"Let's Get Rid Of The Pundits!"

The following article appeared in The Huffington Post. Follow this link to the article.

Donna Brazile: Let's Get Rid Of The Pundits!
First Posted: 05-10-10 01:48 PM Updated: 05-10-10 02:28 PM

The Washington Post apparently asked various luminaries to name one thing the world should just get rid of (sadly, none said "jeggings") and Donna Brazile offered a suggestion that would afford her considerably more free time: let's get rid of the pundits!

If a single move could restore civility to politics, that is it. Get rid of the left-vs.-right commentators who are just out scoring points for their team. This sort of opinion-mongering is not only boring and predictable, it is destructive of the truth. If your only credentials are "GOP shill" or "Democratic hack," you've no business cluttering up the airwaves or the op-ed pages. My momma always told me that if you don't know what you're talking about, it's best to keep your mouth shut. That's good advice.

Whom do we put in their place? I say replace the pundits with people who have genuine expertise -- whether from their academic work, professional life or personal experience -- on the key issues of the day. Instead of partisan talking heads or mad hatters from the "tea party" preaching their views on, say, health care and taxes, let's hear from doctors and insurance professionals, or the number-crunchers from the Congressional Budget Office. They're much better equipped to help viewers, listeners and readers wade through the facts, arguments and data.

I suppose that if this were to come to pass, the world would be a more pleasant place in which to live, and cable news shows would have a lot more time to cover more substantive things. Over at TAPPED, Paul Waldman suggests something less extreme:

If, on the other hand, you wanted to fill up a day's worth of programming with people who could actually explain things, it would be tremendously difficult. But it wouldn't be completely impossible, and it could prove quite popular. So what if the cable networks did an experiment.

Let's say they set aside one day a week as the day of explanation, with no pundits or advocates allowed. Instead of bringing on a pair of congressmen to debate whether the Obama administration is being tough enough on terrorists, they'd bring on a couple of experts on terrorism to explain where we are in battling al-Qaeda. Instead of bringing on a "Democratic strategist" to argue with a "Republican strategist" to fight about which party is awesomer as we approach the November elections, they grab a couple of political scientists to discuss why people vote the way they do in off-years.

The truth is, I don't really mind hearing pundits opine as long as they are discussing substantive policy issues. What I think has no value whatsoever is enjoining pundits to talk about the "who's up/who's down" factor in policymaking. In the first place, it basically serves to enforce the idea that the most important factor in making law is how it will impact the re-election of legislators. As the health care debate proved, the media is capable of subsisting for a long time without ever addressing how policy impacts actual Americans. (I remember having a good laugh at CNN's Lisa DesJardins, who spent the final hours of the health care debate frantically tweeting about what the law does -- work that really should have been done months prior!)

But beyond that, it's really just valueless blather. On any issue of the day, you know in advance that the Democratic hack is going to say that a decision will benefit Democrats and the Republican hack will say the opposite. I especially hate the on-air proliferation of so-called "political strategists!"

When a "political strategist" comes on the tube to talk about how Politician X is going to pay at the polls for Policy Y, the hack-to-English translation is: "I am nowhere near as informed about the issue as I should be, because I work at a factory of vapid talking points. But since I am paid to offer banal criticism of the other guy, I am going to try to overcome my gaping personal deficits and lack of overall policy knowledge by lazily assigning my opinion to 'voters.' Eventually, my hack organization will find poll results to cherry-pick to bolster my claim, or we will manufacture some."

It's like cable news thrives on staging utterly predictable encounter sessions. Eventually, elections play themselves out, and no one is ever held accountable for being wrong.

Curiously, this is something in which Brazile still sees value, saying "there is insight to be gained from the dark, secret knowledge [pundits] hold from their decades pacing the political corridors." But that knowledge typically only holds any real currency among the circles of friends in which those pundits flit. Let them share their "dark, secret knowledge" with one another at their cocktail parties. There should be a high critical bar that needs to be surmounted before that stuff gets on teevee.

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League of First Time Voters

At the end of August CNN launched League of First Time Voters. It is described as "a multi-platform programming initiative designed to inform, involve and empower individuals passionate about this election cycle". The website has resources to explain how to register to vote in your state and stats of how your state voted in the presidential election since 1976. You can also see little blurb of each candidate's stance on the different issues.

Huffington Post reviewed the site and says "CNN president Jon Klein explained the initiative in a statement as one which will "empower" new voters "to have a voice this political season" -- but it's also meant to empower CNN's ratings. Per CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson: "It's a way for CNN to engage more fully with our new audiences who have been tuning in this election cycle." CNN came first in the all-important 25-54 demo for prime time in the election-crazy first quarter of 2008, beating longtime winner Fox for the first time in six years and ekeing ahead of close competitor MSNBC. CNN has also done well by the debates with 9 of the top 10 most-watched debates on cable, including those newfangled YouTube debates. The kids love those.

It's a smart idea — at minimum it's a great resource and public service for voters, and beyond that it's a great opportunity to attract new viewers, at least online, and hook them in with whatever information they may be seeking (the League site will also act as an aggregator with material from other sites). It also harnesses and repackages CNN's pre-existing online resources — something old media is slowly learning how to do — and finds what could be a perfect fit for on-air resource Sanchez, whose energizer-bunny level of excitement is well-established. We'll see if the kids love that, too."

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ESPN The Magazine did an interview with Wolf Blitzer. Here are some snippets of that interview.

You've been a journalist all over the world . What are the biggest differences in appreciation of sport that you've seen in various places?

The biggest change is how much basketball has taken off, in Europe and other places. It's huge now. It's making tremendous inroads all over the globe. What's nice is, you see a lot of Americans playing over there, and tons of Europeans over here. David Stern and his people deserve tons of credit. The other thing is, every place else, they're obsessed with soccer, and here, we're not.

Any sociological explanation for that?

I'm not sure. It's a good game. I enjoy it, but I don't get into it. I didn't grow up with it. When I was a kid, it was baseball, football, basketball, etc. It wasn't soccer, cricket, rugby. Some of the kids now grow up playing soccer, and maybe they'll become bigger fans.

What are the biggest similarities and differences between what you do for three hours a day and what someone working for our company, like a Chris Berman, does?

Basically, we do the same thing. Chris Berman has gotta be a conductor; he moves everything around. He brings out different points of view, and keeps people honest. When you're doing an interview and someone says something completely ridiculous, you gotta say, "What are you talking about?" I admire Chris Berman for what he does. Sports and news are both hard; you have to know A LOT about A LOT. These days, so many viewers are so connected, if you mess up something, you'll hear about it immediately.

Who's the best athlete living today?

Tiger. That's an easy one. I think it's funny a guy named "Wolf" likes a guy named "Tiger," too.

If you, Lou Dobbs, John King, Anderson Cooper, and Candy Crowley are playing basketball, who's slotted 1-5 and why?

Anderson's gotta be a guard. I gotta be a guard. Candy and John forwards. Lou Dobbs at the center position.

Any logic to that?

It's basically completely random (laughs). We're filling out a roster and seeing what works.

Your favorite sports movie of all-time?

Oh, there's a couple. A League of Their Own is great. So is Field of Dreams, and Bull Durham. You have to add Rocky. I also love The Natural. It was filmed at the stadium in Buffalo.

Awesome.

Does Animal House count as a sports movie? Because I'd probably add that. And Ferris Bueller's Day Off too.

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