Executive Summary

In 2021, the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute (LPPI) published a report that sought to determine whether the Los Angeles Times — L.A.’s’ flagship newspaper situated in a county where Latinos make up almost 50% of the population — was giving adequate representation to its plurality community. The report found that from January 2020 to May 2021— a period that included a presidential election in which the Latino vote was critical and a burgeoning COVID-19 crisis that devastated the Latino community — just 4% of op-eds published by the L.A. Times featured Latino authors and only 1.4% were authored by Latinas. Additionally, 95% of L.A. Times op-eds published during the 17-month period made no explicit mention of Latinos or Latino communities.

To address the underrepresentation of Latinos in the L.A. Times identified by the 2021 report, LPPI reached out to the executive editor of the paper and the editor of the editorial page to initiate discussions about the report’s major findings. As a result of several discussions with the leadership of the L.A. Times, LPPI assembled a group of cross-sectoral, multi-generational Latina/o leaders to accelerate Latino representation across the newsroom, opinion, and editorial pages. Beginning in April 2022, this ad hoc group of Latino leaders met regularly with L.A. Times executives, reporters, and other staff to share emerging stories relevant to the Latino community and provide expert perspectives on a range of issues from Latino representation in film and television to the preferences of Latino voters. This collaboration has created new information-sharing channels between Latino leaders and communities and the L.A. Times while also providing a forum for accountability for representation and inclusion in the paper.

As an accountability tool, this report presents data to track progress in Latino representation across three key indicators: racial/ethnic diversity on the editorial board, Latino representation in op-ed authorship, and the centrality of Latinos in op-ed content.

Our main findings are:

1. Latino representation on the editorial board of the L.A. Times increased from 11.1% in 2021 to 37.5% in 2022. Thus, the representation gap between Latinos on the board and Latinos in the county’s population decreased from 37.5 percentage points to only 11.6 percentage points.
2. The L.A. Times had the largest growth in Latino representation on the editorial board of the five papers whose boards we analyzed.
3. Latino representation in authorship more than doubled from 4.3% of all op-ed pieces in 2021 to 10% in 2022. Although there has been an increase in Latino authorship, the number of Latino-authored op-eds would need to increase nearly fivefold to achieve proportional representation with the Latino population of L.A. County.
4. Despite improvements, Latina authors continue to be particularly underrepresented. Only 6% of op-eds in 2022 were written by at least one Latina, up from 1.4% in 2021.
5. Latino representation in op-ed content also increased. The proportion of op-eds that are focused centrally on Latinos increased from 1.8% to 7.2%, and the number of pieces moderately focused on Latinos increased from 3% to 4.6%.

Despite great improvements in representation, our findings suggest that Latinos, their narratives, their lived experiences, and their policy needs remain largely invisible in both authorship of op-eds and in the editorial content of the L.A. Times. Around 90% of all op-eds in 2022 had no Latina/o/x authors in 2022 and over 88% of all op-eds did not include any content that unambiguously discussed Latino communities. The openness of L.A. Times leadership to collaborate with Latina/o/x leaders such as LPPI’s ad hoc group and the hiring of more Latinx writers on the editorial board has proven to be an effective way to increase Latino representation in its influential Opinion section. These strategies need to be strengthened and expanded to make further improvements since our study shows that there is still an urgent need for the Los Angeles Times to make its editorial pages more inclusive and representative of the community it covers.

Introduction

In 2021, the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute (LPPI) published a report that sought to determine the extent to which the Los Angeles Times (L.A. Times)— Southern California’s flagship newspaper—represented Latino communities and published Latino author’s opinions in the paper’s opinion and editorials section. This report found that between January 2020 and May 2021, only 4.3% of op-eds published were authored by at least one Latino/a/x and only 1.4% were authored by at least one Latina. Additionally, the 2021 report found that 95% of L.A. Times op-eds published during the 17-month study period made no explicit mention of Latinos or Latino communities and that only 1.8% of op-eds were centrally focused on Latinos.

