Well yes, if…

Has anyone ever explained to you the concept of “begging the question”?

I see that you’ve managed to exempt Beck and Limbaugh from being examples of pundits who prosper by lying because … they don’t care about the facts! But who are these pundits who have lost status – who, in your formulation, are having trouble publishing books – because they have a history of saying absurd things?

George Will? Thomas Friedman? Jonah Goldberg?

Or Scott Ritter?

So the statement is either (a) accurate, if you apply a strict dictionary definition, or (b) an unspecific demonising insult, to which the concept of inaccuracy does not apply.

In fact the old pundits went through a phase of indignantly complaining that they were being abused on-line, the language was uncouth, etc. If “status” in this new world equals “truthtelling + new ideas,” then they are failing. (And it may nott help their prospects for a book deal either.) Meanwhile the newbies in the one-way media are under more scrutiny than the ones established before the web. Krugman is obviously fact-checking very carefully—and is getting grudging respect among people who don’t agree with him politically, when they can’t prove him wrong.

There are always “hermetically sealed groups of the like-minded,” as #3 put it above. And web access allows those groups to grow in size, and they will confer status on their own favorite pundits. But I don’t see how this becomes a dominating trend, unless there is a social crisis, or the rest of the people stop thinking altogether.

• More Lies from David Broder

*David Broder Spends Entire Column Contradicting Himself On Torture

• David Broder and media culpability for Bush crimes
• I’m watching Andrea Mitchell interview David Broder in what’s amounting to a sort of parody of High Broderism.
• David Broder’s column today provides a depressing example of the type of intellectual dishonesty and moral corruption of Beltway pundits
• David Broder is the sultan of the status quo, stenographer of …

and so it goes. Not that this stops him collecting his paycheck, or (I imagine) causes him to be snubbed on the cocktail circuit, but it certainly marks a shift from the “Dean of the Washington Press Corps” tag that used to be stuck like glue to his name. And you could go through the same exercise for a string of Pulitzer prize winners (George F. Will being the most obvious).

Does this have any effect on Broder’s or Will’s credibility with the average reader of the WaPo? I wonder if there is any empirical evidence on this? It certainly shows up a lot in the comments threads and on the Ombudsman’s blog, but how many people read these things?

Beck and Limbaugh are stars, by Hollywood’s measure. The Pundit’s Dilemma does not apply to them. They are emotional icons impervious to facts. In fact, they control their facts—no honest discussions allowed. They can do this because of a monopoly of airspace by the old media machine that still exists as a consumer marketing system for advertisers. Their repeat audience is specifically an “hermetically-sealed group of the like-minded.” It wouldn’t matter if it were right or left, there is always a totalitarian fear linked to an intellectual short-circuit, and it can’t grow without a crisis to whip-up emotion. Beck is revered by a hardcore segment of the audience who think that Obama is a hidden sozialist—and who also don’t even like the Republicans! This is a voting block, (maybe 20% of electorate,) but they are not formulating policy, indeed their standard of rhetorical coherence was the recent governor of Alaska.

Yet now, it is much easier to find widespread refutation of their arguments elsewhere, and diminishment of their pundit stature by general agreement among everyone else. Indeed some top-traffic U.S. conservative websites have gently corrected the facts given by Beck and Limbaugh. Why? Because, while liking the general message and the entertainment value, they get too many embarrassing comments about the specifics. Even so, this desperate use of these two clowns shows the awful truth that they have intellectually imploded and that the world has started talking back.

But there’s a more typical pundit, delivery system, and audience. The U.S. national public discussion has traditionally been formulated by a few thousand people writing and speaking to a few hundreds of thousands, who then repeat it further. This is a much smaller portion of the population. But now, the pundits informing that debate, the real pundits, are going to have more trouble avoiding the truth. Such are traditional TV news analysts, the Sunday morning shows, newspaper opinion columnists, Washington Post and Huffington Post, as well as lobbyists with white papers, etc. etc. Their problem is that the delivery system of the whole discussion has moved to in front of you here, this screen. Now you can click to other sources and find facts and get other opinions just as easily. And you can comment. For these pundits, lying will eventually get them discounted—for the simple reason that there are only so many hours in your day.

This is going to improve culture and improve governance:

People who are starting-out into the public arena, whether they are hopeful politicians or they are small-town newspaper editors, are looking for brain-food. The greater availability of serious argument is making its way into their discourse.

