Expaticats

I never quite understood the phenomenon of pundits. Pundits are people with opinions, and they like to give them. So far, so good. I mean, look at me. I like my own opinion so much that I have my own blog.

The part where things go wrong is that they appear in big media outlets to give their opinions, and often get paid for it. Again, they have every right to their opinion. But what makes their opinion more important than others? Usually, they aren’t even experts on what they are talking about. Wouldn’t it be better to have an actual expert on the subject at hand explain things? Apparently not. Or, I should say: of course not. Because the media is about entertainment, not information.

Pundits seem to be especially popular in the US. To be sure, they exist in other countries. But they are especially numerous here. Perhaps that has something to do with the existence of 24-hours news channels. You have to do something to fill up that time, so you have panels and roundtables where pundits give their opinions, often not in the least bothered by a lack of knowledge, enthusiastically unleashing their stream of talking points on us.

When blogs became popular, they were, amongst other things, hailed as the democratization of information. A revolution in media. A big change from the old media. That seems overly optimistic. Some blogs provide good analysis and do their own research, but a lot of bloggers are pundit-wannabees. The lines between blogs and the traditional media are blurring. The Huffington Post is looking more and more like a tabloid. Bloggers are appearing on TV as pundits, and seem happy to be assimilated.

So, even more than before, we will be bombarded with opinions. But it seems doubtful that we’re being presented with more useful information. Providing information, after all, takes work. Talking about shiny objects such as celebrities, or having pundits fight a battle of the talking points, is much easier. And, apparently, gets better ratings.

How about that Tiger Woods?