These findings were notable for several reasons. First, Latinos represented the largest racial or ethnic group of the city and county of Los Angeles.¹ Additionally, the study’s 17-month period included two important elections for Latino voters: the 2020 presidential and the 2021 gubernatorial recall. Finally, the study period included the first half of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which Latinos were twice as likely as white residents to die from COVID-19.²

The Importance of Latino Representation in News and Newsrooms

News organizations play an important role in shaping public opinion and informing public policy.³ Consequently, underrepresentation of Latinos and Latino issues in news (including news about racial equity) may result in Latino voices going unheard in relation to current events and policy decisions. At present, Latinos are underrepresented in both news content and in newsrooms.

The L.A. Times bills itself as the largest metropolitan daily newspaper in the U.S., with a combined print and online local weekly audience of 4.4 million.⁴ The influence of a particular newspaper is predicated in part on increasing circulation and number of readers, which in turn leads to increases in subscription and advertising revenues.⁵ Increases in a newspaper’s influence and revenues may be enhanced by diversifying its news content.⁶ Between 2000 and 2020, the Latino population grew by 13% in Los Angeles County, 41% in California, and 77% in the U.S. In all of these jurisdictions, the rate of growth of the Latino population exceeded that of the general population. The implications of this population growth are even more pronounced when factoring in Latinos’ youthfulness. Nationally, the median age of Latinos is 29 while the median age of non-Hispanic whites is 43. According to a 2016 survey of Latino adults, three-quarters of Latinos receive their news from internet sources, up from 37% in 2006.⁷ As news consumption habits of Latinos shift, the sustainability of news organizations will depend at least in part on their ability to adapt to these shifts through diversified content and product development.

Evidence suggests that Latino issues receive limited or stereotyped coverage in news media. For example, prior studies examining the representation of Latinos in news media found that the media portrayal of Latinos often focused on specific issues like immigration and stereotypical narratives around crime and poverty.⁸ A recent study by the Berkeley Media Studies Group and UnidosUS found that only 5.6% of all news stories about racial equity referenced Latinos and noted that The Washington Post had the highest proportion of racial equity coverage that referenced Latinos (17.8%), followed by the L.A. Times (10%).⁹

Diversifying newsrooms and news coverage is an important step in ensuring the visibility of Latinos and Latino issues in public policy, but it is also increasingly important for the sustainability of news organizations. In 2021, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that only 11% of all media workers and 8% in the subsector for newspapers, periodicals, books, and directory publishers are Latino.¹⁰ This underrepresentation relative to the population of the U.S. has important implications. Implicit biases coupled with news media’s structure can influence journalistic practices, including the representation of marginalized populations.¹¹ For example, during the Trump era, the ethnicity of journalists was found to likely influence coverage of Black people and Latino immigrants; additionally, specialized reporting may lead to better representation in coverage of race.¹² The persistent gap between the racial/ethnic composition of news organizations and the population at large limits the ability to cover crucial events in “an informed and even-handed way.”¹³

Our 2021 report found that between January 2020 and May 2021, Latinos accounted for only 11% of L.A. Times Editorial Board members.¹⁴ The 2021 report also found that of the five newspapers analyzed, the L.A. Times had the largest gap in Latino representation on its editorial board relative to its county’s population.¹⁵ We recommended that the L.A. Times focus on hiring additional Latino columnists and editorial board members in order to increase Latino representation.¹⁶

Engaging with the L.A. Times to Advance Latino Representation

To address the underrepresentation of Latinos in the L.A. Times identified by the 2021 report, LPPI reached out to the executive editor of the paper and the editor of the editorial page to initiate discussions about the report’s major findings. As a result of several discussions with the leadership of the L.A. Times, LPPI assembled a group of cross-sectoral, multi-generational Latina/o leaders to accelerate Latino representation across the newsroom, opinion, and editorial pages. Beginning in April 2022, this ad hoc group of Latino leaders met regularly with L.A. Times executives, reporters, and other staff to share emerging stories relevant to the Latino community and provide expert perspectives on a range of issues from Latino representation in film and television to the preferences of Latino voters. This collaboration has created new information-sharing channels between Latino leaders and communities and the L.A. Times while also providing a forum for accountability on representation and inclusion at the paper.

