WAMC's 'The Roundtable' continues to exclude Palestinians: latest data
20-month pattern benefits Whites, Democrats, and sources affiliated with US and Israel military institutions, new data shows
6/4/2024, By James Earl Owens
The Roundtable, a prominent daytime news discussion program on New England’s NPR affiliate WAMC continues to exclude Palestinians from its panels while prominently including officials from the Democratic Party, whose leadership — such as by NY Sen. Schumer — remains committed to unconditional support of Israel. In coverage of the Middle East, Roundtable producers additionally privilege sources affiliated with US military institutions over independent experts.
These findings emerge from new data released in this post that also shows zero Palestinian or Palestinian-American sources in any of the 135 episodes of The Roundtable from 10/9/24 to 5/16/25. This data builds on prior findings showing The Roundtable completely excluded Palestinian/Palestinian-American panelists across all coverage of the genocidal1 US backed Israeli war on Gaza. As always, links to data are at the end of the post.
Please take a moment, perhaps after reading this post, to call WAMC’s fund-drive line and raise awareness of these issues with the dedicated volunteers who likely also oppose discrimination against Palestinians and support racial diversity on station programming. 1-800-323-9262.
Total # of White appearances on The Roundtable increased to 93%. That’s 5% more than last year
Earlier this week, I reviewed average White representation on daily panels. This post now looks first for racial balance in the overall number of appearances of panelists across the 135 episodes from 10/9/24 - 5/16/25. Figure 1 shows White panelists appeared 441 times across the 135 episodes starting 10/9/24, comprising 93% of all appearances. This is a higher White appearance rate than last year, when Whites made 88% of all appearances on The Roundtable. The ratio of Whites to People of Color panelists so far this year stands at 13 to 1 (441 Whites / 35 People of Color).
Figure 1.
It was not just Palestinians excluded from Roundtable coverage but also Middle East North African (MENA) sources and American-Indians. These particular exclusions sadly extend patterns I documented across the prior year of Roundtable episodes, with the exception of 4 MENA sources across 3 episodes in September 2024.2 The complete absence of Palestinian/Palestinian-American sources on The Roundtable since 10/9/23 endures despite at least 4 such sources having repeatedly emailed the station, as I reported last September and this February. (Since those reports, I am aware that other Palestinian-American sources contacted Roundtable producers (as well as producers of other WAMC programs) and I will continue to report on the station’s response.)
The exclusion of Palestinian and American-Indian sources alongside the near total exclusion of MENA and non-US People of Color (0.8%) creates significant limits to potential expressions critical of colonization and imperialism on The Roundtable. Constraints on criticism of colonization and imperialism benefits institutions organizing support for polices of US militarism generally and unconditional support for Israel specifically. It is from these institutions that The Roundtable overwhelmingly draws its experts on the Middle East.
The Roundtable continues to overwhelmingly rely on sources from pro-war, pro-Israel institutions
Figure 2 provides a high-level overview of the institutional affiliations of Roundtable panelists, as relevant to Israel-Palestine issues. A wide range of affiliations would encourage a wide range of interpretations of Israel’s war on Gaza and US policies that enable it. The chart shows affiliations narrowly grounded in the Democratic party and the military industrial complex.
Figure 2.
Roundtable producers did not make up for the lack of Palestinian and Middle East sources by including panelists affiliated with international human rights or aid organizations. The 3 appearances by Prof. Karin Riedl mark the only inclusion of sources with experience in international aid, that I could identify, since 10/9/24. I found no sources with backgrounds in international human rights in the most recent period. Instead, Democrats took center stage, making nearly 200 appearances. Sources from the Department of Defense, National Security Council, or Department of Homeland Security also made scores of appearances over the past seven months of episodes — as they also did over the prior year, as I previously documented. Military and security connected sources continue to make up the bulk (93%) of The Roundtable’s experts on Israel-Palestine issues, outnumbering appearances by independent experts by a rate of 12 : 1 (62 / 5) (Figure 3).
Figure 3.
The network of institutional influence organized through The Roundtable
Admittedly, simple comparison of experts by military v. independent affiliation obscures more complex ways sources may bridge multiple sectors. The central question is how Roundtable producers’ source selection choices may reinforce or challenge particular institutional narratives about Israel-Palestine issues. Exploring that question demands a two-fold view showing 1) the institutional relations of Roundtable sources and 2) how patterns of inclusion cumulatively privilege certain institutional sectors over others.
Figure 4 informs that two-fold inquiry with a social network perspective on the institutional relations and relative influence organized through The Roundtable since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023. The map includes all Middle East experts appearing on The Roundtable over the past 20 months along with their self-reported institutional affiliations. The nodes (circles) represent each panelist and institution. For panelists, the size of the node represents the number of times they appeared on The Roundtable since the start of the war. For institutions, the size of the node represents the total number of appearances for all their affiliated panelists. The larger the node, the more total appearances and the greater power to influence audiences.
Figure 4.
The most recurring Middle East experts over the past 20 months are Jim Ketterer, who appeared 54 times, Robert Griffin (51), Frederic Hof (41), Malia Du Mont (40), Vera Eccarius-Kelly (37). Another 5 experts — Ali Vaez, Fariba Pajooh, Nathan Brown, Shai Lavi, and Juris Pupcenoks — each appeared once.
