FAIR study finds PBS guest lists skew white, male, Republican, and corporate

[babylonsister]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201010190017


FAIR study finds PBS guest lists skew white, male, Republican, and corporate

October 19, 2010 1:10 pm ET by Jamison Foser


FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) has a new report arguing that PBS is falling far short of its mandate to "give voice to those 'who would otherwise go unheard' and help viewers to 'see America whole, in all its diversity.'" Among FAIR's findings relating to PBS Newshour:

* "The NewsHour's guestlist was 80 percent male and 82 percent white, with a pronounced tilt toward elites who rarely 'go unheard,' like current and former government and military officials, corporate representatives and journalists (74 percent). Since 2006, appearances by women of color actually decreased by a third, to only 4 percent of U.S. sources."

* "Viewers were five times as likely to see guests representing corporations (10 percent v. 2 percent) than representatives of public interest groups who might counterweigh such moneyed interests--labor, consumer and environmental organizations."

* "While Democratic guests outnumbered Republican guests nearly 2-to-1 in overall sources, Republicans dominated by more than 3-to-2 in the program's longer format, live segments. (FAIR's 2006 NewsHour study, which examined a period when Republicans controlled the White House and Congress, showed Republican guests outnumbering Democrats in both categories: 2-to-1 among all sources, 3-to-2 in the longer live interviews.)"

* "On segments focusing on the Afghan War, though polls show consistent majorities of Americans have opposed the war for more than a year, not a single NewsHour guest represented an antiwar group or expressed antiwar views. Similarly, no representative of a human rights or humanitarian organization appeared on the NewsHour during the study period."

There's much more, including analysis of guests on Washington Week, The Charlie Rose Show, and Need to Know. This nugget about The Charlie Rose Show sums things up: "Of the 132 guest appearances, just two represented the public interest voices that public television is supposed to highlight (equaling the number of celebrity chefs who appeared)."

[Hannah Bell]

1. there's no media outlet that doesn't.

[glinda]

3. Still no excuse for this being the norm. Something must be done.

Am thinking there needs to be a media conglomerate formed that will be just plainly progressive, truth seeking and informative.

[cyberswede]

2. ...to the shock of no-one.

Remember when they allowed that creep David Horowitz to comment on Howard Zinn when he died? Disgusting.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

4. Do they count Sean Penn or George Clooney as part of the "white, male"....

...thing with Charlie Rose? Just curious.

[unblock]

6. haha! and yet, that's how republicans count "fairness"

when they say foxnews is "fair and balanced", their official rationalization is that it's a fair counterbalance to all that "liberal programming", where they count any sitcom that acknowledges the existence of homosexuality or religions other than christianity as "liberal", or which feature known liberals such as penn or clooney or robbins or sarandon regardless of subject matter.

so if you ask a right-winger, it only counts as conservative bias if it's a republican advocating specifically to vote for republicans, and it's liberal bias if it involves any liberal or any democrat, even if they're on air only to talk about a apolitical movie, or if the subject matter involves any discussion of anything that isn't completely right-wing.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

7. Honestly, when Charlie has those guys on.....

.....it's not usually to talk about an apolitical movie. They get very deep into a lot of political topics, it's not like a typical Jay Leno/David Letterman interview. He's got a great show. I don't deny though that PBS and even more so, NPR is trying kowtow to the right. No different than CNN. I just don't feel Charlie has modified his guest list over the years to reflect that.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

5. What to you expect from the Petrolium Broadcast System

Just like the rest of the media and our politicians, they are bought and paid for by big oil, big pharma and big Ag.

[upi402]

8. F.A.I.R. absolutely rocks!

I used to read Extra! all the time.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4

I stopped donating to PBS when they refused to air 'The Panama Deception' and played that bogus justification of the Warren Commission's bullshit.
But then, without Frontline, Brooksley Born would have evaporated into a finer mist still.
Frontline: The Warning -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXUQZP4mmwU

I call that a deathgasp more than evidence of a functioning 4th estate.