A new report in The Washington Post details how the news media, and especially the White House press, is disproportionately whiter and less diverse than the country as a whole.
"At a time when one of the most contentious subjects in Washington is immigration reform — an issue of great import to many Hispanics — the people questioning the president on a regular basis are unlikely to be Hispanic themselves," the Post's Paul Fahri writes.
Here are some of the figures that illustrate the news media's lack of racial diversity, which the Post pulled from the American Society of News Editors' annual survey.
- 12.4 percent: The proportion of U.S. newspaper journalists who are racial minorities.
- 21.5 percent: Proportion of minority TV journalists.
- 11.7 percent: Proportion of minority radio journalists.
- 37 percent: The U.S.'s minority population.
- 7: Number of full-time White House correspondents who are African-American or Asian-American, out of 53. That's 13.2 percent. Figures for other groups weren't available.
- 3: Number of African-Americans who have served on the White House Correspondents Association board in its 99-year history.