Purpose of this Follow-up Study

To assess the direction and magnitude of changes in Latino representation after the publication of the 2021 report, LPPI initiated a follow-up analysis of the L.A. Times’ opinion and editorial section in 2022. This report presents data to track progress in Latino representation across three key indicators: racial/ethnic diversity on the editorial board, Latino representation in op-ed authorship, and the centrality of Latinos in op-ed content.

Methodology

To assess the demographics of the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board members, LPPI researchers reached out to the L.A. Times with a data request. The statistics for 2022 are based on the L.A. Times’ internal tracking of the race/ethnicity of its editorial board members. We compared the diversity of the L.A. Times Editorial Board with that of comparable newspapers: The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Miami Herald, and The Dallas Morning News. We selected The New York Times and The Washington Post because they are two print news outlets with national profiles as well as The Miami Herald and The Dallas Morning News because both are print media outlets in cities and states with high concentrations of Latinos.

To continue assessing the representation of Latino voices in op-eds published by the L.A. Times, LPPI researchers randomly selected 120 dates, as was done in our initial report, for 2022.¹⁷ These randomly selected dates allowed us to account for the variation in key events throughout the year and follow academically accepted thresholds to obtain a representative sample.¹⁸ We analyzed the demographics of the authors and the content of all the op-eds published on these randomized dates. Opinion pieces authored by the L.A. Times Editorial Board were excluded from our demographic analysis because the board as a whole cannot be categorized as a specific race, ethnicity, or gender. This resulted in a sample of 432 op-eds written by 269 unique authors.

Following the same methodology we used in 2021, we obtained the op-ed authors’ and editorial board members’ demographic information in three steps: first, we searched for any publicly available biographical information for each author to determine their racial or ethnic identity. We used pronouns in public biographies as a proxy for gender identity. Second, if an author’s race or ethnicity was not readily available, we used the predictrace R package to determine the most common origin and racial or ethnic background of the author’s surname based on U.S. Census historical data. We assigned a race/ethnicity to an author only if historical Census data showed a probability of 50 percent or higher that a specific last name is associated with a race or ethnicity. Additionally, if an author’s gender identity was unavailable on his or her biography, we used the predictgender R package, which uses data from the United States Social Security Administration (SSA) that estimates many people of a given name are female and how many are male, with the limitation that no other genders are included. Lastly, if the individual’s last name or first name did not return a probability of 50 percent or higher of being of a specific race/ethnicity or gender, we designated the author’s race and/or gender as unknown.

To assess the degree to which op-ed content focused on Latinos, LPPI researchers read each piece multiple times and categorized each piece into one of three different tiers: not at all focused on Latinos, moderately focused on Latinos, or centrally focused on Latinos. Researchers sorted each op-ed into one of these three tiers by assessing the frequency of specific cultural terms. The cultural terms that we tracked in each op-ed piece included: Latino(a), Latinx, Hispanic, Mexican American, Chicano, Central American, South American, People of Color, Marginalized Communities, and Other (a category which included terms not otherwise listed, such as Mexico, Puerto Rican, Chilean, Afro-Latino). Additionally, slight variations (such as plural forms of the aforementioned terms) were also counted.

If these terms did not appear at all or appeared only once in a piece, the piece was designated as “not at all” focused on Latinos. If one or more of these terms appeared a total of two to four times, the piece was designated as “moderately” focused on Latinos. A piece could also be categorized as “moderately” focused on Latinos if it discussed Latinos or Latino populations in the U.S. without specifically mentioning them by name. If these terms appeared in the title of a piece or more than four times, then the piece was designated as “centrally” focused on Latinos.

