Studies: Minorities Shut Out of Sunday and Prime Time Programs
Feature Story by Tyler Lewis - 8/9/2005
Minorities are under-represented on both the Sunday talk shows and in prime time television, according to new studies from the National Urban League (NUL) and the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (NAPALC) examining the diversity of television programming.The NUL study, released August 1 and titled Sunday Morning Apartheid: A Diversity Study of the Sunday Morning Talk Shows, analyzed five Sunday morning political talk shows - This Week with George Stephanopoulous (ABC), Face the Nation (CBS), Late Edition (CNN), Fox News Sunday (FOX) and Meet the Press (NBC) -- during an 18-month period from January 1, 2004 through June 30, 2005.
According to the report, blacks accounted for only 175, or 8 percent of the more than 2,100 guest appearances on the shows during this period.
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Juan Williams, who is a regular panel member of Fox News Sunday, accounted for 122 of the 175 guest appearances.
The NUL decided to examine Sunday morning shows, in which topics ranging from Iraq to welfare reform are discussed and debated, because they "play a unique and substantial role in the political discourse in America and, as such, lend themselves to greater scrutiny."
While the study did not focus on other minority groups, Lisa Navarette of the National Council of La Raza told The Washington Post, "I've seen many discussions of the Latino vote and immigration done with people who are not terribly knowledgeable about the people or the subject."
The NUL study comes on the heels of criticism of coverage of the disproportionate amount of time devoted to stories of missing persons cases involving white women.
National news did not pick up the story of Philadelphia native LaToyia Figueroa, a pregnant 24-year-old black woman missing since July 18, until blogger Richard Blair, sent a letter directly to Nancy Grace of CNN Headline News stating "...as tragic as the Natalee Holloway case may be, Natalee doesn't have a 7-year-old child wondering where she is..., " according to a July 29 Philadelphia Inquirer article.
Few Asian Americans are seen in prime time, according to NAPALC's study, titled Asian Pacific Americans in Prime Time: Lights, Camera and Little Action.
The report, which analyzed prime time series airing in fall 2004, found that among 113 prime time programs, only 13 featured at least one Asian Pacific Islander American (APIA) actor and only three shows, Lost, ER and Hawaii, included more than one APIA actor among the regular cast.
Hawaii has since been cancelled.
In a statement announcing the release of the study, NAPALC President Karen K. Narasaki said, "Because people tend to rely on characterizations from film and television to formulate beliefs about groups with whom they may be less familiar, representations of Asian Pacific Americans on prime time television may impact the treatment and perceptions of APAs in real life."
