Effective Date: March 2026 | Last Updated: March 2026 | Version 1.0
Policy Statement
The Gazette News is committed to equality of opportunity, inclusion, and diversity in every aspect of our operations — from the people we hire to the stories we cover, from the sources we quote to the communities we serve. This commitment is rooted in our editorial mission and in our belief that a news organisation is only as good as the breadth of perspective it brings to the journalism it produces.
Discrimination of any kind — on the basis of gender, ethnicity, religion, region of origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, economic background, or any other characteristic — has no place at The Gazette News. This policy applies to all staff, editors, freelance contributors, interns, and anyone acting on behalf of The Gazette News in any capacity.
1. Scope of This Policy
This Diversity Policy applies to:
- All employment decisions including recruitment, hiring, promotion, compensation, and termination
- All editorial decisions including story assignment, source selection, coverage framing, and publication
- All commissioning decisions for freelance, opinion, and contributed content
- All partnership, advertising, and commercial decisions where editorial diversity may be implicated
- All training and professional development opportunities offered by The Gazette News
- All conduct between members of the team in the course of their work
2. Equal Opportunity in Employment
The Gazette News recruits, hires, promotes, and compensates on the basis of ability, editorial judgment, professional experience, and commitment to our values. No candidate or employee will be treated less favourably on the basis of:
- Gender or gender identity
- Ethnicity, tribe, or national origin
- Religion or religious belief, including the absence of religious belief
- Region or state of origin within Nigeria
- Age
- Disability or health condition — physical or mental
- Sexual orientation
- Marital or family status
- Economic or educational background
- Political opinion — provided it does not conflict with our editorial independence requirements
This commitment applies at every stage of the employment relationship — from the wording of job advertisements to the terms of departure.
3. Inclusive Recruitment
The Gazette News takes the following specific measures to ensure our recruitment processes are genuinely inclusive:
Open and transparent advertising All vacancies are advertised publicly on our Careers page at https://thegazette.ng/about/careers/ and on platforms with broad reach across Nigeria, including platforms accessed by candidates from all geopolitical zones.
Geographic outreach We actively promote our vacancies in Nigerian states and communities that are chronically underrepresented in national newsrooms — including rural communities, Northern Nigerian states, and states in the South-East and South-South that lack significant national media representation.
Accessible application processes Application requirements are kept as simple as possible to avoid excluding talented candidates who lack resources for elaborate application preparation. We assess candidates on editorial ability and judgment, not on presentation skills or access to professional formatting tools.
Blind first-round assessment Where practicable, The Gazette News will assess writing samples and editorial pitches without reference to the candidate’s name, institution, or geographic origin in the first round of review.
Interview panel diversity Where a formal interview panel is convened, The Gazette News will ensure the panel includes perspectives that can assess the candidate’s suitability for coverage of communities and beats outside the panel members’ own direct experience.
4. Diversity in Editorial Coverage
The Gazette News recognises that newsroom diversity and coverage diversity are inseparable. A diverse team does not automatically produce diverse journalism, and diverse journalism cannot be consistently produced by a team that lacks the lived experience and sourcing networks that representative coverage requires.
We commit to the following editorial diversity standards:
- Geographic coverage equity No geopolitical zone of Nigeria is treated as less newsworthy than another. Stories from Yobe, Taraba, Ebonyi, and Bayelsa are national stories. Our editorial calendar and story assignment practices will reflect this.
- Source diversity We actively track the demographic diversity of the sources quoted in our journalism. Experts, commentators, and official sources should reflect the full range of Nigerian professional and community leadership — not just the male, urban, Southern voices that dominate most national coverage.
- Community voice Stories about communities must include the voices of members of those communities — not just officials, spokespersons, and external commentators speaking about them.
- Gender balance in sourcing The Gazette News tracks the ratio of male to female sources in our published journalism and works actively to increase female expert sourcing across all beats, including politics, economics, and security — areas where female expert voices are chronically underrepresented in Nigerian media.
5. Harassment and Discrimination
The Gazette News maintains a zero-tolerance policy for harassment and discrimination of any kind within our team, our working relationships, and our interactions with sources, subjects, and the public.
Harassment includes:
- Unwanted physical, verbal, or written conduct of a sexual, racial, ethnic, or religious nature
- Bullying, intimidation, or conduct designed to demean or exclude a colleague
- Discriminatory jokes, language, or behaviour in any communication channel
- Conduct that creates a hostile, degrading, or offensive working environment
Discrimination includes:
- Treating a colleague, contributor, or candidate less favourably on the basis of any protected characteristic
- Applying policies or practices that, while appearing neutral, disadvantage a particular group without justification
Any member of the team who experiences or witnesses harassment or discrimination should report it immediately to the Editor-in-Chief at editor@thegazette.ng. All reports will be treated with confidentiality and investigated promptly. Retaliation against anyone who makes a good-faith report is itself a serious disciplinary matter.
6. Accessible Working Environment
The Gazette News commits to making our digital working environment and editorial tools accessible to colleagues with disabilities. This includes:
- Assessing the accessibility of our content management system and editorial workflow tools
- Providing reasonable adjustments for colleagues with physical or mental health conditions that affect their working capacity
- Ensuring that our published content meets WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards for readers with visual, auditory, or cognitive impairments
7. Policy Review
This Diversity Policy will be reviewed annually by the Editor-in-Chief and updated to reflect changes in our team composition, operational capacity, and the evolving standards of diversity and inclusion practice in Nigerian and international journalism. The updated policy will be published on this page with a revised effective date.
8. Accountability
The Editor-in-Chief is personally accountable for the implementation of this policy. Progress against our diversity targets is reported publicly in our annual Diversity Staffing Report at https://thegazette.ng/about/diversity-staffing-report/
Feedback on the implementation of this policy is welcome at: editor@thegazette.ng
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