How diverse are City Cast Salt Lake’s guests?

When we launched City Cast Salt Lake in December 2021, we committed to tracking–and publishing–demographic information about our podcast guests. Diversity is a core City Cast value, and we aim to invite guests on our podcasts who are diverse in age, race and ethnicity, gender, economic background, and geography. 

So are we living up to our values? How diverse is our guest pool, really?

We ask our City Cast Salt Lake podcast guests about their gender identity, racial/ethnic identity, and neighborhood. 

Here are the results, and below them a few notes on where we can improve. 

Salt Lake has data on 105 guests who collectively made 141 podcast appearances from Jan. 1, 2022-July 1, 2022. About 80 percent of the guests answered at least one question. 

• About 66 percent of our Salt Lake guests identified as white, about 10 percent as Black, about 9 percent as Hispanic/Latinx, about 9 percent as Asian or Asian American, about 4 percent as Native, and about 3 percent as Pacific Islanders.
  • According to the Census, 65 percent of Salt Lake City residents are non-Hispanic White, 3 percent are Black, 21 percent are Hispanic, 5 percent are Asian, 1 percent is Native, and 2 percent is Pacific Islander. 
  • Metro Salt Lake is 73 percent white, 2 percent Black, 17 percent Hispanic, 4 percent Asian, and 4 percent mixed or other. 
• About 48 percent of our Salt Lake guests identified as female. About 48 percent identified as male. About 2 percent identified as non-binary. 
• Our Salt Lake guests represented 27 different neighborhoods and towns. 

Conclusion

City Cast is doing a pretty good job representing the racial and ethnic diversity, gender diversity, and geographic diversity of Salt Lake. We’re featuring a broad variety of guests, and–with one significant exception–that variety pretty well matches the actual diversity of the city and the metro area. 

The exception is our under-representation of Hispanic/Latinx guests. There are understandable reasons for this shortfall: Many Hispanics and Latinx people are immigrants, and immigrant communities are traditionally hard for journalists to access. Some are probably non-English speakers. Podcast penetration is likely lower among Hispanic/Latinx residents of Salt Lake than among other groups, which makes them less likely to know City Cast Salt Lake and be part of the community we’re building. But it’s clear that we need to push to get more excellent Hispanic/Latinx guests on City Cast Salt Lake.