ProPublica is dedicated to growing the range of our office in addition to the journalism group extra broadly, whereas making certain equal alternatives for all. Every year we publish a report on these efforts. That is the report for 2025; listed below are our previous reviews.
Our Dedication
We consider that it’s crucial to workers our newsroom and enterprise operations with individuals from a broad vary of backgrounds and views. We’re dedicated to eradicating limitations which have historically excluded certified candidates, together with individuals with disabilities, these from low-income backgrounds, veterans, individuals of shade and girls.
“For 10 years ProPublica has reported on its efforts to develop and diversify its workers. That vital work continues,” ProPublica President Robin Sparkman mentioned. “We’re dedicated to masking a variety of points in our journalism. To try this successfully we want staff with different views and backgrounds.”
ProPublica has continued to broaden, rising from 186 full-time staff at the beginning of 2024 to 193 in 2025.
We’ve added assets to the workers supporting this work, together with hiring a expertise acquisition supervisor who has labored to refine our hiring course of to make the candidate expertise extra honest and constant. We’ve created organizational partnerships to offer entry to investigative journalism coaching and construct group with journalists from a wide range of backgrounds. We’ve fostered mentorships in order that any worker can profit from a colleague’s experiences and we spearheaded the creation of a shared vacation calendar to advertise larger consciousness of various spiritual celebrations and keep away from scheduling conflicts.
Our Variety Committee contains greater than 50 ProPublicans who volunteer their time to work on initiatives which are pitched and run by the workers. The present co-chairs are Vianna Davila and Liz Sharp.
Our work on this space will also be seen in our journalism. All through 2024, we reported on the adversarial results of abortion restrictions on ladies, together with those that died after their states banned the process. Our reporting resulted in new federal guidelines that went into impact final yr which are aimed toward dashing repatriations of Native American stays. Final February, the U.S. Division of Justice began working with a sheriff’s workplace in Wisconsin on a written coverage on how to reply to incidents involving individuals with restricted English proficiency; this adopted our reporting on how a grammatical mistake in Spanish led sheriff’s deputies to wrongly blame a Nicaraguan dairy employee for his son’s dying. Our reporting on systemic failings by the Division of Veterans Affairs to deal with individuals with psychological diseases, together with in circumstances during which veterans went on to kill themselves or others, resulted in commitments to extend staffing by the VA secretary.
We additionally associate with information organizations throughout the nation. Final yr, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed a invoice into legislation that curtailed the controversial contract-for-deed actual property offers and included larger protections for consumers; his motion adopted a 2022 investigation by ProPublica and the Sahan Journal that revealed questionable actual property transactions that left members of Minnesota’s Somali and Hispanic immigrant communities prone to shedding their houses. In the meantime in Virginia, the state’s legislature final yr accepted a statewide fee to research the function of public schools and universities in displacing Black communities, following our reporting on the problem with the Virginia Middle for Investigative Journalism at WHRO.
Breakdown of Our Employees
As with final yr, we collected combination information about our software and interview course of. Out of 27 positions crammed in 2024, 52% of the finalists recognized as ladies and half recognized as being a part of a racial/ethnic group aside from solely non-Hispanic white. Fifty-six % of the individuals we employed recognized as ladies and 37% recognized as being a part of a racial/ethnic group aside from solely non-Hispanic white.
Firstly of 2025, the share of all ProPublica workers members who recognized as solely non-Hispanic white was 63%.
For the seventh yr in a row, extra ladies than males work at ProPublica. In editorial positions, ladies represented 52% of the workers.
About 2% of our workers determine as nonbinary or transgender.
Since 2022, we’ve got collected demographic details about our board of administrators. Of the 15 individuals on the board, 47% recognized as ladies. About 67% of the administrators recognized as non-Hispanic white, in comparison with 64% final yr.
As we’ve mentioned since 2015, a part of our dedication to range means being clear about our personal numbers. Right here’s how our workers breaks down.
