Cable News Regressing On Diversity

With each passing year, the United States becomes a more diverse nation -- with minorities becoming a larger percentage of our population (and whites becoming a smaller percentage). In fact, many predict that minorities will make up the majority percentage of the U.S. population around the middle of this century. It only makes sense then that our society should reflect this growing diversity (and also include more women being shown in positions of power).

But the cable news networks don't seem to reflect that view anymore. In the last five years, some of them have actually regressed in the diversity shown on their networks. It doesn't really surprise me that Fox News is moving back to white males instead of women and minorities -- with the number of white men on their network increasing from 56% to 60%, while the number of women and minorities dropped from 44% to 40%. But they are not the only one.

CNN has been even worse in their hiring over the past five years. The number of white men on CNN has gone from 55% to 62%, while the number of women and minorities has dropped from 45% to 38% -- and this is supposed to be the middle-of-the-road network that most closely represents America.

Fortunately, there is one network that seems to be moving in the right direction. MSNBC had the number of white men on its network drop from 61% to 54%, while the number of women and minorities rose from 39% to 46%.

Some of you may think I'm just quibbling over an unimportant point. I disagree. I believe it is important, especially for the news networks, to present a more accurate picture of the country we live in -- and a part of presenting that accurate picture is to show the diversity of this nation through the people they put on the screen.