Findings

Latino Representation on Editorial Boards of the Los Angeles Times and Similar Outlets

Latinos are still slightly underrepresented on the L.A. Times Editorial Board. As of June 2021, only one of the nine members of the L.A. Times Editorial Board was Latino, but the number rose to three of eight members by the end of 2022.¹⁹ In 2021, Latinos made up only 11.1% of the editorial board, despite making up 48.6% of L.A. County’s population and 39.4% of California’s population (see Figure 1). However, in December 2022, Latinos came to make up more than a third of the L.A. Times Editorial Board, more than tripling their representation in one and a half years. Even with the increase in Latino representation in the L.A. Times Editorial Board, there is still a 12-percentage point gap in representation relative to the Latino share of the population in L.A. County. To achieve representation of Latinos that adequately reflects the local county population, the L.A. Times Editorial Board would need to add one new Latina/o/x member.

Figure 1: Latino Representation as a Share of the L.A. Times Editorial Board, L.A. County Population, and California Population in 2021 and 2022

Sources: UCLA LPPI analysis of L.A. Times Editorial Board composition in June 2021 and December 2022. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates (2019), Table B01001 and U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates (2021), Table B01001. Sex by Age, available online; U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates (2019), Table B01001I. Sex by Age (Hispanic or Latino), available online.

Relative to other comparable newspapers ²⁰, the L.A. Times Editorial Board had the second-largest proportion of Latinos (37.5%), just behind the Miami Herald (60%). However, when compared with the Latino population in each newspaper’s county, the L.A. Times has a smaller representation gap than The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News, a larger representation gap than the Miami Herald, and a similar representation gap to The Washington Post (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Latino Share of the Editorial Boards of the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Miami Herald, and The Dallas Morning News Compared with the Latino Share of the Population in the Outlets’ State and County of Publication, 2022

Sources: UCLA LPPI analysis of Editorial Board composition in June 2021 and December 2022; Los Angeles Times, “About The Times Editorial Board,” available online; The Washington Post, “Leadership of the Washington Post Opinions section,” available online; The New York Times, “The New York Times Editorial Board,” available online; Miami Herald, “Meet the Editorial Board,” available online; Dallas Morning News, “Meet the Dallas Morning News Editorial Board,” available online; U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates (2019), Table B01001 and U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates (2021), Table B01001. Sex by Age, available online; U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates (2019), Table B01001I. Sex by Age (Hispanic or Latino), available online.

Between 2021 and 2022, the L.A. Times increased the representation of Latinos on its editorial board more substantially than any of the other comparable publications analyzed here. Thus, the representation gap between Latinos on the board and Latinos in the county’s population decreased from 37.5 percentage points to only 11.6 percentage points (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Latino Representation Gap Between Editorial Boards and Respective County Populations of the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Miami Herald, and The Dallas Morning News, 2021 and 2022

Sources: UCLA LPPI analysis of Editorial Board composition in June 2021 and December 2022; Los Angeles Times, “About The Times Editorial Board,” available online; The Washington Post, “Leadership of the Washington Post Opinions section,” available online; The New York Times, “The New York Times Editorial Board,” available online; Miami Herald, “Meet the Editorial Board,” available online; Dallas Morning News, “Meet the Dallas Morning News Editorial Board,” available online; U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates (2019), Table B01001 and U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates (2021), Table B01001. Sex by Age, available online; U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates (2019), Table B01001I. Sex by Age (Hispanic or Latino), available online.

