Do you watch the Sunday talk news shows? I used to catch several of them, particularly when Tim Russert was still doing Meet the Press and David Brinkley was still around. When we got the likes of Chris Matthews fawning and George "Senior Policy Advisor at 25" Stephanopolous, my Sunday consumption dropped a bit. Now, I can't find much except Chris Wallace show and it runs twice on Sunday so it is accessible.
More Women Wanted
The implication, of course is that there is some sort of gender prejudice operative. But what about the stat quoted in the piece?
Women make up 17 percent of the membership of the House and Senate, a proportion that is only a couple of percentage points higher than how often they appear on Sunday shows. But some advocates of more appearances by women said the shows should be working harder — with a kind of talking-heads version of affirmative action — to have women appear in numbers more closely approximating their percentage of society as a whole.
So, the percentage of women appearing essentially parallels the percent in the legislature, but they want the proportion of women appearing to mirror the general population, which is slightly more than 50% female. Is that going to give you any particular insights into government? Would that be more informative than actually having individuals who are doing the heavy lifting show up?
Then there's the question of availability. They discuss the resistance of Pelosi to make herself available. Clearly she understands that it is unlikely that she would be able to make very many gaffe free appearances.
Yesterday on Chris Wallace's Fox News Sunday show he wanted to have the California nominees for US Senate appear. Republican Carly Fiorina showed up. Incumbent Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer declined. Should she have been arrested and brought to the dock of Fox News in chains to satisfy the Politico?
No comments:
Post a Comment