ABC Owned Television Stations Launch Groundbreaking ‘Equity Report’ That Tracks and Measures Equities in 100 of the Largest Us Cities
‘Equity Report’ Reveals Significant Inequities in Police Diversity, Housing, Education and School Discipline, Environment and Health
ABC Owned Television Stations Set to Air Investigative News Stories Uncovering Health Insurance Inequities in the Hispanic and Latino Communities in Its Newscasts on Tuesday, Sept. 28, as Part of the Equity Report Findings
Today, ABC Owned Television Stations announce the public launch of its groundbreaking and proprietary “Our America Equity Report.” The Equity Report is an unprecedented data journalism tool to track and measure racial equity across 100 of the largest U.S. cities. Using the data, the stations go beyond the statistics to tell the stories of marginalized communities; and through solutions journalism, the stations additionally provide local and national resources to encourage a pathway to build more equitable communities. On Tuesday, Sept. 28, the eight-owned stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, Raleigh Durham and Fresno will air their latest investigative news stories powered by the Equity Report which uncovered gross inequities surrounding access to health insurance, particularly in Hispanic and Latino communities. This investigation follows recent similar analyses on police department diversity, home ownership inequities and education disparities, all powered by the Equity Report.
“The Equity Report represents an incredible amount of hard work and commitment from our data journalism team,” said Anna Robertson, vice president of Content & Partner Innovation. The Equity Report tracks equity, reports how cities are making progress, and offers ways for viewers to learn more, including a “Get Involved” page with community resources and a printable version of the report to start meaningful conversations.
“Our hope is that the Equity Report will become a vital tool toward progress around racial equity in our cities. By giving our communities access to dig into the data themselves, we can empower people to understand each other better and seek solutions to some of the biggest challenges we face,” added Robertson.
ABC’s data journalism team, led by Director of Data Journalism John Kelly, analyzed more than 10 million data points across five quality-of-life categories: policing, housing, education, health and environment. The results from the Equity Report are then used by ABC News and ABC Owned Television Stations’ investigative and race and culture journalists, who examine social issues, explore historical meaning, and provide greater context to the inequities impacting underrepresented and marginalized communities.
“The most rewarding result of this project is how it’s powering local journalism of consequence,” said Kelly. “While the Equity Report helps document and track the disparate quality of life peopleof color are experiencing, the full impact is seen when our reporters take those hard facts into neighborhoods to tell people’s stories or our investigators interview local leaders to hold them accountable.”
The Equity Report has already powered more than two dozen stories reported across ABC Owned Television Stations, as well as national investigations on ABC News, including an analysis of race and policing in America by ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas and featured on “Good Morning America.”
“By combining the power of local news and the efforts of the national team to bring together people and situations that fuel powerful stories like police diversity – the results are extraordinary and have a bigger impact with providing greater context and amplifying underrepresented voices,” said Mark Nichols, senior manager of data journalism for ABC News and ABC Owned Television Stations.
On Tuesday, Sept. 28, viewers in each of the eight ABC-owned markets can watch the hyperlocal investigative news stories focusing on health insurance inequities revealed in the Equity Report. Each newsroom reported that there is inequity in the number of people who do not have health insurance in most major metros across the country. Hispanic and Latino people in most cities lack insurance at a rate at least twice that of white people.
A comprehensive list of stories from the Equity Report can be found on OurAmericaABC.com, where users can peruse past stories of inequities that ABC Owned Television Stations uncovered.
Previous “Equity Report” stories include the following:
- Police Diversity – The Equity Report’s exclusive nationwide data analysis revealed that police officers in 99 of 100 U.S. cities are less diverse than the people they serve. In six metro areas coast to coast, 90% of officers are white.*
- Housing –The Equity Report analysis shows white families are more likely to have the advantage of owning their home in all 100 of the 100 metro areas studied, and the gaps are significant – more than 30 percentage points in more than half of metro areas.
- Education & School Discipline – The Equity Report examined thousands of schools and found stark disparities between the discipline (and resulting lost classroom time) for Black students and Latino students.
To understand how to use the Equity Report, viewers can watch an “Our America Equity Report” tutorial video. To “Get Involved,” individuals can search for resources on the Equity Report website under the ABC-owned markets of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, Raleigh–Durham and Fresno.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
*The police diversity analysis draws data for every community from a special tabulation of occupation data released this year by the Census Bureau.
About ABC Owned Television Stations
Disney Media Entertainment & Distribution’s eight owned ABC stations are multiplatform leaders in local news and information. Collectively No. 1 across all U.S. television, reaching 23% of households and more than 34 million Total Viewers and 62 million digital visitors a month, the eight stations are comprised of WABC-TV New York, KABC-TV Los Angeles, WLS-TV Chicago, WPVI-TV Philadelphia, KGO-TV San Francisco, KTRK-TV Houston, WTVD-TV Raleigh-Durham and KFSN-TV Fresno. The stations also deliver locally sourced storytelling to more than 17 million viewers across America through its multiplatform lifestyle network, Localish. In 2020, the stations received five Broadcast & Cable awards, including in the 2020 Best in Local TV Awards category as Station Group of the Year for its innovative and next-generation news reporting, and in the major market category for 2020: Best News Coverage, Best Digital Multiplatform or Website, Best Investigative Reporting Station Group and Best Public Affairs Programming, illustrating the group’s strength and ever-increasing growth and reach in the multiplatform space.