Latino Representation in Op-Ed Authorship

Although most L.A. Times op-ed pieces were still written by non-Latino authors, Latino representation in authorship more than doubled from 2021 to 2022 (see Figure 4). In 2022 around 10% of L.A. Times opinion pieces were authored by at least one Latino writer—an increase from the 4.3% of pieces authored by a Latina/o/x writer between January 2020 and May 2021. Although there has been an increase in Latino authorship, the number of Latino-authored op-eds would need to increase nearly fivefold to achieve proportional representation with the Latino population of L.A. County (49.1%).²¹

Figure 4: Percent of Op-Ed Pieces in the L.A. Times Authored by at Least One Latino, January 2020 – May 2021 and January 2022 – December 2022

Source: Analysis by UCLA LPPI based on the random selection of 120 dates in 2022. See the methodological appendix for details on the randomization.
Notes: UCLA LPPI was unable to confirm the ethnicity of 26 authors in the 432 op-eds analyzed. Three of the 432 op-eds analyzed were written by an author of unknown gender.

Latinas are particularly underrepresented as L.A. Times op-ed authors. In 2022, more than 60% of op-eds were written solely by men, 32.6% by at least one non-Latina woman, and less than 6% by at least one Latina (see Figure 5). In comparison, our 2021 report found that an estimated 59% of op-eds were written solely by men, 39.5% by at least one non-Latina woman, and only 1.4% by at least one Latina.

Although Latina authorship has increased by nearly five percentage points, Latinas are still 10 times less likely to author an L.A. Times op-ed than a white male author and about 5 times less likely to author an op-ed than non-Latina women.

Figure 5: Percent of Op-Ed Pieces in the L.A. Times by Gender and Race/Ethnicity of Author, January 2020 – May 2021 and January 2022 – December 2022

Source: Analysis by UCLA LPPI based on the random selection of 120 dates in 2022. See the methodological appendix for details on the randomization.
Notes: UCLA LPPI was unable to confirm the ethnicity of 26 authors in the 432 pieces analyzed. Three of the 432 op-eds analyzed were written by an author of unknown gender.

Percent of Latino and Non-Latino Authors Who Wrote More Than One Op-Ed

Latino authors were less likely than non-Latino authors to be published more than once in the L.A. Times op-ed pages. Only 12% of Latino authors were published more than once compared to 13.6% of non-Latino authors (see Figure 6). Comparing these 2022 figures to our 2021 report, the almost 4 percentage point increase in the number of Latino authors who published more than once from 2021 to 2022 led to the Latino and non-Latino repeat rates to be almost identical.

Figure 6: Percent of Latino and Non-Latino Authors Who Wrote More Than One Op-Ed in the L.A. Times Between January 2022 and December 2022

 

Source: Analysis by UCLA LPPI based on the random selection of 120 dates in 2022. See the methodological appendix for details on the randomization. Notes: UCLA LPPI was unable to confirm the ethnicity of 26 authors in the 432 op-eds analyzed.

Centrality of Latinos in the Content of L.A. Times Op-Eds

Explicitly centering underserved communities in policy debates, designs, and interventions is key to reducing structural inequities that have historically disadvantaged communities of color. Policy debates that fail to highlight the needs and priorities of a certain demographic may lead to race-neutral policies that ignore existing inequities, thus perpetuating or deepening these inequities. Therefore, it is imperative to center the needs of underserved and minoritized communities in policy debates. Because op-eds often frame policy debates, we evaluated the degree to which Latino populations and communities were explicitly mentioned in op-eds.

Our analysis suggests that Latinos, their narratives, their lived experiences, and their policy needs remain largely invisible in the editorial content of the L.A. Times. As Figure 6 shows, over 88% of all op-eds did not include any content that unambiguously discussed Latino communities. This erasure of California’s largest racial or ethnic group could result in policy debates that are less likely to consider the specific needs of Latinos in the state or country.

However, the number of LA Times op-eds that moderately or centrally focused on Latinos did increase from 2021 to 2022. Comparing the 2022 figures to our 2021 report, we saw a 5.4-percentage point increase, from 1.8% to 7.2%, in the number of opinion pieces that are focused centrally on Latinos and a 1.6 percentage point increase, from 3% to 4.6 %, in pieces moderately focused on Latinos (see Figure 7).

