Racial diversity declines, all-White panels increase: 2025 data on 'Roundtable'. Let's change this.
Despite DEI branding, marginalizing People of Color remains normal on WAMC's flagship news discussion show
6/2/2025, by James Earl Owens
Racial balance on The Roundtable, the prominent daytime news panel program on WAMC, was bad last year — but this year is even worse, as this post explains. These findings may surprise some WAMC listeners, especially as I present this data at the same time the station starts its Spring fund-drive. Like last year, fundraising strategies by the station and The Roundtable program use ideals of ‘diversity’ and ‘connection with community.’ Yet new comprehensive data published in this post shows, average diversity of Roundtable panels declined as the number and proportion of all-White panels increased, compared to the same time last year. I invite Joe or WAMC CEO Sarah Gilbert, or anyone else to review my data, which is linked at the end of the post.
Before reviewing the data, here’s an idea about something we can do to help WAMC address racism on The Roundtable. Today.
If you care about racial justice, and live in WAMC’s listening area, I invite you to join a growing group of concerned people calling in to the station’s fund-drive phone lines. The dedicated WAMC volunteers answering your call likely care a lot about racial justice and don’t know about the racial discrimination problems described in this post. WAMC volunteers can be new allies in the effort to help the station become what it needs to be in the era of Trump-authoritarianism: a place for inter-racial community engagement to challenge the stale narratives and failed policies of Democratic and Republican leaders that brought us to this moment in history.
WAMC’s fund-drive number: 800-323-9262. Call today!
Increased White dominance on daily Roundtable panels
For the two recent quarters since 10/9/24, Roundtable panels averaged 92% and 93% White (Figure 1). During the same period of the prior year, Roundtable panels averaged 85% and 87% White, as this blog reported. This amounts to a more than 7% increase in White over-representation compared to the same period last year.
Figure 1. Comparison of daily rates of White inclusion first 2 quarters of this year and last year
All-White panels increased in number and proportion
For episodes airing 10/8/24 - 5/16/25, the number of all-White panels increased by 13% compared to the same period last year (Figures 2, 3). In the most recent period, the proportion of Whites-only panels (77%) and White-majority panels (21%), encompassed 98% of episodes. Less than 1% of panels featured equal racial representation. Less than 1% of panels featured a majority of People of Color. This pattern of overwhelming White majorities constitutes a strong measure of White control over news discourse and a strong suggestion from Roundtable producers that daily news and social life is normally interpreted through White perspectives.
Figure 2.
Figure 3.
Racial imbalance on ‘The Roundtable’ does not reflect New England’s demographics
The imbalance of White over People of Color panelists is not an effect of the largely White population of the broadcast region. A normal distribution shows probable outcomes from drawing 135 panels with average 3.5 guests from WAMC’s 75% White broadcast area (Figure 4). The chart shows a 99.7% probability of drawing about 30 - 70 all-White panels across 135 episodes. The probability1 of drawing The Roundtable’s result of 105 or more all-White panels from the 75% White listening area is 0.000000000000000000000162%,2 an astronomical improbability.3
Figure 4.
Put simply, the data shows that White domination of Roundtable panels is not an effect of the heavily White broadcast geography. The racist marginalization of Black, Latino/a, Asian, and other groups is likely the result of program host Joe Donahue’s longstanding choice to prioritize White voices. After all, this is not the first exposure of Joe’s preference for White panelists. In 2017, Joe Donahue admitted to the Times-Union that he repeatedly chose White panelists over Black, Latino/a, Muslim, and trans sources recommended by noted civil rights leader Barbara Smith, then a Roundtable panelist herself. Smith resigned from the show in protest. Let’s take Smith’s warning seriously — by finally taking action.
What can we do about it . . . today?
Systems of racism encourage us to think we are powerless. We are not. We can exercise our agency, our freedom to take political action. For example, people who care about diversity and racial justice can call into the WAMC fund-drive and help spread the word to the kind volunteers answering the phones. Those volunteers likely care about diversity and racial justice. They likely tune in to WAMC hoping to hear the perspectives of the full range of their community. WAMC’s phone line volunteers would benefit from you helping them understand that there are real problems with diversity and inclusion on The Roundtable.
1-800-323-9262. The fund-drive is going on until June 9. Call today!!
Data is available, with explanation of data fields in the ReadMe file, on GitHub.
P(X≥104) where X∼Binomial(n=135,p=0.36) ≈ 2.67 × 10⁻²²
Try it yourself using Giga-Calculator — which rounds the probability to 0.
The range of 30 - 70 all-White panels spans 3 standard deviations from the means (48). The Roundtable’s 105 all-White panels lands some 10 standard deviations from the means — in the range critical scientists refer to as ‘give me a fucking break’.
Another hard hitting, statistic-based expose of racism or I-just-don't-give-a-dam-ism.
Keep it up.
Jay