The Pundit’s Dilemma

by Henry Farrell on October 18, 2009

“Via Mark Thoma”:http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2009/10/the-pundits-dilemma.html, Mark Liberman presents us with “The Pundit’s Dilemma”:http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1824.

Overall, the promotion of interesting stories in preference to accurate ones is always in the immediate economic self-interest of the promoter. It’s interesting stories, not accurate ones, that pump up ratings for Beck and Limbaugh. But it’s also interesting stories that bring readers to The Huffington Post and to Maureen Dowd’s column, and it’s interesting stories that sell copies of Freakonomics and Super Freakonomics. In this respect, Levitt and Dubner are exactly like Beck and Limbaugh.

We might call this the Pundit’s Dilemma — a game, like the Prisoner’s Dilemma, in which the player’s best move always seems to be to take the low road, and in which the aggregate welfare of the community always seems fated to fall. And this isn’t just a game for pundits. Scientists face similar choices every day, in deciding whether to over-sell their results, or for that matter to manufacture results for optimal appeal.

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.

(to avoid falling into my own version of this dilemma, I should acknowledge straight up that while I’m disappointed with the Freakonomics phenomenon _ex-post_, I was quite optimistic _ex-ante_ )

{ 28 comments }

1

ice9 10.18.09 at 7:23 pm

What would the best practice be for the high-school teacher of young journalists? How do I get them ready for a not-newspaper future? In the old days on the papers layers and layers of oversight kept them away from the Dilemma. Now the blogs and facebook walls call, with freedom to choose one’s audience, avoid one’s dissenters, and still imagine that they have sole access to a sterling truth. I can act as editor-with-a-conscience and direct them to behave ethically, compel it really (keeps me out of some hot water, too). Or I can let them work from models, and abstract teachings, about conscience and ethics, and leave them alone (what I’m inclined to do, and what leads to greatest growth). I can handle the hot water, mostly, though a Journalism Teacher’s Sub-Dilemma is out there.

ice9

2

Lee A. Arnold 10.18.09 at 7:43 pm

I disagree about the sustainability of bad behavior, unless you’ve already got a paying advertiser for it. The Pundit’s Dilemma is a hangover from the old era. The new information technology is taking us into a different future. In the new media you must tell the truth.

Within a few days the U.S. private health insurers’ report was revealed widely as trash — that would have never happened before. It would have been accepted by the U.S. Senate as the last word on the public interest. With perhaps a few scholarly tut-tuttings on how the footnotes looked iffy. Now, the Senators have better information, and some of them will be very happy to act differently upon it.

If you’re going to write a book about anything complicated, first make it a series of blogposts for feedsback. Levitt and Dubner’s biggest mistake. If you don’t know something, don’t be stupidly clever, or contrarian and glib for rhetorical effect — just say you don’t know. And say that you will try to find out…

We had one-way mass media for about 100 years, and it structured a method of control which is turning obsolete. New media = massive numbers + two-way communication.

You must tell the truth because you are only going to have a few seconds to get through, and if you blow it, next time people pay less attention to you. And less and less. Everybody can get into the act, on the same screen. If we’re all gossiping and there is one liar, we all love to put him down! It is natural for liars to be condemned! There is going to be no way to fight this. The only way to survive in the future will be to hide everything, or to tell the whole truth.

3

tired of blogs 10.18.09 at 8:47 pm

That’s an optimistic story, Lee, and I wish I could believe it were true. But it seems to me that people in the blogosphere are increasingly compartmentalizing themselves into hermetically sealed groups of the like-minded. On all sides, lest you think I’m only blaming those with whom I disagree. If you look at the latest Democratic scandal on the left-leaning sites, it’s a different reality from the way the same situation is presented on the right-leaning sites, and vice versa.

Maybe there’s some hope for strictly factual questions, but it’s amazing how many questions that seem strictly factual that become political questions, to borrow a legal phrase.

4

Maurice Meilleur 10.18.09 at 8:51 pm

‘You must tell the truth because you are only going to have a few seconds to get through, and if you blow it, next time people pay less attention to you. And less and less.’

