Gee, where do people get the idea that this is a center-right country anyway?
by digby
There’s a lot to think about in Media Matters’ latest survey of the Sunday shows, but this is the breakdown that always floors me:
It is bad enough that they don’t feature more women and people of color, regardless of ideology. But that the imbalance is also tilted toward white conservative males tells you everything you need to know about the Village.
I guess we are supposed to be grateful they allow women and people of color on their shows at all. But these numbers should be at least a little bit startling when you think about the fact that women are half the population and whites are quickly becoming a minority ethnic identity.
And both the Senate and the White House are held by Democrats. To be sure, that doesn’t mean that liberals are in a majority, but since Democrats represent the left in these statistics you’d think they’d at least be represented by more than 20% of the interviews on these shows. I suppose that’s explained by the fact that if you’re going to book a huge number of white males, you’re going to get a giant skew toward conservatives.
These shows still have an outsized influence on the political dialog in our country because every reporters and pundit takes their cue from them about what constitutes the important stories of the week and what the prevailing narratives are. And keep in mind that all of them see themselves as perfect examples of the average American.
*It should be noted that This Week tends to be more balanced than the others. Obviously Fox is the worst and somewhat skews the average. But even when you break it down by show, Face the Nation and Meet the Press are just terrible.
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