An exhaustive new study by media watchdog Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting shows that the Sunday morning talk shows have been dominated over the last eight months by white, Republican men.
Between June 2011 and February of this year, 70 percent of all one-on-one interviewees on the four biggest political talk shows — NBC’s Meet the Press, ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation and Fox News Sunday — were Republicans. The numbers were even more lopsided in favor of men and white guests:
As FAIR notes, the bias in favor of Republicans is not entirely attributable to the presidential elections. While the lean towards the right is more pronounced than in years past thanks to the contentious Republican nomination contest, the heavy favor that Sunday show bookers have towards Republicans is not new. In 2004, a mirror image of 2012 in that Democrats were looking to unseat a Republican incumbent in the White House, Republicans still held a 57-43 percent edge in 2003, and a 56-44 percent advantage in 2004.
Compared to other metrics though, the imbalance of political ideology seems almost insignificant. Across all four shows over the eight month period, there were just 36 appearances by women during one-on-one interviews compared to 228 men. And of those 36, 17 were Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). Meanwhile, there 242 appearances by white guests, compared to just 15 by African-Americans (seven of those being Hermain Cain), four by Arab-Americans, and three by Latinos.
Between June 2011 and February of this year, 70 percent of all one-on-one interviewees on the four biggest political talk shows — NBC’s Meet the Press, ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation and Fox News Sunday — were Republicans. The numbers were even more lopsided in favor of men and white guests:
As FAIR notes, the bias in favor of Republicans is not entirely attributable to the presidential elections. While the lean towards the right is more pronounced than in years past thanks to the contentious Republican nomination contest, the heavy favor that Sunday show bookers have towards Republicans is not new. In 2004, a mirror image of 2012 in that Democrats were looking to unseat a Republican incumbent in the White House, Republicans still held a 57-43 percent edge in 2003, and a 56-44 percent advantage in 2004.
Compared to other metrics though, the imbalance of political ideology seems almost insignificant. Across all four shows over the eight month period, there were just 36 appearances by women during one-on-one interviews compared to 228 men. And of those 36, 17 were Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). Meanwhile, there 242 appearances by white guests, compared to just 15 by African-Americans (seven of those being Hermain Cain), four by Arab-Americans, and three by Latinos.
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