I refute you thus, thus, thus, thus, thus, and thus. For starters.

5

Maurice Meilleur 10.18.09 at 8:56 pm

Sorry, I thought I got the html right. Does linking to too much bullshit set off some kind of alarm at CT HQ? Let me try again: thus, thus, thus, thus, thus, and thus.

6

Maurice Meilleur 10.18.09 at 8:58 pm

Okay, I give up. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Thomas Friedman, Cokie Roberts, David Broder, and Jonah Goldberg. Nobody pays any attention to them at all since it turned out they had no clue what they were talking about, right?

7

roy belmont 10.18.09 at 9:51 pm

Yeah what Maurice got.
Also “interesting” as in “It’s interesting stories, not accurate ones, that pump up ratings for Beck and Limbaugh”, is a little on the light side considering the actual dynamic there. Sort of like saying crack cocaine is “stimulating”.
Interesting here means something around “holding the attention of the consumeroid demographic and delivering it to our sponsors” who are the real arbiters of what people get as journalism, and who delivers it to them.
Or were and did, because obviously now everything has changed.
But Beck and Limbaugh are still, for the moment, famous, and highly rewarded for bringing what they bring, to whoever for whoever.
It’s a little naive to see that whole septic system as purely economically-driven, as a little contemplation of Maurice’s examples and their affinities and positions makes plain. They’re stooges, mostly.

8

howardl 10.18.09 at 10:08 pm

I think we would provide a great service to the blogosphere and public debate in general if we would point to specific inaccuracies. It’s not enough to say “well everybody knows…” . It’s not really enough to say “they have opinions I disagree with”. (For example, when Limbaugh says, “Jesse Jackson is a race hustler”, that might be offensive, and one might disagree, but it’s not a statement that can be pointed to as “inaccurate”, at least as I use the term.) My own impression is that Limbaugh (and I guess, Beck) are actually pretty careful not to commit frequent factual inaccuracies. But I admit, I don’t really know what I’m talking about here. Is it easy to find real inaccuracies? If so, let’s do it.

9

Substance McGravitas 10.18.09 at 10:15 pm

My own impression is that Limbaugh (and I guess, Beck) are actually pretty careful not to commit frequent factual inaccuracies.

That’s what this is for. But even then they don’t pretend to catalogue every instance of “Obama is a soc1alist.”

10

howardl 10.18.09 at 10:45 pm

So (replying to Substance Mc Gravitas): Media matters points out the following inaccuracy: Glenn Beck claims “Anita Dunn worships her hero, Mao.” The truth is: “Anita Dunn says Mao is one of my two favorite political philosphers.” I agree: that is an accuracy. But, it’s more of the nature of an exaggeration than an inaccuracy. So is this the best example we can find? I’m sorry to have to be the designated defender of Limbaugh and Beck here. I don’t like this role. As to “Obama is a socialist”: by this standard “Bush is a nitwit” is “inaccurate” to anyone who disagrees. That’s not what “inaccurate” means.

11

howardl 10.18.09 at 10:46 pm

I meant to say “This is an inaccuracy” not “this is an accuracy”.

12

P O'Neill 10.18.09 at 10:51 pm

Since the Moustache was mentioned above, it reminded of my mistake in reading today’s column and being told

There is now a Dunkin’ Donuts on Paris Square adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate, where all that people power was concentrated.

I don’t think he’s ever faced much of a dilemma.

13

Maurice Meilleur 10.18.09 at 10:51 pm

Besides the worse sin committed by Beck, Cokie, et al. is that they spend a good portion of their time, not lying, but talking without any regard for the truth value of what they’re saying–getting things wrong without even caring to try to get them right. The words that come out of their mouths and computers sound and look like they’re supposed to be verifiable claims about the world, but they’re not. They’re like living examples of Harry Frankfurt’s definition of bullshit.

