NHMC on the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) 2013 TV Staffing Brief

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 28, 2013
CONTACT
Inez Gonzalez igonzalez@www.nhmc.org (213) 718-0740
 
Hollywood far from creating a level playing field

Pasadena, CA. - The National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) commends the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) on the release of its 2013 TV Staffing Brief. Among the WGAW findings regarding the 2011-12 television season:

  • 83.7 percent of the television writers were white; 6.5 percent were African American; 4 percent were Latino; 3.9 percent were Asian American; and 0.3 percent were Native American.
  • U.S. Latinos were underrepresented by a factor of 4 to 1.
  • 10 percent of TV shows had no female writers and nearly a third had no minority writers.
  • Of the 454 executive producers working on the 190 shows examined, 344 were white males (75.8 percent). Women were underrepresented by a factor of more than 2 to 1 among the writers who run television shows. People of color were underrepresented by a factor of nearly 5 to 1.

To counteract these troubling trends, NHMC commends the WGAW's Diversity Department for developing programs such as the Writer Access Project (WAP) that increase employment opportunities for diverse writers in television. WGAW's sincere commitment to increasing diversity at the writers' table is laudable.

"Unfortunately, I cannot say that I am surprised by the numbers released by WGAW. Although NHMC has seen incremental progress regarding to Latino writers, we are clearly not where we need to be. The lack of diversity in this industry makes it much less likely that authentic, multi-dimensional stories will be told, if at all. As a result, depictions of people of color are often based on stereotypes and misinformation that can be harmful to our children as well as to the rest of our nation. To remedy this we need and deserve a multi-ethnic perspective. As the demographics of this country continue to change, the television industry must keep up," said Alex Nogales, President & CEO of NHMC.

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About NHMC The National Hispanic Media Coalition is a non-partisan, non-profit, media advocacy and civil rights organization established in 1986 in Los Angeles, California. Its mission is to educate and influence media corporations on the importance of including U.S. Latinos at all levels of employment. It augments the pool of Latino talent with its professional development programs. It challenges media that carelessly exploit negative Latino stereotypes. It scrutinizes and opines on media and telecommunications policy issues. Learn more at https://www.nhmc.org. Receive real-time updates on Facebook and twitter @NHMC.
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National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) is a woman-led 501(c)(3) non-profit civil and human rights organization that was founded to eliminate hate, discrimination, and racism toward the Latino communities.
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