Data / Power / Who tells the story: 191 of 218 newsroom leaders in a 2022 count were general category

Methods and sources

Who tells the story: 191 of 218 newsroom leaders in a 2022 count were general category

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What this shows

The share of leadership positions, prime-time anchors and debate topics by caste category in the Indian news outlets one NGO-and-newsroom survey chose, 2021-22, with its 2019 edition.

What it does not show: A national figure, or caste as people declared it: the survey covers its own outlets, and its researchers placed people in categories themselves, the 2019 edition by matching surnames to examination results, which the 2022 edition used again.

Sources

  • Oxfam India and Newslaundry, “Who Tells Our Stories Matters: Representation of Marginalised Caste Groups in Indian Media” (covering April 2021 to March 2022), Key Highlights (p. 3); “Caste representation among the editors and proprietors of the all media in 2019 versus 2022” (p. 6); anchors tables (pp. 35 and 44); debate tables (pp. 7 and 8); Methodology (pp. 9 to 11), dated 14 Oct 2022. Survey by researchers or an NGO: a sample, not a national count.
  • Oxfam India and Newslaundry, “Who Tells Our Stories Matters: Representation of marginalised caste groups in Indian Newsrooms” (covering October 2018 to March 2019), Key Highlights (p. 6); Introduction and Methodology (pp. 1 to 5), dated 2 Aug 2019. Survey by researchers or an NGO: a sample, not a national count.

Analysis by The Dalit Project, as on 12 Oct 2026.

Read these with the numbers

  • Caste in both editions was assigned by the researchers, not declared: the 2019 edition mapped surnames to castes using examination results, and the 2022 edition used the same examination results with surveys, location and public-domain information. The Dalit Project’s own rule is never to infer caste from names.
  • The figures are for the outlets the study chose, not for Indian news media as a whole, and the report notes: “Therefore, the tally shown in the table may slightly differ with the actual numbers an organisation would have.”
  • The 2022 edition gives the general-category share three ways: 191 of 218 positions in its highlights (87.6%), 88.1% in its table, and “in 2019 showed over 88% representation of journalists from the general category and this year, it is around 86%” in its text. The table instead gives 86.18% for 2019 and 88.1% for 2022, the opposite direction; the 2019 edition itself counted 106 of 121 (87.6%). The report does not explain the differences.
  • The report’s summary says: “None of the mainstream media houses had people belonging to SC/ST categories in leadership roles. Two from SC/ST categories held leadership positions in two alternative media platforms.” Its tables by medium record SC leaders in several media.
  • Category names are the reports’ own. The 2022 edition’s categories are SC, ST, OBC, General, unavailable (UA) (for people belonging to religious minorities) and can't say (Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs). The anchors tables call the general category “Unreserved”.
  • The two editions chose different outlets and counted different posts as leadership, so a change between them is not a change in the same newsrooms.
  • No official count of the caste of journalists or newsroom leaders was found; the 2022 edition says: “In the absence of official data, it was nearly impossible for us to accurately determine the actual caste location of writers, panelists and anchors.”

Key terms

SC, ST, OBC
Scheduled Castes (the legal name for Dalit communities), Scheduled Tribes (Adivasi communities) and Other Backward Classes: the groups for whom the Constitution provides affirmative action.
General category
The report’s term for people outside the SC, ST and OBC lists. The 2019 edition says they are “commonly described as the upper castes”.
UA
“Unavailable”: the 2022 edition’s category for people belonging to religious minorities.
Can’t say
People the researchers could not place in a category; the 2022 edition also lists Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs here.
Leadership position
In 2022: editor-in-chief, managing editor, executive editor, bureau chief, resident editor, director, producer. In 2019: editor-in-chief, managing editor, executive editor, bureau chief, input/output editor.
Survey
A survey by researchers or an NGO, with a stated method and sample. Its figures cover its own sample.

Changelog and corrections

Version 1: First version: leadership positions, prime-time anchors and debate topics from the 2022 edition of “Who Tells Our Stories Matters” (April 2021 to March 2022), with the 2019 edition’s leadership figures for comparison.

How corrections work. Every change is listed here.

Cite this

The Dalit Project, “Who tells the story: 191 of 218 newsroom leaders in a 2022 count were general category”, version 1, data.dalitproject.org/newsrooms/, as on 12 Oct 2026.