(Please notice that the information relies on staff’ self-reported data. Recognizing that some individuals might determine as multiple race however not determine as an individual of shade, in 2022 we started stating numbers by way of individuals who “solely determine as non-Hispanic white.” The worker data is as of Jan. 1 of every yr. Managers are outlined as workers members who supervise different individuals, and that group doesn’t embrace all editors. Percentages might not add as much as 100 due to rounding. Fellows, time-limited staff and part-time staff aren’t included on this evaluation.)
Race and Ethnicity: All of ProPublica
Race and Ethnicity: Editorial
Race and Ethnicity: Managers
Gender: All of ProPublica
New Initiatives
Added new workers: A part of our purpose in 2024 was to construct capability on the staff that’s accountable for hiring and supporting ProPublicans. We introduced on a seasoned expertise acquisition supervisor with over a decade of recruiting expertise, together with latest years at prime information organizations. Their addition ensures our staff has the capability to completely help hiring managers whereas making a considerate, well-structured recruiting expertise for each candidate.
Strengthening honest and inclusive hiring: We’ve taken vital steps to make our hiring course of much more honest, clear and inclusive. By implementing structured interviews throughout the group, we’re making certain each candidate is evaluated persistently. We’ve additionally elevated collaboration with hiring groups via extra frequent consultations, making certain we adhere to honest and nondiscriminatory hiring practices. On the candidate facet, we’ve added extra touchpoints and improved communication, so candidates are saved extra updated on the method of their functions.
Our Ongoing Efforts
ProPublica thinks about its efforts within the following methods: constructing the pipeline (for us and for all of investigative journalism); recruiting expertise and bettering our hiring course of; and inclusion and retention.
Constructing the Pipeline
Convention stipends: ProPublica partnered with Investigative Reporters & Editors to sponsor journalists to attend the annual IRE conference. We additionally sponsored a journalists of shade mixer, open to everybody on the convention, which was attended by near 100 individuals.
Rising Reporters Program: This system supplies monetary help and mentorship to 5 college students for whom investigative journalism would possibly in any other case be inaccessible on account of price, to allow them to pursue early profession alternatives within the discipline. This system is open to all and features a $9,000 stipend, digital programming and an all-expenses paid journey to an IRE convention on laptop assisted reporting. That is this system’s ninth yr, and it’s coordinated by Talia Buford.
Information Institute: In 2016, ProPublica journalists based The Information Institute, a workshop for journalists on the way to use information, design and code. ProPublica finally began working with Open Information, which coordinates pupil and teacher participation and supplies help for venture administration and occasion planning. The Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting and the Middle for Journalism & Democracy now arrange this in-person occasion. Final yr a half dozen present and former ProPublicans served as trainers on the institute, which is concentrated on empowering individuals with information abilities they’ll deliver again to their very own newsrooms.
Investigative Editor Coaching Program: ProPublica began an Investigative Editor Coaching Program in 2023 for journalists who wish to learn to handle, edit and elevate investigative tasks that expose hurt and create influence. The curriculum for the yearlong program was designed by ProPublica Managing Editor Ginger Thompson and Deputy Managing Editor Alexandra Zayas. This system is open to all and tries to handle the business’s essential must broaden the ranks of investigative editors. We chosen 10 individuals to attend a weeklong coaching at our New York workplace. Additionally included in this system have been an extra 4 ProPublica staffers who aspire to change into story editors. Contributors heard from ProPublica editors on totally different features of the craft, from story choice and memos to managing the reporting and digging into the primary draft. They have been additionally paired with ProPublica senior workers as mentors and obtained extra digital coaching for the rest of the yr. We provided this coaching once more in 2025.
Recruiting and Hiring
Affinity conferences: Final summer time, ProPublica recruiters and newsroom workers attended the nation’s three largest affinity journalism conferences, sponsored by the Nationwide Affiliation of Black Journalists, the Nationwide Affiliation of Hispanic Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Affiliation. The newsroom sponsored the NABJ Investigative Activity Pressure mixer and the Visible Activity Pressure Moneta Sleet Photograph Competitors on the group’s annual conference in Chicago.
