Study: Sunday Talk Shows Dominated By Conservative Guests

Think Progress:

In 2006, Media Matters conducted a study on Sunday political talk shows, finding that "Republicans and conservatives have been offered more opportunities to appear on the Sunday shows -- in some cases, dramatically so." From 2001 to 2005, conservative guests outnumbered progressives "by 58 percent to 42 percent." Atrios notes that tomorrow's shows will also be dominated by conservative guests:

Read the whole story: Think Progress

Comments

[majii]

I read an article last night from a Daily Kos link (I think) that says one of the repub strategies to revive their party may be to attract Lations and African Americans and "create" an "us" vs. "them" climate between the AAs and Ls and the gays and lesbians.

As an African American, this will never happen with me. Why? There is NO WAY that I'm going to discriminate against anybody and try to strip them of their civil rights after I've experienced this k#@p
myself for over 50 years and have been made to feel as if I'm a 2nd class ctizen in my own country. The Republicans can just forget it.

They can have all the conservatives they want on these shows because I don't watch them.

[rubinoff]

majii:

I hear ya, loud and clear....The repubs. like to 'use' people and once they get where they want,...they toss aside. Not many will ever fall for their okey-dokey.... given their past behavior, naw...no new members.

[wendynyc]

That's why they spread lies like global warming is a myth!

[tapley]

It has not been just today's lineup. I have noticed this trend for quite a while. That darn left wing liberal media.

[DrJohnS]

Curse that sneaky liberal media

[ramal]

Gosh, do you suppose that's why no one over 65 watches these programs???

[VivaZapata]

their ratings are nowhere near where they should be because they do not appeal to younger, potential viewers. they always pontificate as if they really know something about the economy or how the world works. it's not about being old; it's about posturing. the moderators (like brokaw) sound like hot air gas bags and the so called "experts" come off even worse. worse still is when the networks trot out a stuffed snot rag like george will/won't. If you wonder about the success of the daily report or the colbert report, it might have something to do with the fact that people would rather laugh at political pundshits than be forced to take them seriously.

[ByersL]

And we should be surprised? The powerful don't give up easily.

[tapley]

As then Senator Obama said on his stump, "Power concedes nothing". Certainly not easily.

[vaughan]

They should have some serious progressives on, and people who are unafriad to say they're liberals (like Rachel Maddow and others). Then people will realize how skewed to the right the media really is. The Democrats they have on are usually very, very moderate or conservative. Let's some more real, smart progressives!

[pmag88]

Has anyone noticed that both CNN and MSNBC are both running the Jonestown massacre specials simultaneously and running them a lot ? I realize that it's the 30th anniversary, but I wonder why if they find this one event so worthy, aren't they exposing some of the existing charlatans who are mileading millions into donating money and time to their cause?

I would love to see the people who put together the Jonestown stuff show some real courage and do an Expose on Sun Myung Moon and his influence over American politics and the media in general, and he's just one example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Myung_Moon

[fdavidm]

I'm actually enjoying all the Conservative Republicans like William Kristol appearing on TV 24/7. They're dying and Obama hasn't even taken the oath! They are FINALLY feeling the pain liberals such as I have felt for past eight years being led by the Villiage Idiot. Love it... love it... love it.

[TheSecularist]

This is news? I noticed this during Clinton's administration and assumed the networks were trying to attract viewers by having wall-to-wall hyperbolic republicans on their shows. It was rare to see a Democrat on those shows and, fearing I was getting biased information, I stopped watching. But when Bush came to office, I checked in to find republicans still dominated the Sunday talk shows with an occasional, inarticulate Democrat thrown in. That's when I stopped watching major network news as well as the Sunday talk shows and looked to other sources for information. it seemed obvious that the corporate media were part of the republican propaganda machine. If the US really is center right (forgive me for refusing to take anybody's word on that), network television bares a lot of the responsibility for making it that way.

[getoffmedz]

Not surprising since the right-wing owns MSM and besides, it is very doubtful these running pack dogs even know a moderate or Progressive to air.

Even with full MSM backing, the Republicans got stomped thanks to George W. Bush and Company.

Sloth, hyper-partisan behavior, lying to their country about everything and being COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT has brought a just reward to a vanishing GOP party of corruption and lunacy.

heckofajob Boooosh

[oncethere]

George Harrison's song, "Piggies," comes to mind. Right-wingers find nothing wrong with the Concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, the Concentration of Talk-radio in the hands of a few right-wingers, the Concentration of Retail in the hands of a few companies, the Concentration of production of oil in the hands of a few. Right-wingers are, by and large, monopolist capitalists.

[marijam]

Obama won and the tide has gone out for Republicans but they still dominate everything. The media sure is slow in responding to the new situation. Personally, I stopped watching the Sunday news programs long ago because they were dominated by conservatives. With the change in administration, one would think the shows would get a clue and change up for the new times, maybe increase their audience with some of the new majority numbers. Guess there's no reason for me to start watching them now, since nothing has changed with them.

[norkas]

It became more obvious during this campaign and now i no longer watch and of the morning Sunday shows. I believe this inforamtion will hurt there viewing audiance rating over the next several months and i also hope huffington post viewers will stop as well also. This is the only thing that will send a strong message to the networks..Your not missing anything by not watching there very often unbalanced views.

[majii]

I also stopped watching because of the absence of a variety of views. It would be great if they had independents, democrats, and republicans. They are trying to influence Americans to think in one certain way. Thank goodness for the internet!

[Btline]

There needs to be more balance. A few new progressive programs would help. The 24/7 Obama-bashing as the cable news corporations sought to control the election (and therefore their profits) was disgusting. The partisan lies being spewed on all of the channels (FOX, MSNBC, CNN) were non-stop. We had Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers 24/7 but little to no coverage of Pastor Hagee, G.Gordon Liddy, the Keating 5, the Palin's AIG connections, etc. Clearly, the cable and MSM news showed more deference and respect to John McCain/Sarah Palin then to the Democrats and would not touch these issues. Even now, they scramble to put Palin on every show and tell us how she cooked moose stew for them in her kitchen but ask her no hard news questions or how that kitchen/house was built illegally. No journalistic integrity (and I was really ashamed of Matt Lauer, Wolf Blitzer, Greta, and Larry King for those fluffy infotainment interviews). Might as well have been watching Martha Stewart.