This Just In: APC Blog

I agree with columnist James Poniewozik’s essay in this week’s Time magazine. He points out that while a woman and an African American man are running for President, nearly all the most prominent faces at TV news divisions (except Katie Couric at CBS, rumored to be leaving her post) are what Poniewozik calls “white guys.” “It should be embarrassing that presidential politics…is moving forward as TV news is moving back,” he writes 

I admit I am not an evening news watcher (I get most of my news online or from CNN), but Poniewozik’s arguments reminded me of a five-year study by The White House Project on the absence of women “talking heads” on Sunday morning talk shows on the five major networks: ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX and NBC. In 2001, men outnumbered women 9 to 1. In 2005, more than half the shows did not include a single woman. 

So…what role does — and should — gender identity politics play in the news today?