weekly-table


	May 14, 2007

Dear Friend,

Today, Media Matters for America released an eye-opening report, "Sunday Shutout: The Lack of Gender & Ethnic Diversity on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows." This report, focused on the important Sunday morning political talk shows, follows last week's report, "Locked Out: The Lack of Gender & Ethnic Diversity on Cable News Continues."

» Read the Reports and Take Action!

Our findings may surprise you. As you know, the controversy over Don Imus' bigoted comments sparked a national debate about the racial divide that persists in this country. These new reports find that despite calls for change from those in the media and the American people, women and people of color are still relegated to the back of too many newsrooms.

If we've learned anything from the Imus controversy, it is that the networks have the power to change and include more diverse voices. They can change today if they choose to.

» Read the Reports and Take Action!

The public's airwaves should reflect a diversity of views and personalities that mirrors the great diversity of the American people. These voices add perspective, depth, and value to the quality of our public discourse, whatever the issue at hand.

In today's "Sunday Shutout: The Lack of Gender & Ethnic Diversity on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows," we document how the influential, agenda-setting Sunday morning shows are dominated by white men, leaving women and people of color out of the public debate almost entirely. Some of this report's key findings include:

NBC's Meet the Press, ABC's This Week, CBS' Face the Nation, and Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday feature guest lists that are overwhelmingly white and male.

On average, men outnumber women on Meet the Press, This Week, Face the Nation, and Fox News Sunday by a 4-to-1 ratio.

On average, there were nearly seven white guests for every guest of any other race/ethnicity. On Meet the Press and Face the Nation, there were nearly nine white guests for every guest of another race/ethnicity.

The top-rated Sunday program -- Meet the Press -- shows the least diversity of all. The NBC program is the most male and nearly the most white (it gets beaten out by Face the Nation by 1 percentage point.)

In last week's report, "Locked Out: The Lack of Gender & Ethnic Diversity on Cable News Continues," we showed that despite a marginal improvement in the representation of African-Americans during coverage of the Imus controversy, the cable networks are back to business as usual. It's as if the cable news networks believe women and people of color are only capable of discussing issues of race and gender, not other important issues of the day. Some of this report's key findings include:

During the week of the Imus controversy, the cable networks brought on a significant number of African-Americans as guests. But both before and after the controversy, members of all minority groups, including African-Americans, were scarcely seen.

On the shows airing between 4 p.m. and midnight on the five cable news networks (CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, MSNBC, and Fox News Channel), there are 35 hosts and co-hosts -- 29 are men, 6 are women, and all 35 are white.

In the three weeks covered by this study, less than 2 percent of the guests on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC were Latino, despite the fact that one out of every seven Americans is Latino. Almost half of that small number of guest appearances by Latinos were by Geraldo Rivera.

Excluding African-Americans, in the three weeks covered by this study, Latinos, Asian-Americans, and members of other ethnic groups never made up more than 5 percent of the guests on any of the three cable networks, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.

On none of the networks, in none of the weeks studied, did women comprise half of the guests appearing. In some cases, they represented as little as one-fifth of all guests.

I urge you to read our latest reports and contact the networks. For your convenience, their contact information can be found in the right column of this email. Let them know you value a diversity of voices in the public discourse. Let them know you want to see positive and inclusive steps toward change today.

» Read the Reports and Take Action!

Once you've taken action, I encourage you to forward this email to your friends, family, and colleagues. By spreading the word about the lack of diversity on the public's airwaves, we are more likely to create the change we seek.

Thank you once again for your continued support.

Sincerely,

David Brock,
President & CEO
Media Matters for America

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