Accountability for Pundits?
As the critical mid-term elections approach, it seems every columnist, blogger or tweeter feels the need to predict what will happen. This year, most everyone agrees the Democrats are in trouble, and the Republicans will make strong gains. The disagreements come in trying to forecast how lopsided the results will be. Anyone who engages in this prediction game has his or her own set of criteria as well as a political prism through which those criteria are viewed.
No matter what happens, some of these prognosticators will be wrong; some of them very wrong, and, yet, none of them will be held accountable for their misreading of the tea leaves. Just as when the pollsters get it wrong, people will be reading their forecasts for the next cycle just as eagerly as they did this time. It seems to me there ought to be some kind of scorecard kept on these guys so we know what their track record is. If a football tout or a stockbroker keeps getting it wrong, business will fall off, but these political “experts” just shrug off a bad pick and move on. If they do offer a post mortem on their follies, it’s generally to justify why things didn’t turn out the way they were supposed to.
It’s fun to position yourself as a political expert, but if it comes to pass that you don’t know what you’re talking about, shouldn’t there be some shame attached? Some penalty? Maybe a one-year suspension from political writing? Frankly, I like the idea of a Punditry Prison. Your sentence would be based on the extent of your errors, and repeat offenders would be treated more harshly. Of course, that would mean a life sentence for Bob Shrum. Without possibility of parole.
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Comments :
Sep '10
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
We can't even seem to hold economists and foreign policy failures to account, I submit Warren Christopher and Paul Krugman as examples of that. Unless you want to go back and examine every column, every statement, etc., it will be pretty hard. The only one who could be really embarrassed by his predictions is Dick Morris, but by the time the election is over he will have sold several thousand copies.
May '10
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
The late Michael Crichton had a great speech that he delivered on this very subject, Pat. I urge you to read it here.
Jul '10
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
Pat Sajak: It’s fun to position yourself as a political expert, but if it comes to pass that you don’t know what you’re talking about, shouldn’t there be some shame attached? Some penalty? Maybe a one-year suspension from political writing? Frankly, I like the idea of a Punditry Prison."
Are you sure you wanna make this pitch Pat? Via Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pundit.
You've been consistently knocking 'em out of the park. But even the canniest of sharks have a Black Tuesday:(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Crash_of_1929)
from time to time.
Aug '10
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
Pat, excellent. I reject prognosticators. Don't tell me this bill, candidate, ruling or event can't happen. Tell me what should happen and then work to make it happen if it is good--even against all odds. The prognosticators are angling to get hired or keep a job as an "inside tracker," as someone to know. Maybe it should be like false prophets in ancient times, get it wrong and...well... My hunch is that all this "this is the way it's going to be" is really an attempt to whip up self-fulfilling prophesies. King makers & Gatekeepers that have never tried to create anything new or real themselves get perverse pleasure flicking aside others with a quick, dismissive, disparaging "Naw--ain't going to succeed." Somewhere in their careers, I suspect, many media people noticed that--facing a deadline--they lied or "phoned in" a story and then--rather than getting found out and fired--events happened just the way the story "script" read because the public accepted the lie as an inevitable truth. Voila! A whole industry is born and another tail becomes a dog wagger.
Edited on Sep 27, 2010 at 9:47pmAug '10
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
I see what you did there.
Well played, sir.
Jun '10
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
There are some polls, they know who they are, who are basically doing fundraising for their side by trying to make it look close, when it's not. They don't want the donors to get discouraged. But what they'll do in the last week or two is come back into line with the more accurate polls, enough to say they called it. They'll be able to, because they threw in a couple accurate results at the end to save their bacon.
Jul '10
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
I know what you mean Pat.
Here I am predicting 124 house seats picked up by the Republicans, and all but 2 seats in the Senate Races going to the Republicans and None of these guys will agree with me.
And worse still, if that actually happened, the Republicans wouldn't recognize it as a mandate anyway.
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
Palaeologus: Pat Sajak:Are you sure you wanna make this pitch Pat? Via Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pundit.
· Sep 27 at 9:29pm
While I understand their job is to analyze, comment and make judgments, when there's a pattern of incorrect analysis, clumsy commentary and faulty judgments, they've gone from being a pundit to a windbag.
Sep '10
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
That's just pie-in-the-sky talk. Although a Rate-my-Pundit website would be interestng to read, any kind of public system is fundamentally flawed by allowing the other political point of view to participate. And I mean that both ways.
Maybe if you could devise a way so that participants had to pay a nominal fee to leave their comments, you could weed out the trolls. Hmmm, where have I seen that model before...?
May '10
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
I know, right? Tell ya what's hard: picking the ponies. Cause there are so many possibilities, and random events can occur in less than two minutes of competition. Yet I get razzed for not always getting the Derby right.
In politics, you have two possibilities, and it plays out over a long time, with plenty of data to look at. How can people screw that up and still be considered oracles?
Jul '10
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
Brill's Content used to rate pundits on their percentage of correct predictions.
Who would buy such a service today?
Jul '10
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
In 1981 Ted Kennedy Said that Ronald Reagan's plan to Deregulate the Oil Industry would result in $5.00 Gallon Gasoline by 1985 and insane profits for the Oil Industry.
By 1985 the price of a Gallon of Gasoline had dropped to less than $1.00 thanks to that very Deregulation.
If given more than 200 words I could create a laundry list of other predictions by the Philanderer just as blatently wrong.
Yet in 1992 (and 2002) Ted was still an expert on Economics quoted by all the MSM regarding the effects of Republican Plans.
By what method can we hold pundits accountable when someone as high visibility as Teddy K. cannot be held accountable.
Mary Jane Kopechne was not available for comment on any of the above!
May '10
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
When a baseball player comes to the plate, or takes the mound, the commentators will quickly review his stats for the season and career. Later, a complete run-down of every aspect of his performance is available in the papers for review. Why can we not do the same for political forecasters, and even better, economists?
Every column by Krugman ought to be followed by a box of critical stats. We ought to know his recent batting average when we take in his opinions.
Of course, what we would find is that as with baseball players, very few get hits more than a third of the time.
Jul '10
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
Accountability for pundits, how diabolical can you get? On Sunday, an LA teacher committed suicide because, in the view of his union, LA Times had published individual rankings for school teachers, sparking widespread despondency. A federal prosecutor in Alaska kills himself as he is being investigated for dubious conduct in the prosecution of Senator Stevens.
Sir, do you realize how dangerous your suggestion of accountability is?
Jun '10
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
I agree about Shrum. And Joe Klein and Paul Krugman should be his cellmates in Punditry Prison.
Sep '10
Re: Accountability for Pundits?
On the old SCTV episodes, I believe that late night programs on Public Access TV (somewhere above a dog's hearing on the frequency spectrum) was where all washed up celebrities ended up. Or, perhaps they could do cat food commercials.