Figure 7: Centrality of Latinos in the Content of Op-Eds Published by the L.A. Times Between January 2022 and December 2022

 

Source: Analysis by UCLA LPPI based on the random selection of 120 dates in 2022. See methodological appendix for details on the randomization.

Notably, op-eds written by Latino authors were more likely to focus on Latino issues. Our analysis found that author background is closely correlated with the centrality of Latino content in L.A. Times op-eds (see Figure 8). Nearly 58% of op-eds written by Latino authors were either moderately or centrally focused on Latinos and their communities. In contrast, less than 6.5% of op-eds without a Latino author were either moderately or centrally focused on Latinos.

These data suggest that actively recruiting and retaining Latino authors would be an important first step in increasing the number of op-eds authored by Latinos and, consequently, the visibility and centrality of Latino issues in op-eds.

In comparison with our 2021 report’s calculations, the op-eds centrally focused on Latinos that were written by at least one Latino author increased by 22 percentage points. For op-eds with no Latino author, op-eds centrally focused on Latinos rose by 1.3 percentage points. Additionally, the pieces moderately focused on Latinos with no Latino author increased by 2 percentage points.

Figure 8: Centrality of Latinos in the Content of Op-Eds Published in the L.A. Times by Latino and Non-Latino Authors, January 2020 – May 2021 and January 2022 – December 2022

Source: Analysis by the UCLA LPPI based on the random selection of 120 dates in 2020 and 60 random dates in the first five months of 2021. See the methodological appendix for details on the randomization. Source: Analysis by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative based on the random selection of 120 dates in 2022. See the methodological appendix for details on the randomization.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The findings in this report show two clear patterns that illuminate the hard work that still needs to be done to better represent Latinos in the opinion and editorials section of the L.A. Times. First, Latinos, their narratives, their lived experiences, and their policy needs remain largely invisible in both authorship of op-eds and in the substantive content of the L.A. Times. Around 90% in 2022 had no Latina/o/x authors in 2022 and over 88%  did not include any content that unambiguously discussed Latino communities. This invisibility has grave and material consequences for Latinos –the largest racial or ethnic group in California– since opinion and editorial pieces play a significant role in shaping public opinion and policy outcomes. The dearth of published Latino authors and the limited coverage of Latino issues in published opinion pieces by non-Latino authors in the L.A. Times cripples accurate and nuanced coverage of Latino communities. This lack of Latino representation leaves room for damaging narratives that have led to the exploitation, expulsion, and economic segregation of Latinos across the country.

Despite the persistent underrepresentation of Latinos documented by the data, tremendous growth has occurred between the 2021 report and today. First, Latino representation in the L.A. Times editorial board increased three-fold and is much closer to representational parity with the share of Latinos residing in Los Angeles County.  Second, authorship of pieces by Latina/o/x authors more than doubled between the first and second report. Third, the proportion of opinion pieces that centered Latinos and their communities in their content more than tripled between 2021 and 2022. This growth, while commendable, requires permanency in the direction and magnitude of Latino inclusion.

Thus, we recommend the following steps to strengthen and accelerate institutional and procedural changes that can lead to better Latino representation:

1. Expand the editorial board and strengthen hiring and retention practices to ensure that the perspectives of Latinos and other communities of color are included in the strategic tables of the Opinion section for years to come. With the growth of Latinos and other communities of color in and beyond California, the representational needs will continue to increase. Meeting the descriptive and substantive representational needs of a diversifying society necessitates the expansion of the board along with strong retention strategies to support historically underrepresented voices.
2. Create a strategic plan to increase Latino representation in the opinion and editorials section that articulates a satisfactory North Star and reasonable time period to achieve parity. Besides the diversification of the board, the staff of editors who receive, review, and accept or reject Opinion pieces for publication needs to be trained and empowered to apply deep knowledge of Latino issues to the editorial selection process to achieve an articulated North Star for this section. The diversity in recruitment and retention of editorial staff is also integral to move towards a set of organizational practices that can better achieve Latino parity. The criteria used to determine what to publish must be amended to ensure historically marginalized groups, including Latinos, are selected and covered in this section. As part of this plan, create a community ad hoc group to inform the editorial and opinion section leadership and staff on emerging issues, promote the integration of best practices, and institute an accountability avenue for progress.
3. Commit necessary resources to diversify the submissions pool to the section through a tailored outreach program centered on increasing Latina/o/x representation and inclusion. With the browning and aging of California and the nation, the paper needs to invest in a 5-year pilot to increase the descriptive and substantive representation of letters to the editor, opinion pieces, and columnists from a Latino lens. This can include partnerships focused on cultivating and publishing emerging and mid-career commentators, partnerships with Latina/o/x scholars from California and the Southwest and investing in a cohort model of commentators or regional communities to increase representation from underrepresented communities.
4. Create strong partnerships with the University of California (UC), the California State University (CSU), and the California Community Colleges systems through training programs, practicums, and fellowships to encourage the penmanship and submission of opinion pieces by a new generation of young leaders. Asian Americans and Latinos are the fastest-growing and most youthful demographic groups in California and across the U.S., and focusing on emerging voices is a proven method of diversifying perspectives and remedying historical exclusion.
5. Create and enhance transparent data collection systems that allow community partners to track changes in the diversity of both L.A. Times staff and authors of opinion pieces with the following specifications:
   1. Create a specific section in In the L.A. Times diversity and inclusion report for employees who work in the Opinion and Editorials section, and provide details on their gender, racial and ethnic backgrounds.
   2. Report the demographic composition of the authors of all opinion pieces submitted to the newspaper, broken down by the acceptance or rejection status of the pieces they submitted.

Methodological Appendix

Date Randomization 

To analyze a representative sample of all op-eds and editorials published by the L.A. Times in 2022, we randomly selected 120 dates. Dates were randomized using a simple randomization scheme, with all the dates holding an equal chance of inclusion in the sample. Randomization was conducted using the sample and sequence functions in R. The dates presented in the appendix are organized by month, date, and year.

Table A1: Randomized Dates for January 2022 through December 2022 Los Angeles Times Op-Eds

Notes: Op-Eds published in the dates with an asterisk were analyzed using the Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine was used to analyze inaccessible op-eds.

L.A. Times Editorial Board Members

Our data analysts analyzed the demographics of the following members of the L.A. Times editorial board on December 31, 2022.

Table A2: Members of the Editorial Board of the Los Angeles Times in December 31, 2022

End Notes

1 U.S. Census Bureau, “Quick Facts Los Angeles City, California; Los Angeles County, California,”, accessed May 25, 2023 available online.

2 Misael Galdamez, Michael Rios, Michael Herndon, Ana Oaxaca, Palmer Turnbell, and Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, Latino Voters In The 2021 Recall Election (Los Angeles: UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute, 2021), available online.

Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, Angela Gutierrez, Michael Herndon, Michael Rios, Tye Rush, Nick Gonzalez, Kassandra Hernandez, Ana Oaxaca, Marcel Roman, and Daisy Vera, Vote Choice Of Latino Voters In The 2020 Presidential Election (Los Angeles: UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute, 2021), available online.

Laura E. Martinez, Arturo Vargas Bustamante, Yohualli Balderas-Medina Anaya, Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, Seira Santizo,  Sonja Diaz, and David Hayes-Bautista, Covid-19 In Vulnerable Communities: An examination by race/ethnicity in Los Angeles and New York City (Los Angeles: UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute, 2021), available online.

3 Bob Sommer and John R. Maycroft, “Influencing Public Policy: An Analysis of Published Op-eds by Academics,” Politics & Policy no. 36 Issue 4 (2008): 586–613.

