In today’s Washing Post, is this article by Darryl Fears, Study: Few Blacks Seen on Talk Shows, sure to raise some feathers:
Only 8 percent of the guests on the major Sunday morning talk shows over the past 18 months were African Americans, with three people accounting for the majority of those appearances, according to a new study by the National Urban League.
Black guests — newsmakers, the journalists who questioned them and experts who offered commentary — appeared 176 times out of more than 2,100 opportunities, according to the study, which is scheduled for release today. But 122 of those appearances were made by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former secretary of state Colin L. Powell, and Juan Williams, a journalist and regular panel member on “Fox News Sunday.”
“There’s very clearly a division, an exclusion,” said Stephanie J. Jones, executive director of the Urban League Institute, who initiated the study, “Sunday Morning Apartheid: a Diversity Study of the Sunday Morning Talk Shows.”
[…]
The study analyzed NBC’s “Meet the Press,” ABC’s “This Week,” CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Fox television’s “Fox News Sunday” and CNN’s “Late Edition.” It found that more than 60 percent of the programs that aired during the 18-month period had no black guests. “Meet the Press,” the talk show with the largest number of viewers, had no black guests on 86 percent of its broadcasts, the study said.
[…]
Barbara Levin, senior communications director for NBC News, said that “Meet the Press” interviews “the same newsmakers who dominate the front pages and op-ed pages of every newspaper in America, including The Washington Post.”
And who should we find on today’s Meet the Press panel, but WaPo’s own Eugene Robinson.. 
From a less cynical point of view this shows that blacks are over-represented on these shows when compared to what percentage of the American demographic they represent.
Nifty.
Kalroy
Comment by Kalroy — 20050731 @ 1053
Just give me someone that has something intelligent to say. Otherwise.. I’m tired of hearing it.
Condi I could listen to for hours.
JC Watts? Put him on…
Sharpton? please.
Comment by obershyster — 20050731 @ 2153
Blacks make up more than 16% of the population yet they are 8% of the guests on the talk shows. On the other hand, whites comprise less than 70% of the population, yet make up more than 90% of the guests on the talk shows.
Obviously, it’s white guests who are over-represented, not blacks.
Comment by Marquette — 20050802 @ 0537
It’s nice that Meet the Press managed to put a black guest on Sunday - after being asked to comment on its failure to do so. Sounds like the study is already doing some good.
Blacks make up more than 16% of the population yet they are 8% of the guests on the talk shows. On the other hand, whites comprise less than 70% of the population, yet make up more than 90% of the guests on the talk shows.
Obviously, it’s white guests who are over-represented, not blacks.
Comment by Marquette — 20050802 @ 0539
Rice, Sharpton and Watts are not the only black newsmakers around. There are plenty of them and the networks should try to put some of them on. Who knows, they might even expose you to some that you didn’t even know about.
Comment by Marquette — 20050802 @ 0540