Legislators in a democracy make decisions based upon the available evidence and the prevailing public rhetoric. For years that evidence was provided, and the public discourse was shaped, by LOBBIES. In a way, the lobbies have provided the necessary research and argumentation for the legislators and their legislative staffs. If this is properly counteracted, policy will change. Most legislators would rather do the best thing. If they are given facts to refute the lobbyists’ white-papers, while a better argument makes its way into the public rhetoric, they will be happy to vote accordingly.

Beck and Limbaugh are stars, by Hollywood’s measure. (They are clowns of a constant face, not far removed from circus clowns. They probably secretly dream of having Spencer Tracy’s career, and I can sympathize there.) Tthe Pundit’s Dilemma does not apply to them. They are emotional icons impervious to facts. In fact, they control their facts—no honest discussions allowed. They can do this because of a monopoly of airspace by the old media machine that still exists as a consumer marketing system for advertisers. Their repeat audience is specifically an “hermetically-sealed group of the like-minded.” It wouldn’t matter if it were right or left, there is always a totalitarian fear linked to an intellectual short-circuit, and it can’t grow without a crisis to whip-up emotion. Beck is revered by a hardcore segment of the audience who think that Obama is a hidden socialist—and who also don’t even like the Republicans! This is a voting block, (maybe 20% of electorate,) but they are not formulating policy, indeed their standard of rhetorical coherence was the recent governor of Alaska.

Yet now, it is much easier to find widespread refutation of their arguments elsewhere, and diminishment of their pundit stature by general agreement among everyone else. Indeed some top-traffic U.S. conservative websites have gently corrected the facts given by Beck and Limbaugh. Why? Because, while liking the general message and the entertainment value, they get too many embarrassing comments about the specifics. Even so, this desperate use of these two clowns shows the awful truth that they have intellectually imploded and that the world has started talking back.

But there’s a more typical pundit, delivery system, and audience. The U.S. national public discussion has traditionally been formulated by a few thousand people writing and speaking to a few hundreds of thousands, who then repeat it further. This is a much smaller portion of the population. But now, the pundits informing that debate, the real pundits, are going to have more trouble avoiding the truth. Such are traditional TV news analysts, the Sunday morning shows, newspaper opinion columnists, Washington Post and Huffington Post, as well as lobbyists with white papers, etc. etc. Their problem is that the delivery system of the whole discussion has moved to in front of you here, this screen. Now you can click to other sources and find facts and get other opinions just as easily. And you can comment. For these pundits, lying will eventually get them discounted—for the simple reason that there are only so many hours in your day.

This is going to improve culture and improve governance:

People who are starting-out into the public arena, whether they are hopeful politicians or they are small-town newspaper editors, are looking for brain-food. The greater availability of serious argument is making its way into their discourse.

Legislators in a democracy make decisions based upon the available evidence and the prevailing public rhetoric. For years that evidence was provided, and the public discourse was shaped, by LOBBIES. In a way, the lobbies have provided the necessary research and argumentation for the legislators and their legislative staffs. If this is properly counteracted, policy will change. Most legislators would rather do the best thing. If they are given facts to refute the lobbyists’ white-papers, while a better argument makes its way into the public rhetoric, they will be happy to vote accordingly.

I don’t think anyone cited that as the best example, besides you. Why did you choose that one out of all the ones provided?

In any event, if you’re going to say that providing an example of inaccuracy is inadequate to demonstrate inaccuracy, then I don’t know how anyone can find an example of inaccuracy that does demonstrate inaccuracy.

In the end, scientists usually over-interpret only a little, and rarely cheat, because the penalties for being caught are extreme. As a result, in an iterated version of the game, it’s generally better to play it fairly straight. Pundits (and regular journalists) also play an iterated version of this game — but empirical observation suggests that the penalties for many forms of bad behavior are too small and uncertain to have much effect. Certainly, the reputational effects of mere sensationalism and exaggeration seem to be negligible.

It is heartening to know that scientists are viewed as over-interpreting so little, and I agree that the reputational effects are paramount in this case. The debate is also quite current with respect to science journalism (see
here and
here)

The question arises as to why reputations are not more valued overall – this is widely thought to be one of the selection pressures which lead to altruistic punishment amongst humans. Perhaps we have evolved “thick skins” in recent years – it certainly seems as if Beck et al. have.

So is this the best example we can find?