From pandit to pundit, and all the problems along the way

We are currently in the midst of a transformation of what a pandit is. Its definition is a “respected scholar,” but I personally have very little respect for most of them. In the ’30s, the “punditry” was a small, select group of intellectual white men who discussed the major problems of the day. Back then, though, this country was isolationist, so very few of them supported taking any action against Nazi Germany as it began its blitzkrieg of Europe.

 

In the ’70s, we started to see a more ethnically and socially diverse group of people enter the punditry. After Vietnam, many anti-establishment voices started to make the airwaves, like Huey Newton from the Black Panthers or Betty Friedan from the Feminist Movement. They were witty and hard-hitting, holding nothing back.

We have now entered an era where everyone has a voice, and with our current media structure propped up by corporations, only certain people, depending on their political leanings or how much money they will make a corporations’ stockholders, get to speak. Most of these so-called pundits don’t have their own ideas. Some get paid to report their version of “truth”, like the retired senior officers who took money from the Pentagon to travel around the country preaching support for the Iraq War. These officers never said they were being paid by the government – in fact, some said “in my opinion,” or “I’ve thought long and hard about this, but I feel we must support this war…” You get the drift.

 

Also, today’s punditry are also the journalists who host the many television news shows. Most announcers at FOX News are given the opportunity to provide any opinions they (and their owner) thinks are important when covering the news. Sometimes, they are blatant, like when they interviewed a soldier in Iraq and finished up the broadcast telling that soldier that America was so proud of him for bringing democracy to the Iraqi people and that the liberals in Congress wouldn’t deny funding to the troops. I about fell out of my chair when I heard that – this wasn’t the interviewee saying it, but the interviewer! Fair and objective?

 

So, if the pundits aren’t even telling the truth and the journalists have lost their objectivity, who do we turn to for the truth? Bloggers, or the new 5thestate. As Jamais Cascio said, “The only journalists…who should be nervous about the rise of citizen media are those journalists whose work can’t stand scrutiny.” (Stefenac, 101) Blogs can be the first (or second, third and fourth) lines of defense, and can bring stories that traditional media outlets passed over that have been dead for days, months or years back into the blogosphere light.

 

Discussion Questions:

1. Why should we care that pundits may be getting paid from certain agencies or corporations? How different are these pundits from Public Relations specialists being interviewed by the media, since both are selling a product or an idea for the people to buy off on?

 

2. If blogs are the 5th Estate, what are some ways they can fight through the gatekeepers and expose corruption and subjectivity in the media?