The Silly Rabbit is out tonight but will return next Saturday.
Three years ago, I decided to redo a project I had done in the 1980s for print media: look at the diversity of guests and analysts on the Sunday talk shows. I decided to watch six shows for a year. It turned into 16 months. In May 2010, I wrote my totally unsurprising results in Sunday Snooze Talk: The Skewpot:
More than four decades after the civil rights movement and the second wave of feminism delivered two new paradigms to the nation, my survey of the past 16 months of six Sunday television talk shows found them still to be dominated by men, whites and Republicans, particularly right-wing Republicans, with a geographical bias for the East and Midwest. This was true of the guests, reporters and pundits.
Moreover, the views of the left, while not wholly absent, are buried beneath a deluge of rightist, center-rightist and centrist narrative. Interviewers and roundtables are dominated by a handful of media outlets and anyone holding opinions more than a half a millimeter to the left of conventional Beltway wisdom is three times less likely to appear than someone on the far right. ..
It's not just who appears in the media, obviously. It is also very much who doesn't appear, whose opinions aren't seen at all. That, in part, is a function of the idea that all stories have only two sides, and as long as two sides are presented there's balance. Never mind that those two sides on a particular day may well be from the perspective of the right and the center or center-right. The truth is that most stories—especially political, economic and cultural stories—have more than two sides. Because the media are so subordinated to external power, the bias covers not only what gets talked about, but also what doesn't. ...
Has the line-up changed? Do shows like "Fareed Zakaria's GPS" make a difference? Will Chris Hayes's Sunday show, now just three months old, break the stranglehold of the status quo, boring redundancy and bullshit? In an era when the narrative grip of television news, in general, and the Sunday shows, in particular, is slipping away anyhow, does it even matter?
The schedule:
Meet the Press: Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH); South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R); Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. Roundtable: Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne; Republican strategist Mike Murphy.
Face the Nation: Bob Schieffer will interview Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.
This Week: Christiane Amanpour will interview Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman. Diane Sawyer (ABC News anchor), George Stephanopoulos (who will take over as host of "This Week" Jan. 8), Jake Tapper (ABC News senior White House correspondent) and John Berman (ABC News).
Fox News Sunday: Chris Wallace will interview Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Roundtable: Ed Rollins (Republican campaign consultant), Evan Bayh (Fox News), Bill Kristol (neo-conservative legacy heir) and Juan Williams (Fox News)
State of the Union: Joe Johns fills in for Candy Crowley. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.); Sen. Robert Menendez (D- N.J.,); Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman; former presidential envoy to Iraq, Paul Bremer; former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright (Ret.); Robin Wright author of “Rock the Casbah.” Reliable Sources: “The Press Pool” host Julie Mason; National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru; Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank; Andrew Kaczynski, the 22-year-old who found an old video of Mitt Romney talking about the art of flip-flopping; Baltimore Sun television critic David Zurawik ; Hollywood Reporter columnist Marisa Guthrie; The Nation’s Dave Zirin; CBSSportsline.com columnist Gregg Doyel; Time’s managing editor Richard Stengel.
The Chris Matthews Show: Chris will be on hand to interrupt his guests about the best and worst moments of 2011. Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker; Time's Richard Stengel; chief NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd; and BBC Washington correspondent Katty Kay.
Fareed Zakaria GPS: Everybody seems eager to get in a few questions with the guy who is going to disappear in 15 days—Jon Huntsman; Harvard academic Tarek Masoud; energy expert Daniel Yergin.
60 Minutes: The show will air Anderson Cooper's story, "The Gardens of the Queen," about a Caribbean Sea coral reef and the endangered species that live there.
Stephen Colbert Show: It's all repeats this week: Monday—American Ballet Theatre dancer David Hallberg; Tuesday—Jack Abramoff; Wednesday—NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson; Thursday—The Black Keys band
The Daily Show: Monday—Republican strategist Ed Gillespie; Tuesday—actor Ralph Fiennes; Wednesday—Jonah Hill; Thursday—war photographer Ben Lowy
