The Hollywood Reporter explains its latest cover featuring only white actresses

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The Hollywood Reporter is celebrating what it calls "The Great Eight," the magazine's top picks on actresses considered to be contenders for this awards season, but the photograph is causing controversy as all women are white.

Charlotte Rampling, Carey Mulligan, Jennifer Lawrence, Jane Fonda, Kate Winslet, Brie Larson, Cate Blanchett and Helen Mirren are the this year's chosen ones for the magazine, which caused a bit of a stir on social media.

People feverishly tweeted their reactions to the article. There were plenty of calls for change, and for pushing forward with more diversity in the Hollywood system.

The Hollywood Reporter said it based its article on expert opinions, early buzz from film festivals and other factors and from there, does round-table interviews with potential award contenders.

Executive editor Stephen Galloway said the lion's share of responsibility for the lack of women of color falls on the Hollywood studios that create and cast the movies.

"The awful truth is that there are no minority actresses in genuine contention for an Oscar this year," Galloway wrote. "Speak to the executives that run the industry, and they say they want change. But there are hardly any black film executives and too few producers. Black directors? Not enough -- and certainly not black women directors."

Galloway added, "If there were far more minority men and women to choose from, this sort of hand-wringing would never exist, and it's about time it changed."

Tanya Hart with American Urban Radio Networks said big studios should take notes because minorities will hit them where it hurt most - their paychecks.

"If people cannot go to the movies and see themselves, they won't buy tickets. They won't go to the movies. It's over," Hart said. "With all of the new media that we have right now, you know, and all of the ways and all of the different platforms that you have to do your own projects, which a lot of people are doing, the studios better watch out."