The revolt against the punditocracy

[babylonsister]

The revolt against the punditocracy

By Michael J.W. Stickings



What happened last night was very much like what happened last Friday. After the debate was over, many of the leading pundits on CNN, MSNBC, and elsewhere proclaimed Palin if not the outright winner at least the winner of the expectations game. Biden may have been strong, but he was expected to do well, whereas Palin, who was supposed to collapse into a heap of failure right there on the stage, or so we were being told, held her own, or so we were told, and so beat the expectations, and so "won" the debate.

For many in the media, it's not about content, which is too challenging for them, but about their own expectations, their own shifting narrative. For them, the debate wasn't really about what Biden and Palin actually said but about how they said it, about how they performed relative to expectations. Similarly, the first presidential debate wasn't about content but about performance, and the immediate reaction from many pundits was that McCain won, or at the very least managed a draw.

The reaction of the pundits -- some of which I addressed in my long live-blogging post -- last night was nothing if not predictable. As I put it on Wednesday: "{W}hile Biden will need to prove himself worthy by reaching, if not surpassing, the media's lofty expectations of him (in order to 'win' or 'tie'), Palin will just need to show up, look good, and come across as somewhat plausible. If, on top of that, she is coherent and seemingly credible, as she was in her acceptance speech at the RNC, she'll be judged to have surpassed expectations and perhaps to have won the debate even if Biden does well and exceeds her in substance."

But then the people spoke -- or, rather, responded to the pollsters. And what they said amounted to a thorough rejection of the pundits, their expectations game, and the media's obsessive focus on style and performance. For the polls showed a decisive victory for Biden. CNN, for example, found that while Palin was the more "likable" of the two, and while both exceeded expectations, Biden won the debate 51-36. And CBS, polling uncommitted voters, found the Biden won 46-21.

As TNR's Jonathan Cohn notes, it was "deja vu all over again." Polls showed a similar victory for Obama in last Friday's debate. And what explains this? Why the markedly different reactions from the pundits and the people? Again, it may be that the people are rejecting not just so much the pundits themselves -- because most people don't pay any attention to them -- as what the pundits are pushing on them, politics as media-driven entertainment. Or, it may just be that the people are actually paying more attention to substance than to style, that content matters -- and that the people ought to be taken more seriously than the self-serving, self-absorbed, over-paid pundits who populate the news media. For in the end, who cares what John King or Gloria Borger thinks? Sure, they've been around, but all they do is filter everything through their own preconceptions and expectations. Does anything they say actually pass for serious analysis? Rarely.

more...

http://the-reaction.blogspot.com/2008/10/revolt-against-punditocracy.html

[tularetom]

1. I've often wondered if they realize how low regard they are held in

Personally I think most pundits are a joke, small people with large, fragile egos, who exist in an echo chamber where they only hear their own opinions reflected back at them. It'd funny as hell when they attempt to speak for "regular people" as though they have ever in their lives had to live among such regular people.

I'd like to see some polls dealing with people's opinions of pundits and punditry, individually and collectively.

[DJ13]

2. The MSM has setup polling to support their desire for a close race

The pundits bought into the false spin their own "news" organizations have created to maintain a close race, so their opinions naturally tend to reflect the falseness of the race being close.

But the polling taken immediately after the debates arent filtered through the MSM filters of tricky wording to get a desired result, they are a simple "who is better" poll, and actually shows the reality that this campaign is not close.

[Jade Fox]

3. 95% of pundits should be fired.....

and replaced by fact checkers and talking heads who report ONLY factual news.