A survey of cable news shows, interviews and debates shows 84 percent of guests are white and 72 percent are men.

The survey Who Gets to Speak, conducted by FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting — a media watchdog group), studied six primetime programs on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC for a total of five weeks during February, March and April. Guests were coded by gender, ethnicity and occupation, and counted only those who were in-studio guests. During the five week period there were total of 1,015 guests.

The majority of guest were journalists (400) or pundits (159), with current or former government officials the next largest category (107).

The survey found 84 percent were white (848), with Latinos — who make up 16 percent of the population — particularly underrepresented on cable with only 31 appearances or 3 percent of the sources.

"It is nearly impossible to have a broad, informed discussion of the issues of the day when most of the population is excluded from participation," said Peter Hart, who authored the report.

When Latinos do appear on shows they are usual the same contributor. The survey found CNN's Sunny Hostin made eight appearances, and on Fox, five of the seven appaearances were by Fox personality, Geraldo Rivera.

For colored women it was worse. At 18 percent of the US population, just five percent - 46 guests - were women of color, and only four Latino women appeared across all six shows.

The survey also found that male guests outnumbered women on every show by 730 to 285, making up 72 percent of the guest list.

The least ethnically diverse show was on the liberal leaning MSNBC. On Rachel Maddow's show, 94 percent of the sources were white. On Fox's O'Reilly Factor, 90 percent were white.

Julia Hollar argued in FAIR article, Missing Latino Voices, in 2012, the absence of Latino voices gives us "an incomplete picture of U.S. life," and "means a large and growing segment of the public is being left out of the public debate on issues of critical important..."