Online And Media Political Pundits

[DemocratSinceBirth]

What makes their opinions better than those of well informed observers...I used to post on the Miami Herald Dolphins board back in the early 2000s and the posters would always be challenging the wisdom of the various sportswriters when they wrote something they didn't like...One wise poster nailed the phenomenon...Most people who cover sports really have no more knowledge than the average fan; what they have in some cases is the ability to express themselves better...

Same thing about those who cover politics...

[EV_Ares]

1. In a lot of cases, I would say they may not be as perceptive. What they have

is almost as much possible information at their fingertips as possible, all the writing skills, access to candidates or athletes that the average political junkie doesn't and yet, in the end, they still miss up and don't call it right. Instead, the well informed observer may be the one who was able to perceive the correct outcome.

So, I would say, in some cases some political pundits are better because of their talents in addition to their access of information and people but if you don't have it, you don't have it no matter what, because we all know some are terrible.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. When Nancy Pelosi Became Speaker Of The House Chuck Todd Predicted Bush* 's Popularity Would Reach

Fifty Percent By July...

He's NBC's Political Director...

Some are definitely more perceptive than others...

[EV_Ares]

5. LOL, you could not have picked a better example of what I was saying or

trying to express. Chuck Todd! Of course I am biased against him because I have always felt he makes the professional mistake of letting his personal feelings get interjected into his analysis of situations more than most.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. The First Thing You Learn In Political Science Is To Distinguish Between The Empirical And The

Normative...The "is" and the "ought to be"...

[EV_Ares]

8. People such as Todd evidently did too much sleeping in class during

the "fact-value distinction part.

Hey Democrat Since Birth, hope you have had good holidays and do the same for the coming year as well.

Even though we may not have had the same candidate for our choice, have enjoyed and appreciated your discussions.

[Armstead]

3. Being in the right place at the right time to get the mike

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. And Some Can Express Themselves Better

~

[Armstead]

7. What I notice is that they all grab the eact same phrase

It's amazing how a specific point or cliche is repeatedly endlessly in a situation.

If, for a hypothetical example, a candidate stumbles and the recovers, every single pundit will say "John Doe has regained his footing"......They wont find a different phrase. They use the exact same ones.

They also tend to focus on only one event at a time. It's like there's a single script that they are all reading.

The "Dean scream" was a classic example. Dean got momentarily carried away at a campaign appearance, and suddenly it was amplified and repeated endlessly, so that it was blown all out of proportion.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist about it. But I do think they simply listen to each other, or the same small circle of "experts" rather than actually researching or doing independent thinking. That creates a fedback loop that cycles on itself.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. Same Old...Same Old...

When I was studying Poli Sci in the early eighties "pack journalism" was already a phenomenon...

I'll give you an example.... During the 96 election there was not one published poll that showed Dole beating Clinton but the media desperately wanted to make it a race... There was a panel with Jonathan Alter in the immediate aftermath of the Rep covention...The moderator wanted to make it look as if the race had closed...Alter said he saw no such phenomenon...The moderator was visibly pissed...

Howard Dean was in trouble when he lost IA after leading it for so long but the press used the "Scream" to portray him as unstable and precious few journalists demurred from that assessment...His candidacy was doomed...

In 1984 Gary Hart was beating Walter Mondale everywhere...He destroyed him on Super Tuesday but the Mondale folks convinced the press that a win in Georgia was more important than a win in the much larger Florida...

I can go on...