Ergo the fact-checking done by Media Matters and others turns out to be quite beside the point. MM and the others are playing one game, pundits another; it’s like fact-checking your Uncle Roy at the tackle and bait shop, except that your Uncle Roy only fails to catch bass. It’s not too much to say in fact that the ‘we’ in Karl Rove’s famous statement to Ron Suskind about the ‘reality-based community’ refers not just to Bush’s advisors, but to all of Beltway culture, journalists and pundits specifically included. Which makes the idea of iterated interactions and sanctions for getting it wrong much more complicated.

14

Substance McGravitas 10.18.09 at 11:26 pm

So is this the best example we can find?

I dunno: did you check all 31 pages of links?

15

Peter B. Reiner 10.19.09 at 12:57 am

Mark Liberman’s commentary includes the following:

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.

16

politicalfootball 10.19.09 at 1:46 am

So is this the best example we can find?

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.

17

Lee A. Arnold 10.19.09 at 2:37 am

Beck and Limbaugh don’t disprove my point, because they are not subject to factual refutation, so they don’t have the Pundit’s Dilemma. That’s because there are two kinds of pundits, and two delivery systems and two audiences.

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.

18

Lee A. Arnold 10.19.09 at 6:11 am

Optimism is a lot more fun, and Beck and Limbaugh don’t disprove my point because they are not subject to factual refutation, so they don’t have the Pundit’s Dilemma. That’s because there are two kinds of pundits, and two delivery systems and two audiences.

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.

19

Ceri B. 10.19.09 at 7:12 am

Lee, please cite some examples of prominent pundits you feel have gone through this loss of status you describe. Because I can’t really match it up to more than a handful of cases, if that.

20

John Quiggin 10.19.09 at 7:43 am

I tried Googling “David Broder”. Top hit is a Wikipedia article that is factual, but not very flattering. The rest of the Top 10 are links to Broder’s articles, the WP and AEI etc. After that, it gets more interesting
* 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?

21

Lee A. Arnold 10.19.09 at 3:17 pm

Henry, please remove #18. I realized that #17 had the dreaded s-word in it.

22

Lee A. Arnold 10.19.09 at 4:42 pm

Ceri, I think they all have gone through a loss of intellectual status, with the exception of Krugman. If “status” is making money and showing up on one-way media like Sunday chat shows, then not much has changed. But I haven’t read anybody on the web who automatically believes any pundit.

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.

23

belle le triste 10.19.09 at 5:13 pm

“Obama is a s0c14l1st” is of course very precisely an inaccuracy — or more to the point a lie — unless you arguing that the word has already lost all meaningful content and can be used, at will, merely as an unspecific demonising insult: obviously Beck and Limbaugh are happy using it this way, but why is howardl?

24

howardl 10.19.09 at 6:32 pm

Belle le Triste: I hate appealing to a dictionary definition, but you have called me out with the argument the word socialist has meaningful, specific content. Using the Oxford English Dictionary definition — Socialism: “Now also: any of various systems of liberal social democracy which retain a commitment to social justice and social reform, or feature some degree of state intervention in the running of the economy” — the statement at issue is, er, accurate. 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.

25

Substance McGravitas 10.19.09 at 9:43 pm

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.

Or (c ) inaccurate because you’re using it in the (a) sense while pretending your side does not meet that broad definition.

26

politicalfootball 10.20.09 at 2:45 am

If “status” in this new world equals “truthtelling + new ideas,” then they are failing.

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?

27

Tom Scudder 10.20.09 at 2:46 pm

Wasn’t there a poll just recently of “leading policymakers” or suchlike that showed Thomas Friedman as far and away the most influential columnist out there, with Broder, Will, Maureen Dowd, and others fairly high up on the list?

28

Lee A. Arnold 10.20.09 at 7:39 pm

Okay, I understand now. We have to see a certain fall from grace, to prove a conjecture that lying is going to get harder in the future. Perhaps a physically kinetic fall, since some of us are dazzled by clowns. After all, if you will mistake the tense of verbs, and you will accuse one of “begging the question” by selective quote-mining (a clever inverse, there,) — anything less than a loud pratfall may be unnoticed.

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