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Educators Bypassed In Substantive Discussions about Education
Of 185 "Experts" Invited to Speak on Cable News, only 16 Were Actually Educators.
Now, I’ve always suspected that educators were being left out of the debate. But, thanks to Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet column and the folks at Media Matters, we have data that supports that claim. Twenty news sources on CNN, MSNBC and Fox were studied between Jan. 1, 2014 & Oct. 31, 2014. “Segments analyzed were those that had substantial education policy issues under discussion, including school reform, teacher tenure, the Common Core State Standards, school choice, early childhood education and guns in schools. Of the 185 total guest on the three networks, 16 were educators.”
“CNN hosted 27 total guests in education segments. Twenty-six were non-educators, only one was an educator..”
“Fox News hosted 81 total guests …. Seventy-seven were non-educators, and only four were educators,…”
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“MSNBC hosted 77 total guests…. Sixty-six were non-educators and only 11 were educators, …”
The question that comes to mind is, “Why did cable news channels keep educators out of substantive educational policy discussions, in favor of non-educators? Was there something the cable news folks wanted to keep out of the discussions?”