Oredein and Bola Awoniyi in 2013, the magazine celebrates Black talent and lifestyle through thoughtful editorial, and doesn’t shy away from political issues.
• If you’re a fan of books, midnight & indigo is a literary journal and publishing company dedicated to celebrating and nurturing the voices of Black women writers worldwide. As well as their print magazine, they publish essays, short stories, and run writing classes online.
• Spoken Black Girl is dedicated to empowering and educating Black women and women of colour writers to tell their stories of joy, pain, growth, and transformation while bringing awareness to mental health in communities of colour. They also have their own shop and wellness centre, so you can support Black creators and your own wellbeing.
• With a 55-year history, Essence magazine continues to make an impact both in print and online. The US monthly publication covers fashion, beauty, entertainment, and culture for African-American women.
• Not quite as established as Essence, but certainly getting there with 34 years under its belt, Pride Magazine focuses on Black women and mixed-race women of all heritages in the UK with pieces on beauty, lifestyle, and culture.
• Cocoa Girl Magazine, founded by Serlina Boyd, is the UK’s first Black girls’ magazine, packed with interviews, activities, and fun. She has also since launched a boys’ edition.
However, independent publishers cannot be the saviours of traditional media, as they also offer their own challenges. In 2023 long-running magazine for people of colour, gal-dem closed down citing economic and financial pressures. ASHAMED, a zine set up by Halima Jibril to counter the trend of mainstream media capitalising on the trauma of people of colour for personal essays, currently remains on an “indefinite hiatus”. Aurelia Magazine, an independent magazine to “uplift the first-person stories of marginalised genders” announced it would be closing permanently in 2024. In other words, independent media is a hard space to operate in.
Jendella agrees: “Independent platforms need secure, sustainable funding and to be treated with respect and not just a place for those working in mainstream media to browse for ideas they can reproduce for their workplace, as we have seen far too often.”
Dr Francesca says that more support is needed: “Such work needs to be supported in substantial ways to ensure its sustainability. Also, the systemic forms of oppression that impact Black women in society don’t disappear in the context of independent media and digital storytelling.”
Sometimes, this isn’t even about storytelling — it’s about who’s willing to pay. A recent report by Extend Ventures, which analysed 10 years of venture capital funding, found that Black women were the least likely to receive investment, making up just 0.02 per cent of the total funds invested across the period.
When Black Ballad announced a crowdfunder to find investment from Black women themselves, founder Tobi Oredein explained: “We know that if we don’t build this company and others, no one else will. I’m sick of talking to organisations and asking them to do better, only for retorts to be individual stories don’t prove there is a systematic problem.”
There’s undeniably a lot to do before we reach equity for Black women within journalism — and change won’t happen overnight — but perhaps a start might be taking a count of the size of the problem.
