Diversity and Inclusion
A news publication’s credibility rests in part on whether its coverage reflects the full range of people it reports on. A newsroom that draws its staff and its sources from a narrow slice of the population will, over time, produce coverage with blind spots — not because of bad intentions, but because of limited perspective. This page describes what Daily Watch Reports is working toward in terms of staffing, sourcing, and coverage.
Newsroom Composition
Daily Watch Reports is a small publication, and small publications do not have the luxury of demographic targets that apply meaningfully at scale. What we can commit to is that we hire on the basis of editorial ability and that we actively look beyond the usual pipelines when we are recruiting — journalism school networks and major-market newspaper alumni pools tend to reproduce a particular kind of homogeneity, and we try to be deliberate about that.
We are committed to building a newsroom in which journalists from different racial, ethnic, gender, geographic, socioeconomic, and professional backgrounds are genuinely represented — not as a compliance exercise but because the reporting is better for it. A reporter who grew up in a rural county will bring something to economic coverage that a reporter who came up entirely in financial journalism may not. A journalist whose first language is not English will hear things in an interview that a monolingual reporter misses.
We review our hiring processes periodically to identify and remove barriers that may have nothing to do with journalistic ability — including credential requirements that are not actually necessary for the work, and interview processes that favor presentation styles over substance.
Coverage Commitments
Our commitment to diversity is most visible in whose stories we tell and whose voices we include as sources.
On sourcing: reporters are expected to seek out sources who represent a range of perspectives, backgrounds, and geographic locations — and to notice when a story’s source list is drawing exclusively from a narrow demographic. A politics story that quotes only Washington insiders is telling one version of a story. An economics story that sources only financial analysts on Wall Street is doing the same. This does not mean forcing artificial balance; it means doing the additional reporting needed to include voices that are often left out of coverage.
On coverage choices: we pay attention to whether our story selection systematically favors certain communities over others. Urban news at the expense of rural news. Wealthy communities at the expense of working-class ones. Stories about men in positions of power at the expense of stories about the people affected by those positions of power. These patterns are easy to fall into and require deliberate attention to interrupt.
Language and Terminology
We use language that is accurate and respectful. When communities have expressed clear preferences about how they are described, we follow those preferences. When terminology is contested within a community, we acknowledge that and use terms with appropriate care. We do not use slurs, derogatory language, or dated terminology when current, neutral language is available.
We do not use “inclusive language” as a substitute for inclusive reporting. Using the right words in a story that still ignores half the people affected by a topic does not constitute meaningful inclusion.
Accessibility of Coverage
We write for a general audience. We do not assume readers have specialist knowledge, and we do not write in ways that make coverage accessible only to people with advanced education. Plain language is a diversity and inclusion commitment as much as it is a style preference. See also our Accessibility page for our commitments around the technical accessibility of our website.
Feedback
We want to hear from readers who believe our coverage has fallen short of these commitments — stories that ignored a community, sourcing patterns that were narrower than they should have been, or language that was careless or harmful. Write to us at [email protected]. Feedback on these matters is treated seriously and reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief.