News Release: Ethnic & Gender Disparities Found on Prime-Time Cable News

Washington, D.C. -- Media Matters for America today released Gender and Ethnic Diversity in Prime-Time Cable News, a special report documenting the continued lack of gender and racial/ethnic diversity of guests on major prime-time cable news programs. The report comes more than a year since the controversy over Don Imus' racist and sexist comments regarding the Rutgers University women's basketball team sparked a national debate about media diversity and the racial divide that persists in this country.

This new report follows up on the findings of a similar report released last year by Media Matters, Locked Out: The Lack of Gender and Ethnic Diversity on Cable News, which found that in the wake of the Imus controversy, guests on prime-time cable new programs were still overwhelmingly white and male.

Gender and Ethnic Diversity in Prime-Time Cable News examined four programs on each of the three cable news networks (CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC) during prime time, and recorded the gender and ethnicity of every guest who appeared during the month of May 2008 -- 1,699 guest appearances in all. The report's findings demonstrate that whatever effort the networks have made to increase the diversity of their guests has borne little fruit, at least in prime time.

'By underrepresenting specific demographic groups from the national conversation, the cable news networks send the not-so-hidden message that only white men are credible enough to be interviewed. To treat women and ethnic minorities as mere novelty guests for race- and gender-related topics implies they're ignorant or less qualified to speak on other important news items,' said J. Jioni Palmer, a Media Matters spokesman. 'Integrating a more diverse, more representative pool of qualified speakers can add depth and enhance the quality of discussion. The networks risk nothing but a boost in credibility.'

Key findings include:

* In total, 67 percent of the guests on these cable programs were men, while 84 percent were white.

* MSNBC featured the greatest gender imbalance, with 70 percent of its guests being male. CNN and Fox News were not far behind; each of those networks featured 65 percent male guests.

* Fox News was the whitest network, with 88 percent white guests. CNN and MSNBC were close behind, with both featuring 83 percent white guests.

* Latinos were particularly underrepresented. Though they now comprise 15 percent of the U.S. population, they made up only 2.7 percent of the guests. The worst of the three networks on this score was MSNBC, which featured only 6 prime-time appearances by Latinos during the entire month (out of a total of 460 guest appearances).

* A number of ethnic groups were shut out entirely, or nearly so, on some networks. During this month, there was only one appearance by an Asian-American on MSNBC, and only one on Fox News. Across all three networks, there were only four appearances by someone of Middle Eastern descent.

* Though white men make up only 32 percent of the population, they made up 57 percent of the guests on prime-time cable during this period. The host of every single prime-time cable show is white, and all but two (Greta Van Susteren of Fox News and Campbell Brown of CNN) are men.

Report is available online at:

http://mediamatters.org/action_center/media_diversity/