4 Los Angeles Times, “About the Los Angeles Times.” Los Angeles Times. (2023) available online.

5 Nakho Kim and Ho Young Yoon, “Purchasing Diversity: A Media Ecology Analysis on the Recruitment of Newspaper Op-ed Columnists” International Journal of Communication, no. 16 (2022): 3581-3598.

See also Stephen S. Rosenfeld, “The Op-Ed Page: A Step to a Better Democracy” The International Journal of Press/Politics, no. 5, Issue 3 (2000): 7-11.

6 You Li, and Esther Thorson, “Increasing news content and diversity improves revenue” Newspaper Research Journal  no. 36 Issue 4 (2015): 382–398.

7 Antonio Flores and Mark Hugo Lopez, “Among U.S. Latinos, the Internet Now Rivals Television as a Source for News” Pew Research Center, January 18, 2018, available online. Noting that in 2016, 91% of Latino millennials got news from the internet on a typical weekday and 91% said they get at least some of their news in English.

8 Tyler Reny and Sylvia Manzano, “The Negative Effects of Mass Media Stereotypes of Latinos and Immigrants,” Media and Minorities 4 (2016): 195-212.; Eduardo Gonzalez. “Stereotypical Depictions of Latino Criminality: U.S. Latinos in the Media During the MAGA Campaign,” Democratic Communiqué 28, no. 1 (2019): 46-46.; Travis L. Dixon, Kristopher R. Weeks, and Marisa A. Smith, “Media Constructions of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. 2019.

9 Kim Garcia, Sarah Perez-Sanz, Pamela Mejia, and Heather Gelhert, “Elevating Latino Experiences and Voices in News about Racial Equity: Findings and Recommendations for More Complete Coverage,” (Berkeley: Berkeley Media Studies Group and UnidosUS, 2023), available online.

10 U.S. Government Accountability Office. “Hispanic Underrepresentation in the Media.” U.S. GAO, Posted on September 23, 2021. available online.

11 Chamian Y Cruz and Lynette Holman, “The Media and Race in the Trump Era: An Analysis of Two Racially Different Newsrooms’ Coverage of BLM and DACA,” Howard Journal of Communications, no. 33 Issue 2 (2022): 197-215.

12 Chamian Y Cruz and Lynette Holman, “The Media and Race in the Trump Era: An Analysis of Two Racially Different Newsrooms’ Coverage of BLM and DACA,” Howard Journal of Communications, no. 33 Issue 2 (2022): 197-215.

13 World Economic Forum, “Tackling Diversity and Inclusion in the Newsroom” Global Future Council on Media, Entertainment and Sport, Community Paper, July 2021. available online.

14 Taemin Ahn, Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, Nick Gonzalez, and Sonja Diaz, Unseen and Unheard: The Underrepresentation of Latino Voices and Stories in the Los Angeles Times Opinion and Editorials Section (Los Angeles: UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute, 2021), available online.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

17 For a list of the randomly selected dates and other methodological notes, see Appendix A.

18 Altheide, David L. and Christopher J. Schneider, Qualitative Media Analysis Vol. 38, (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2012).

Douglas, Evans, W. and Alec Ulasevich, “News Media Tracking of Tobacco Control: A Review of Sampling Methodologies,” Journal of Health Communication 10, no. 5 (2005): 403-417.

19 The list of the nine editorial board members included in the analysis and their racial/ethnic codes based on our analysis is included in the methodological appendix.

20 We compared the diversity of The L.A. Times Editorial Board with that of comparable newspapers: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, and The Dallas Morning News. We selected The New York Times and The Washington Post because they are two print news outlets with national profiles, and The Miami Herald and The Dallas Morning News because both are print media outlets in cities and states with high concentrations of Latinos.

21 U.S. Census Bureau, “Quick Facts Los Angeles City, California; Los Angeles County, California,”, accessed May 25, 2023 available online.