Sunday Show Silence
Does Lack of Response from Networks Indicate Agreement with Media Matters' New Report on Guest Imbalance?
Report is available online at www.SundayShowReport.com.
Washington, DC - Two days after the release of Media Matters for America's report criticizing the imbalance of network Sunday talk shows, executive producers at ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox News remain strangely silent. Despite repeated requests by Media Matters and members of the media, the networks have failed to directly address the findings of the report.
The report, titled "If It's Sunday, It's Still Conservative," documents the continued dominance of Republican and conservative voices on Sunday shows. This silence stands in stark contrast to a report Media Matters published in 2006, which documented similar findings and received rapid response.
"Last year, NBC, ABC, and CBS all went on the record to respond to the findings of our first report," said Karl Frisch, Media Relations Director for Media Matters. "This year, we issue a report directly challenging their past responses, and we hear nothing. Either for the first time in television history, network talk shows have nothing to say, or they have accepted our findings and are taking steps to correct their mistakes. I'm afraid to say which scenario is more likely."
After the initial 2006 report, "If It's Sunday, It's Conservative," which analyzed more than 7,000 guests on the Sunday shows during the Clinton and Bush presidencies and found a Republican-conservative tilt during both administrations, network executive producers attributed their lack of balance to the Republican control of Congress and the White House.
2006 responses:
"Republicans are in power. I bet you'd find the same thing during Clinton's administration." -- Carin Pratt, executive producer of CBS' Face the Nation
"Members of the administration -- members of the president's staff and cabinet, most of whom are Republican -- are often guests on the show. Their segments more often than not are either followed by or include a guest with an opposing voice." -- spokesperson for ABC's This Week
"One needs to consider that the party holding the presidency also has a cabinet full of major newsmaker guests that speak to U.S. policy matters -- Defense, State, Justice, Treasury, etc. The same would be true for the eight years of the Clinton administration when the cabinet was, by and large, filled with Democrats."-- Betsy Fischer, executive producer of NBC's Meet the Press
Media Matters' most recent report shows that although control of Congress has switched hands, networks have barely changed their practices; the under-representation of Democrats and progressives has clearly continued in the months following the midterm elections, with the exception of one show, ABC's This Week. Data presented in the new report calls the credibility of the Sunday shows into question. Faced with these findings, the networks' silence only casts further shadow on the conservative domination of their booking practices.
"This imbalance existed on all the Sunday shows when Bill Clinton was president, and has continued throughout the presidency of George W. Bush, despite the transfer of power in Congress after the 2006 midterm elections," said Frisch. "Networks have a duty to impartially report the news, regardless of which party controls either end of Pennsylvania Avenue. It would be a risky proposition for network executives to think they could ignore empirical evidence and avoid damaging their reputation as the cornerstone of Washington's political media. I'm going to take their silence as a tacit nod in agreement."
About the Report & Media Matters for America
The report analyzed ABC's This Week, CBS' Face the Nation, NBC's Meet the Press, and Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, classifying each of the more than 2,000 guests in 2005 and 2006 as well as guests since the 2006 midterm elections by party and/or ideology. It follows on last year's report, "If It's Sunday, It's Conservative," which analyzed more than 7,000 guests on the Sunday shows during the Clinton and Bush presidencies and found a Republican-conservative tilt during both administrations. As the new findings demonstrate, despite some improvement, considered as a whole, the Sunday shows still don't offer a full range of diverse views to the public.
Media Matters for America is a not-for-profit, progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.
Read "If It's Sunday It's Still Conservative," this year's report, online at:
Read "If It's Sunday, It's Conservative," last year's report, online at:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200602140002
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