Does it matter? Yes, but only because a black man or woman could have different experiences in their life that a white person couldn’t have, and who we are in part is based on our life experiences. The danger here in this question is that we are trying to make general assumptions about a very select few number of people (White House press corp I mean) and a sample of three of four people will, statistically speaking, have almost no chance of being representative of the population.

Let’s not also forget that some of the questions that are asked are given to them by others, perhaps because of a story their publication or neetwork is trying to do about a particular topic. Just because one person asks one question about Sudan doesn’t mean we can extrapolate a whole bias out of it. It is unresponsible to use one example to support a side of a much broader argument.

I wonder what percentages of different races watch or read the news. TV and newspapers have a customer base that they need to attract and retain too…just food for thought. I don’t know what the numbers are so i can’t say if that matters or not.

It’s interesting that no one really said much about this until Obama was elected.

As alluded to by Tim, the color of skin in and of itself it not what’s important. If an all-white press crew would press hard on all issues, not just the ones they can immediately relate to, then their color wouldn’t matter. The facts are however, that people tend to be most passionate about the issues closest to us. So if your world is white America and your ancestry is European, your passion for Sudan, Congo, Zimbabwe, or New Orleans - all areas highly concentrated black people - isn’t likely to be as high as what happens in Italy or Greece.

By the same token, we have to remember that there are more flavors than black and white in the USA. A black reporter would have viewpoints that his/her white counterparts won’t, but a Hispanic reporter would have an even different take, as would a Muslim-American, or Native American, or Asian American. My point is that all cultures cannot be represented in all facets of life, public or private. But some diversity is better than none.

I don’t care for the question in this poll as it excludes those who are non-white and not African American.

It matters only in what we make it mean.

The liberal idea of diversity is a press corps whose members look different but think alike, where whites, blacks, Latinos, and those of Asian descent are all dependably and consistently liberal (or, as they now prefer, “progressive.”) Could anything be more patronizing than to assume that someone who was born and raised well off in the city or suburbs of St. Louis will approach matters differently solely because of his or her skin color?

Someone who has lived through and experienced their life has a different perspective as someone else who writes about it.

I can lecture on the plight of the Chinese peasants and give my classes all sorts of information, but the simple fact is that I am not a Chinese peasant.