Hispanic Guests And The Sunday Shows: Fewer Appearances On English-Language Programs

*We’ve seen Maria Hinojosa on Meet the Press in recent weeks, and that’s fantastic! But, fantastic isn’t enough. VL

By Christina Lopez and Jessica Torres, Media Matters for America

Latinos Made Up Just 4 Percent Of Guests In First Few Months Of 2015, A Drop Of 42 Percent From Last Few Months Of 2014. Media Matters analyzed the rundowns of seven English-language Sunday television shows for the first 18 weeks of 2015, from January 4 through May 3: ABC’s This Week, CBS’ Face the Nation, Fox Broadcasting Co.’s Fox News Sunday, NBC’s Meet the Press, CNN’s State of the Union, and MSNBC’s Up with Steve Kornacki and Melissa Harris-Perry; as well as two Spanish-language Sunday shows: Telemundo’sEnfoque and Univision’s Al Punto. These shows strongly influence the national political agenda and policy conversation and gain even more importance during presidential election seasons. Media Matters’ analysis found that only 4 percent of all guests who appeared on English-language Sunday shows were Hispanic — a 42 percent decrease since our last analysis, from August 31 to December 28, 2014.

But Hispanics Now Make Up A Record 17.4 Percent Of U.S. Population. Only 4 percent of total guests – or 46 out of 1,172 total guests – on English-language Sunday shows were Hispanic. According to the most recent Pew Research findings, there are now a record 55 million Hispanics in the U.S., constituting 17.4 percent of the total population. [Pew Research Center, 6/25/15]

Click HERE to read the full story.