http://mediamatters.org/static/pdf/MMFA_Sunday_Show_Report.pdfAs any viewer of the Sunday-morning talk shows knows, a few political figures appear with remarkable frequency. Some -- like the secretary of state -- are newsmakers intimately involved with both current and future policies critical to the nation. Others seem to be invited back for no apparent reason other than that they have been on so many times before. The list of most frequent guests for recent years shows dominance by a few figures: former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE), and most particularly Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). McCain made 124 appearances on the Sunday shows during this period -- over 50 percent more than his next closest competitor.
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Though Biden has narrowly outpaced McCain over the last three years, there is one way in which the Delaware Democrat is unlikely to ever approach the Arizona Republican: Biden usually appears alongside a Republican senator. McCain, on the other hand, is more likely to be offered a privilege normally reserved for high administration officials and those who have just done something particularly newsworthy: the solo interview.
When a guest is interviewed alone by the host of a Sunday show, the networks send a message that what this person says is so important that it can’t be cluttered up with someone from the other party weighing in. But in McCain’s case, it’s something more. McCain was given a total of 86 solo interviews (14 in 1999, 19 in 2000, 14 in 2001, 9 in 2002, 7 in 2003, 7 in 2004, and 12 in 2005). No other elected official comes close; the senator with the next-highest total of solo interviews (45) is former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD).
In fact, fully 69 percent (86 out of 124) of McCain’s Sunday-show appearances have been solo interviews. While a few administration officials (e.g. Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice) are nearly always interviewed alone, elected officials are far more likely to be interviewed with other elected officials. The runner-up in total appearances, Biden, was interviewed by himself only 31 percent of the time (25 out of 80 appearances). The only elected official among those with a substantial number of interviews who exceeded McCain’s proportion of solo interviews is Daschle, who was interviewed alone in 76 percent of his appearances (45 out of 59). Daschle, as Senate Majority Leader, was the highestranking elected Democrat in America at the time of many of his appearances.