techPresident - The Iowa Reckoning: A Year's Worth of Political Blather Told Us Precisely Nothing - Comments

metrics

Ari Melber — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:40:46 -0500

Great post, Colin! Many pundits -- especially journalists who are often asked by their employers to opine without taking a stance on any political or moral issues -- use the metrics of horse race strategy. Most voters do not. Only one out of five Iowa caucus goers prioritized that famous trope of electability, for example. But without putatively neutral prognostication, journo-pundits would have even less to say. Booking more opinionated people for honest debates over policy and ideology might mitigate the trend, but that would require covering politics as an important democratic exercise, not a well-funded psuedo sport.

Exactly

shimanepdf — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:21:16 -0500

Exactly right Colin.

The problem, however, is that the viewing public expect 24/7 news and these pundits need to deliver. It is a no-win situation.

Think about having to have "new" news every 4-6 hours you are on the air, plus actually do reporting and talking to the voters.

It is impossible.

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dimwitted punditry will live on

Freedomfighter — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:39:52 -0500

Colin,
Such punditry is nothing new and is unlikely to die soon. Rush Limbaugh refers to such media and punditry as the drive-by media. Rush, unlike others, said the race was open and had suggested Obama and Huckabee might win Iowa. It did not take a divining rod to figure it out but a review of history and the ability to listen to the public.

Of course, people beat up on Rush, but that is merely because he has a better grasp of the facts than the vast majority.

The Iowa Reckoning: A Year's Worth of Political Blather Told Us Precisely Nothing

Colin Delany — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 18:39:02 -0500

Well, who was the big loser in the Iowa caucuses? It wasn't Mitt Romney or Hillary Clinton, and it certainly wasn't Ron Paul. The big loser was political punditry.