In the "no shit" category..."Study: Conservatives Dominate Sunday Shows"

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/fair-study-republicans-sunday-shows.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

"You can say one thing about the Sunday morning political talk shows: they’re consistent. But Peter Hart of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting says that’s “not necessarily a good thing.”

A new study by the liberal watchdog group — which looked at ABC’s This Week, NBC’s Meet the Press, CBS’s Face the Nation and Fox News Sunday from August 2011 to February 2012 — claims that the Sunday morning shows have become “extraordinarily friendly terrain for the right.” Seventy percent of one-on-one interviews on the shows featured Republicans, according to the study. That’s 166 Republican guests to 70 Democrats. For the roundtable discussions, Republicans and/or conservatives made 282 appearances to 164 by Democrats and progressives.

Obviously the study comes in the middle of a fierce Republican presidential election fight, with the only Democratic candidate currently occupying the White House. Michele Bachmann appeared on the shows 18 times, Rick Santorum appeared 16 times and Newt Gingrich appeared 13 times, according to the study. But tilt to the right isn’t exclusive to a GOP primary. According to the study, the shows skewed right even during the 2004 election."

snip


_______________________________________

I wish they'd taken the study back to the beginning of the Dubya years. I am sure the trend would be evident and consistent even that far back.

Shameful...."librul" media my ass!

[Scuba]

1. I once heard a Wisconsin Public Radio caller state that having ANY liberal guests was "too liberal".

[JHB]

2. The trend is consistent back to 1989 at least

FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, not the other one) has been compiling numbers of this sort since 1989, when they released their report "Are You on the Nightline Guestlist?"

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3763

They pioneered the "media criticism from the left" that Media Matters is doing in a bigger, more web-friendly way now.

The page on their site listing reports (it's a search page, so it's not as neat as it could be):
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=12

[JHB]

3. And one more specific to your question

Extra! September/October 2001

What's Not Talked About on Sunday Morning?
Issues of corporate power are not on the agenda


Reviewing the issues discussed on four shows representing different networks—NBC’s Meet the Press, CBS’s Face the Nation, NBC/PBS’s McLaughlin Group and ABC’s This Week—we found that the exclusion of topics relating to corporate power is the norm. To conduct our study, we read every transcript of the four Sunday morning talkshows aired from June 1995 to May 1996 and during the last seven months of 1999. We then tallied the issues discussed and the guests invited. Any issue, whether it was women’s soccer or welfare reform, was recorded if substantial time or conversation was devoted to it; our study identified 1,170 instances when a topic was raised.*
----
*The study periods were chosen to avoid periods when the news was dominated by a single issue. They do not include the periods of media infatuation with the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal and Elián González, and only slightly overlap with the O.J. Simpson trial. They include some of the last two presidential election seasons, but not the height of election coverage.

***

Moreover, the majority of frequent guests were Republicans and/or self-described conservatives. Between June 1995 and May 1996, 14 of the top 20 guests were Republicans or conservatives, including Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition. In the 1999 period, 12 of the top 20 guests were Republicans or conservatives, including Warren Rudman, president of the Concord Coalition.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2822


So: 63% Repub/Con in the study cited by the OP, 70% in the 1995/96 part of the study above, and 60% in the 1999 part.

Pretty consistent.

[WI_DEM]

4. What else is new?

[YvonneCa]

15. It's about to change. Keith Olbermann will be on ABCThisWeek tomorrow...

...morning with Stephanopolous and George Will. THAT will add some balance...and maybe boost the ratings a bit.

[Cali_Democrat]

5. That dayum librul media rears its head again

[ck4829]

6. K&R

[polichick]

7. What?! You mean all those right-wing assholes aren't in church?

[Rhiannon12866]

8. K&R! Unless Rachel Maddow's on MTP

There's rarely anyone I can stand listening to...

[NRaleighLiberal]

11. Hey pal!

[agentS]

9. It's why I don't watch the Sunday shows.

Their guests are all nutters (the Cheneys) or failures (the Cheneys). Why would I want to watch any of that? Not worth my time.

[CTyankee]

13. You should join me in watching Chris Hayes and Melissa Harris Perry on msnbc instead!

I gave up the network Sunday shows YEARS ago. Now I have full weekend mornings, both Saturday and Sunday, with those two shows! They are terrific! Great new faces, fresh commentary, progressive thinking and discussion. Provocative and enlightening!

Chris is on 8-10 and Melissa from 10-12 noon both days.

The only downside is you don't get much done those two mornings and if you do, you just hate to give them up!

[Proud Liberal Dem]

10. Wow

Somebody (besides us) cared to notice- after a decade or more? Who did they think the Sunday morning shows were having on their programs? Representatives from the Sierra Club? Senator Bernie Sanders? Ralph Nader? Michael Moore? Hell, news programs everywhere always seem to have "Tea Party" people on their shows to comment on things even though they're not even their own political party. *smfh*

[taught_me_patience]

12. Also ignores David Gregory's hard on for Mittens

He keeps refering to Bain as a "venture capital" instead of "leveraged buyout specialists" that they are.

[high density]

14. There's no point to these shows

It's just another Republican propaganda tool. The hosts are rarely prepared to ask tough questions, and even if they do there's no attempt to hold anybody's feet to the fire. The underlying feeling seems to be, "I'd better be nice to this person because I want to interview them again someday." The round table discussions are usually completely worthless, more often than not dominated by these disconnected beltway types who have no clue what is going on in the country.

[Cosmocat]

17. ABSOLUTELY

I used to get all burnt out about them, but I caught on to the fact that they were always loaded with Rs, what Ds they had on were moderate long term types like Chuck Shumer, that they consistently let Rs off the hook for whatever ridiculous nonsense they spewed, and I just have lost ANY level of time for these self serious beltway types who act all tough but don't have the first darn understanding of what is going on.

Tim Russert was the worst.

Would just grill Ds, act tough on Rs, but never really close on them.

A "round table always, ALWAYS is two solid Rs, one mushy media person and one weak democrat.

[Cosmocat]

16. it is WORSE when the Rs are in power

When Bush was president with R control of the house and senate, it would be 3 to 4, and the democrat was nearly ALWAYS a Chuck Shumer type ...