White Noise

"[Public broadcasting] should provide a voice for groups in the community that may otherwise be unheard...[and] help us see America whole in all its diversity."

-- 1967 Carnegie Commission Report, which served as the basis for the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967

How Diversity Is Stifled Created by the Public Broadcasting Act and signed into law by President Johnson in 1967, the government-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is legally required to "constitute an expression of diversity and excellence" through programming "that addresses the needs of unserved and underserved audiences, particularly children and minorities." It was also mandated to promote "locally relevant" programming that is "reflective of America's common values and cultural diversity." More »

An Extra! survey finds that the dominant voices on the leading public radio stations in seven U.S. urban markets are overwhelmingly white and predominantly male.

The survey, which looked at the ethnicity and gender of the stations' daytime hosts and news anchors, found that 73 out of 83 were non-Latino whites (88 percent). Fifty-seven of the daytime hosts and anchors were male (69 percent).

Six of the hosts were African-American, two were Asian-American and two were Arab-American. (Hosts who appeared on multiple stations were counted once for each station.) Just one Latino host appeared during any station's daytime broadcasts, while no Native American hosts showed up in the survey.

The dominance of white, male voices contrasts with public radio's professed mission of inclusiveness, especially when considering the diversity of the metropolitan areas the stations serve.

Diverse Cities, Homogenous Hosts

The survey included weekday shows that aired from the beginning of "morning drivetime" to the end of "afternoon drivetime" -- from 6 AM until 6 PM. Drivetime -- when many commuters are listening to the radio in their cars -- generally gets the highest listenership during the day, and the midday hours in between typically have considerably more listeners than the evening or late night hours (Arbitron.com, "Radio Today 2001").

We looked at hosts and anchors because the sheer amount of time they spend on the air, usually far more than any individual reporter or other on-air personnel, makes them the most identifiable voices associated with the station.

Extra! chose seven prominent, geographically disparate cities, and then looked at the leading noncommercial station with a news and public affairs format in each city. The stations surveyed were KCRW in Los Angeles, KQED in San Francisco, WBEZ in Chicago, WNYC in New York City, WAMU in Washington, D.C., WABE in Atlanta and WLRN in Miami.

While all the stations are affiliates of National Public Radio (NPR) and subscribe to other program services as well, each is locally controlled and independently programmed. Each of the seven stations airs NPR's main news programs, Morning Edition and All Things Considered, during daytime hours, so those shows' anchors were counted in our study.

To compare the stations' most prominent voices to the communities the stations serve, we used the U.S. Census Bureau's Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), which provide demographic information on central cities as well as their surrounding suburbs. While the average station surveyed had daytime hosts who were 87 percent white; the metropolitan areas served by these stations averaged 45 percent white.*

While the stations reached a population that was, on average, 19 percent African-American, their daytime hosts and anchors averaged just 7 percent African-American. More strikingly, the cities served by the radio stations studied were on average 25 percent Latino, but only 1 percent of the hosts and anchors at the stations studied were Latino.