Wage transparency and equity: ProPublica is dedicated to paying its staff pretty and transparently and works to make sure that there is no such thing as a improper discrimination in compensation. Because the fall of 2022, ProPublica has revealed wage ranges for all posted job openings, no matter geography. Our workers just lately fashioned a union, and future wage will increase will probably be a part of a collective bargaining settlement.
Interview swimming pools: We attempt for an interview pool that features not less than one certified candidate from an underrepresented background. Interview swimming pools aren’t capped and search to incorporate all equally certified candidates.
Freelancer information: ProPublica publishes a information for freelancers involved in pitching an investigation to ProPublica. We designed the information to formalize the pitch course of and degree the taking part in discipline for the way freelance tasks are offered and regarded. Submissions will probably be reviewed by editors on a rotating foundation. ProPublica will reply to anybody who completes the shape, even when their proposal will not be accepted.
LRN candidate outreach: Editors with ProPublica’s Native Reporting Community proceed to do personalised recruiting and supply workplace hours so native journalists can talk about their accountability work with a member of the staff. LRN editors have been additionally current at journalism conferences, together with affinity group gatherings — the place they met with candidates in an effort to assist them with the project-development and software course of. This system additionally often faucets the expertise staff for leads of promising candidates. As well as, the staff of editors often discusses the range of voices in this system and the way to adapt our work to fulfill a variety of wants.
Inclusion and Retention
Welcoming new hires and specializing in inside tradition: Our inclusion subcommittee consists of about 30 ProPublicans who meet month-to-month to think about methods to make the newsroom extra inclusive and honest, whereas constructing help for each other as colleagues. Mariam Elba and Megan O’Matz chair this subcommittee. The group created a device to assist workers determine coaching and growth alternatives; fostered mentorships for brand spanking new hires; and spearheaded the creation of a shared vacation calendar to advertise larger consciousness of assorted spiritual celebrations and keep away from scheduling conflicts. An inside story membership meets often to debate significantly pleasant tales, podcasts or books. The committee spearheaded the establishment of voluntary breakout rooms after all-staff conferences, the place workers are randomly assigned to teams who talk about a immediate created by the committee to spark dialog and construct group. The committee works to enhance communication, share data and deal with challenges confronted by a far-flung workforce.
Sensitivity subcommittee: Led by Colleen Barry, this group serves as a useful resource for editors and reporters to faucet the collective mind belief of our newsroom when engaged on significantly delicate tales about suicide, sexual abuse, youngster abuse, racial trauma and extra. The committee maintains a Slack channel the place anybody can share assets and the place editors and reporters can solicit suggestions on drafts or ask questions on how greatest to report on delicate topics. When a “sensitivity learn” or the discussions throughout the enhancing and manufacturing of a narrative are significantly instructive, the subcommittee has shared these experiences at range committee conferences so any classes may be extra broadly utilized.
ProPublica Peer Partnership Program: That is an inside program, organized by Jodi Cohen and Lisa Tune, that’s open to all and matches ProPublicans with a mentor or peer associate to develop new abilities and have somebody to show to for assist navigating office or profession questions. Final yr, greater than 50 ProPublicans participated on this program, which was began in 2018.
Unconscious bias coaching: Since 2021, ProPublica has used Paradigm Attain to offer ongoing coaching for employees to create a office tradition that’s intentional, inclusive and excessive performing. The coaching is offered to all new workers.
Variety Committee workplace hours: We’ve continued to supply an off-the-cuff digital hangout twice a month the place ProPublicans can chat with the Variety Committee co-chairs to brainstorm or chat in a extra intimate setting outdoors of the month-to-month committee conferences.
Concerned about Working Right here?
Right here is our jobs web page, the place we publish new positions, together with fellowships, full-time and momentary roles.
