Medical Bulletin #32

Also: The MSM's problem with "experts"

Before I get to our Feature Attraction…many thanks to you, members of the Brianwilsonwrites Grab-For-The Gusto Materialist Tabernacle and Q-Tip Re-Cycling Service - especially those of you who have enhanced your Free Subscription with a generous voluntary donation to off-set our production costs. The Get Well cards, heartfelt messages and amusing memes - even the “You Suck, Drop Dead!” ones - brought a wan smile to my sallowed face. The surgery was a success (‘the patient lives’!) and I am now off in a cloud of mud on the drug-laced road to recovery. This has caused a pause in the supply chain for the articles and interviews you signed up for. Sadly, my office/studio is on the 2nd floor, making access next to impossible without the aide of Big Pharma (if ya know what I mean). Considering their street value, I’m giving serious consideration to selling the balance of my prescriptions, paying off the mortgage and traveling what parts of the world remain accessible to non-mercenary visitors.

Meanwhile, please grab a free sub if you haven’t already, get some for friends, work-mates and in-laws while you’re at it and watch your InBox for more tantalizing tid-bits, the return of the “Two and Only” and a few surprises that came to me under anesthesia! Thanks again.

And now……

Every branch of the Media – radio, TV, Cable, Print, even ‘social media” has a problem with “experts”. Hosts and writers want to cite them for the heft of their CV and credibility in their special field, their experience in the ‘situation du jour’. While reasonable and likely beneficial to a good, substantive conversation or article, too often the host/writer is just using the old “Appeal to Authority” debate fallacy: too much confidence in one person’s opinion or thoughts. This is usually seen whenever the host/writer is attempting to advocate or attack something outside their expertise.

As we slog further into the American Clown Show (Election year), more and more of this will be seen and heard throughout the MSM as each side tries to bring more weight, more ‘star power’ to their audience.

Sad. Talk show hosts, TV ‘pundits’ and columnists are more effective and resonate deeper when their message comes from their own experience, education, philosophy, logic and – most importantly – heart. It’s tough to fake insincerity – which is why MSNBC personalities are so damn scary!

From now until November, these “experts” will be in profusion. Like ragweed, pine pollen and bad music, they’ll be everywhere, clouding, blocking, changing the facts, adulterating the truth, making it harder rather than easier to get to the reality of the issues we face just to advance their personal (or corporate) agenda. Or ratings!

How did this happen? Can it be fixed?

Perry Michael Simon remains a force of reason in my old stomping ground of Talk Radio. His bona fides speak for themselves. Now a prolific columnist, this is his take on the problem(s) and solution(s). Honestly, it’s “inside baseball”. Simon’s columns are more for “the trade” than public consumption; “shop talk” for fellow colleagues. So consider it an excellent ‘inside peek’ at what is going on over at FOX, CNN, NYT and WaPo as they prepare to serve up whatever “news” you’re watching, hearing or reading. You’ll appreciate it a lot more.

How the Media Pundit Class Grew and Why That’s a Problem

What makes an expert an expert? Is there a media pundit certification process? Does a particular post-graduate degree include the qualification to sit on a CNN or Fox News panel? Does everyone who has ever worked in any administration get to be anointed an expert on anything? If you’ve been within spitting distance of The New York Times or Washington Post buildings, are you immediately entitled to banter with Joe and Mika? How does this work?

Lately, watching coverage of the presidential horse race on cable news has become even more aggravating than usual, with a continuous parade of failed candidates, minor ex-bureaucrats, and random reporters offering the kind of expert opinion also available from randos on social media. Turn on talk radio and it’s the same thing. To whom is the host talking, and what qualifies them as knowing anything about anything?

Okay, so, it’s not like you have to explain every guest to the audience, but maybe you should if it’s not obvious. Merely presenting someone who was Deputy Assistant Communications Sub-Director in a previous administration, or even a former Congressperson of whom nobody’s ever heard, isn’t really enough to explain why their opinions and analysis are more valuable than anyone else’s.

There’s also the related question of why some pundits who are consistently wrong keep getting called upon to appear on cable news panels and talk radio shows. Shouldn’t there be some kind of three-strikes rule: Three incorrect predictions and you’re banished from the Council of Experts? How wrong do you have to be to lose your expert status? Because if you’re, say, a sports betting host and your picks are always wrong, you’re not going to last long, are you? (Don’t answer that.)

Slight digression: I once went to lunch with a reporter who had just been assigned to cover broadcast media by a very large regional newspaper, who told me why they quoted the same questionable “experts” as their predecessor.

There’s no time, they said, to find out who the real experts are, and it’s much, much easier to consult previous articles and just call the same sources their predecessor cited. Why do the work when someone else did it for you, as poorly as they may have done so? If that’s how you book your guests or get your expert quotes, don’t. Just don’t.

(Another digression: Are you old and experienced enough to remember that brochure they used to send out every month pitching guests for radio and television interviews? So many psychics and “miracle cure” doctors, SO many psychics and “miracle cure” doctors. I wonder how many of those guests actually got booked.)

As we move forward in this election year, it’ll be tempting to fill time with endless interviews and panels with analysis of whatever temporary burning issue is in the headlines that hour.

There’s no getting around that, but if you’re going to do that, at the very least, get guests who have real-world qualifications that put weight behind their opinions, and, if at all possible, get people who aren’t affiliated with the campaigns. If you can identify their agenda before you even hear a word they say, what’s the point of having them on? Who wants to see or hear what they already know is coming?

Find experts and pundits who you can certify know what they’re talking about, and who you know are interesting and entertaining enough to hold an audience. That’s more work than just grabbing the same guests as usual, but that’s kind of your job.

(And if there’s no standard for who qualifies as an expert, well, you know where to find me. I’ll talk about anything.)