NPR Staff Diversity - 2022 Our commitment to building an NPR that reflects, serves, and inspires America begins with our people. We have committed ourselves to creating a diverse workplace where staff can grow and thrive.

Our Staff

NPR's Staff Diversity

Our commitment to building an NPR that reflects, serves, and inspires America begins with our people. We have committed ourselves to creating a diverse workplace where staff can grow and thrive.

We are committed to equity and inclusion in our workplace. That means we will work tirelessly to uphold the value of fairness throughout the organization and aspire to tap the full talents of our staff in all that we do. We recognize that, across the organization, there are visible and invisible privileges and barriers to success, and we are committed to breaking down all systemic barriers to equity and inclusion. We will create and sustain a culture that supports all who work here.

We have much to achieve.

Commitment to Transparency and Accountability

In order to properly do this work, we need to measure our progress. We need to talk about where we are succeeding, and where we are failing. Every year, we will update this page to reflect the most current data on our staff diversity. We are building accountability and transparency in all this, in service to our staff and our audiences.

Diversity is not a problem to be solved, but an opportunity to be realized. Reflecting America in staff and leadership can only make NPR more successful over time.

Staff Diversity Statistics and Breakdown - 2022

We measure our representation on two main dimensions — race and ethnicity, and gender identity — and are working on including other distinctions in future iterations of this report.

While NPR historically has tracked representation of male and female employees only, we have recently begun allowing staff to self-identify from the broader spectrum of gender identity, including multiple identities. Once enough staff have voluntarily responded, our staff diversity data will more accurately reflect the gender identities of the people at NPR.

For race and ethnicity, NPR has followed the reporting guidelines set by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for EEO-1 data collection, and that is reflected in our existing data. We are reevaluating our method of data tracking to be more inclusive.

In 2022, we added some information about disability.

NPR Overall
For race and ethnicity, the representation percentages are: White-59%, Black/African American-16%, Asian-12%, Latino or Hispanic-9%, Two or more races-3%, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander-1%. For gender, the representation percentages are Woman-54%, Man-44%, Trans/Nonbinary/Gender Nonconforming-2%. For disability, Not Disabled-90%, Declined to answer-7%, Disabled-3%
Oct. 2022/NPR
NPR Supervisors
For race and ethnicity, the supervisory representation percentages are: White-62%, Black/African American-15%, Asian-11%, Latino or Hispanic-7%, Two or more races-4%, Not specified-1%, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander-0%. For gender, the representation percentages are Woman-55%, Man-45%, Trans/Nonbinary/Gender Nonconforming-0%.
Oct. 2022/NPR

We recognize the need to increase the representation of people of color in leadership roles. We are doing this by increasing the diversity of our hiring pipeline for external searches and supporting internal development opportunities.

NPR Audience-Facing Journalists
For race/ethnicity, the representation percentages are: White-63%, Black/African American-9%, Asian-14%, Latino or Hispanic-11%, Two or more races-2%, Not specified-.5%, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander-.5%. For gender, Woman-59%, Man-41%, Trans/Nonbinary/Gender Nonconforming-0%. For disability, Not Disabled-92%, Declined to answer-7%, Disabled-1%
Oct. 2022/NPR

There is an entire organization behind NPR's content, but most of our audiences first encounter NPR through the voices and names they hear — on-air from our newsmagazines and on-demand through our podcasts — and the bylines they read on npr.org. It matters that NPR reflects diversity in media representation. This editorial subset includes reporters, hosts, and correspondents.

Overall Staff Representation Over Time
Two line graphs illustrating the Race/Ethnicity and Gender representation over 4 years from Fiscal Year 2019 to FY22. For Race/Ethnicity: FY19 34% identified as people of color, and 66% as white. FY20: 35%, 65%. FY21: 38%, 62%. FY22: 41%, 59%. For Gender Identity: FY19 54% identified as woman, 46% as man. FY20: 55%, 45%. FY21: 55%, 45% and 1% trans/nonbinary/nonconforming. FY22: 54%, 45%, 2%
Oct. 2022/NPR

Our growth in staff race/ethnicity representation over the past four years has been incremental.

To accelerate representation on our staff and in our content, NPR is focused on building employment practices that are fair and transparent, and providing support for supervisors and employees. We are doing this by training managers to be inclusive leaders, holding supervisors accountable for expanding the diversity of their staffs and content, and building a climate in which people can grow and thrive through affinity groups, training, mentorship, and events and programs that advance the dialogue in this area and increase a sense of belonging.

Our near-term priorities include strengthening metrics that measure representation in our content, workforce and hiring practices, expanding NPR's support for employee affinity groups, requiring all leaders to complete inclusive leadership training, continuing to perform periodic pay equity studies, supporting our mentorship programs, and conducting regular employee surveys and analyses of employee turnover to measure the inclusiveness of our workplace.

NPR's Ongoing Work page details our new initiatives and updates our continuing DEI efforts.


NPR Management, Governance and Trustees

Senior Leadership

NPR's Senior Leadership consists of the heads of NPR's divisions and major departments at the vice president level and above.

Board of Directors

The NPR Board of Directors is responsible for the governance of our 501(c)(3) nonprofit.The Board includes the NPR president, the chairman of the NPR Foundation, 12 NPR Member Station managers and nine prominent members of the public selected by the Board and confirmed by Member Stations.

NPR Foundation Board of Trustees

The NPR Foundation Board of Trustees consists of civic, corporate, and cultural leaders from across the country who are committed to broadening NPR's base of audience and financial support.