One can certainly recognize the expert knowledge every one of these sources bring to discussions. It is also true that higher education institutions are clearly a basis of experience for many sources. Yet the network map clearly shows that experts who hone their expertise pursuing the aims of defense and security institutions outsize those working with human rights and humanitarian aid. On The Roundtable, patterns of repeated inclusion of military experts and marginal inclusion of aid, rights, and social movement experts selectively reinforces the authority of military interpretations of Israel-Palestine issues.
In fact, some of The Roundtable’s most recurrent experts (with the exception of Eccarius-Kelly) continue to exercise roles in US military institutions. Hof facilitates Bard College’s relations with West Point and ROTC. Ketterer serves as a fellow Bard’s Center for Civic Engagement, which facilitates events, curriculum and exchanges of faculty and students with the US military academy West Point.3 Robert Griffin especially stands out for his entwined interests with the Israeli Defense Forces and as a target of campus activists.
As UAlbany Dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity (CEHC), Griffin organized a “partnership”4 between UAlbany and Israel’s Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Ben Gurion University “is at the center of [Israel’s] cybersecurity research and development” including as a “partner[] with The Israeli Computer Services Directorate” a branch of the IDF5 “which leads Israel’s cyber defense efforts,” according to a UAlbany press release.6 The CEHC webpage currently promotes a future dual degree program with Ben Gurion University. As recently as last spring, UAlbany students organized a walkout demanding an end to CEHC relations with Israel.
Griffin seems thus not only actively facilitating relations with Israeli military organizations but also personally benefits from the suppression of college activism critical of Israel. It is unacceptable that Roundtable producers continue to host Griffin without any counter-balancing expert. I could not find any instance when The Roundtable informed listeners of the undeniable personal and political interests that shape Griffin’s analysis of Palestine-Israel issues.
Conclusion
The racial/ethnic discrimination documented above is the result of the choices of Roundtable producers. So too is producers’ choice the main cause for the program’s privileging of Democrats and Middle East experts with backgrounds and ongoing commitments to US and Israeli military institutions. I below offer some simple things we can do today to affect future choices by Roundtable producers.
Call into WAMC’s fund-drive and let them know you care about these issues: 800-323-9262.
Post your concerns on WAMC’s Instagram and Facebook threads. Your posts can start conversations and spread awareness among other listeners and others already sick of Roundtable’s catalogue of problems.
Now is the perfect time to demand accountability from the producers of The Roundtable. WAMC is deep in its fund-drive and is more dependent than usual on listener donations. Trump’s plan to end funding for PBS and NPR would strip 5-10% of WAMC’s budget. The compassionate volunteers who answer WAMC’s fund-drive phone lines would benefit from learning about the racial discrimination problems on The Roundtable. I invite you to join me and a growing group of others who care about racial justice and genocide.
Data is available, with explanation of data fields in the ReadMe file, on GitHub.
The term genocide is widely but not completely accepted among relevant scholarly fields as accurate to Israel’s war on Gaza. In December 2023, over 50 scholars in the fields of Genocide and Holocaust Studies signed an open letter defining 6 steps required to prevent Isreal’s acts in Gaza, West Bank, and East Jerusalem from becoming a genocide, only one of which (the ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants) came into being. In January 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled it is “plausible” that Israel’s actions in Gaza “fall[] within the provisions of the (Genocide) Convention” (p.4). The ruling defined required steps for Israel to take to prevent violations of the Genocide Convention,* steps that Israel did not then fulfill (see Sect. VI., p. 7).
In June 2024, Boston University School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic along with the University Network for Human Rights issued a report affirming Israel’s actions as genocide:
“we conclude that Israel's actions in and regarding Gaza since October 7, 2023, violate the Genocide Convention. Specifically, Israel has committed genocidal acts of killing, causing serious harm to, and inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza”.
Finally, in May 2025, the Dutch newspaper NRC reviewed 25 papers from the Journal of Genocide Research and determined “all eight academics from the field of genocide studies see genocide or at least genocidal violence in Gaza” (NRC, ‘Seven renowned scientists almost unanimous: Israel commits genocide in Gaza’, 5/14/25; as quoted in Middle East Eye, 5/17/25).
The 4 Arab/MENA panelists are Iranian-American Alex Nowrasteh (included 9/18/2024), Iranian born Ali Vaez and Fariba Pajooh (both on 9/26/2024), and Israeli Dr. Shai Lavi (10/8/2024). As I reported, MENA panelists constituted 0.5% of appearances last year.
The West Point-Bard Initiative “provides unique opportunities for students to explore the complexities of civil-military relations in a democracy”.
Quoting UAlbany President Havidán Rodríguez, in a SUNY Albany press release (7/16/2019).
The Israeli Computer Services Directorate is a body of the IDF. Gross, Judah Ari (5/14/2017). “Army beefs up cyber-defense unit as it gives up idea of unified cyber command’, The Times of Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/army-beefs-up-cyber-defense-unit-as-it-gives-up-idea-of-unified-cyber-command/
Ibid.