Anybody who still watches the Sunday morning political talk-show line-up is likely to say, "yeah, so what else is new?" in response to that headline. But it's always surprising to have confirmation of work done at Daily Kos from a branch of the mainstream media.
Brian Seltzer at The New York Times Media Decoder homed in recently on a study put together by law student Alex B. Mitchell for The Green Bag, a quarterly journal at George Mason University. Mitchell looked solely at guests who were also members of Congress who appeared on the five major Sunday talk shows - Meet the Press (NBC), This Week (ABC), Face the Nation (CBS), Fox News Sunday, and State of the Union (CNN) Collectively, the shows averaged 11.6 million viewers each Sunday during the 10 1/2 months of his study from February-December 2009, roughly equivalent to the first session of the 111th Congress:
Before every broadcast, the producers of Sunday morning talk shows must answer two basic questions: (1) what views will be represented on our show? and (2) who will present those views? When the topic involves policy and politics and the guest is a Member of Congress – as it often is – the answer to the first question has important implications for what millions of interested viewers learn about what matters in American policy and politics, and the answer to the second question is equally important for what those viewers learn about who matters in American politics. Members of Congress recognize this.
According to Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), for example, “It is the highest-profile opportunity to advance my party’s agenda. I make it a priority.“ This article examines how the talk shows answer the second question – the one about who matters. In short, the answer is that in 2009 the talk
shows told us (by their selection of congressional guests) that the people who matter are disproportionately white, male, senior, and Republican – disproportionate not just when compared to the American population overall, but also when compared to the population of Congress itself.
To be more precise: 14.6 percent of members of Congress were minorities, but 2.5 percent of the guests were minorities; 16.9 percent of members were female, but only 13.5 percent of the guests were; "30 white, male U.S. senators in office six plus years,” 5.6 percent of Congress, but 61.4 percent of the guests.
The Women and Politics Institute at American University came up with the same percentages for women in its study earlier this year.
Producers of Sunday shows say they work hard to book a wide array of guests, including many who are not members of Congress. “We are committed to having a diverse group of voices on the program whose opinions and expertise reflect the cultural, economic and political landscape of our country,” said Betsy Fischer, the executive producer of “Meet the Press” on NBC, the top-rated Sunday show.
Commitment to diversity hasn't produced diversity, however, as I pointed out in my own study, Sunday Snooze Talk: The Skewpot, published here four months ago. I covered the first 16 months of the Obama administration in that study. And I took a different approach than Mitchell, covering all the guests who appeared, not just Congresspeople, and adding a sixth show, CNN's Reliable Sources. Some of the results:
Elected Politicians, Past and Present
There were 137 individuals appearing on the Sunday talk shows who are now or have been governors, mayors, Representatives or Senators. Combined, they made 557 appearances. Of these, 242, or 43.3%were by Democrats and 315, or 56.6% were by Republicans. Not exactly fair and balanced even before calculating the D/R ratio in Congress. Of particular note, one independent Senator, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, made nine appearances, while the other independent, Bernie Sanders, made a single appearance.
The Top Eleven? Mitch McConnell, 25 appearances; John McCain (21), John Kyl (18), Lindsey Graham (18), Mike Huckabee (13), Charles Schumer (13), Kent Conrad (12), Dick Durbin (12), Dianne Feinstein (12), Newt Gingrich (12), Orrin Hatch (12). So, seven Republicans accounted for 38% of the total appearances by Republicans; and four Democrats accounted for 20% of total appearances by Democrats.
Seven members of the Black Caucus, 10 members of the Progressive Caucus (five of whom are also members of the Black Caucus), and four members of the Blue Dog Caucus appeared. The West was vastly underrepresented.
The Media
All told, 245 individual reporters, editors, columnists and other pundits appeared on the six shows. Of these, 94 (38%) were women, 210 (86%) were white, 28 (11%) were African American, four were Latino (1.6%), and there was one Asian-American, one Indian-American, and one Bangladeshi-American, (0.4% each).
These 245 appeared a total of 863 times. Of these, 773 (87%) were white, 112 (11%) were African American, four were Latino (0.3%), and four were Asian or South Asian in ancestry (0.4%). While that African American figure may look fairly reasonable, Juan Williams, on Fox News Sunday, appeared 56 times, accounting for half of the total appearances by black reporters and pundits.
Women of all races made 339 appearances, 38%.
The Top Eleven? Juan Willams (56), Bill Kristol (56), Mara Liasson (51), George Will (44), Brit Hume (28), David Brooks (20), Paul Krugman (16), Cokie Roberts (16), Sam Donaldson (15), Peggy Noonan (14), and Stephen Hayes (10). ...
Other Guests
And, finally, in the "other guests" category, there were 147 individuals. Of these, 15 were foreign nationals. Leaving them aside, 109 (82%) were white, 20 (14%) African American; two (1.5%) Latino, and two (1.5%) were of Middle Eastern or Indian subcontinent ancestry. Again, while the percentage of African American guests seems in line with population, six of them were basketball players, two were entertainers, and six others appeared solely to address racial issues. Only 26 in this category were women, 20% of the total.
Again, leaving out the foreign nationals, there were 185 appearances by these 132 individuals. Of these: 153 (83%) were by whites (with one by a basketball player and two by entertainers); 25 (13.5%) were by African Americans (six by basketball players, three by entertainers, and 10 by guests appearing solely to address racial issues. Latinos appeared three times (1.6%), and those of Middle Eastern or Indian subcontinent ancestry appeared four times (2%). Of the total 185 appearances, only 27 (14.5%) were by women.
[You can see my list of all guests at the link
As Eric Alterman noted in his outstanding 2003 book, What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias in the News, the idea the media might – because of who owns them, because of economic pressures, and because of outside political pressure –actually "be more sympathetic to conservative causes than liberal ones is widely considered to be simply beyond the pale." No matter what the evidence shows, the myth lives.