In a post at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Steve Rendall and Zachary Tomanelli investigated the racial breakdown of the book reviewers and authors in two important book review venues, the New York Times Book Review and C-SPAN’s After Words. They found that the vast majority of both reviewers and authors were white males.
Overall, 95% of the authors and 96% of the reviewers were non-Latino white (compared to 65% of the population).
Women accounted for between 13 and 31% of the authors and reviewers:
This is some hard data showing that white men’s ideas are made more accessible than the ideas of others, likely translating into greater influence on social discourse and public policy. These individuals certainly don’t all say the same thing, nor do they necessarily articulate ideas that benefit white men, but a greater diversity of perspectives would certainly enrich our discourse.
Via Scatterplot.
