NationStates Jolt Archive

The recent thread on Cohen made me think.

There are quite a few people with opinions. Sometimes, some of them have well-reasoned, well-supported arguments. Other times, they suck.

We see it all the time here. Some are more consistently good than others. But none of us on NS General are paid to be pundits (although I think we post here because we want to get that opinion out).

Why, then, do we pay pundits to blather in the editorial section, or to talk on news talk shows on the radio and television?

The overall quality of these asshats isn't any better than what I've seen here - and they are being paid big bucks to spout stuff that they don't even show a link for.

Anytime anyone posts an editorial here, it is immediately assailed and dismembered.

So, why bother paying them? They aren't doing a real job.

Pundits are paid through books, advertisement in radio and TV. Some of them get work through Networks like CNN. So that how they get paid.

Pundits are paid through books, advertisement in radio and TV. Some of them get work through Networks like CNN. So that how they get paid.

I'm not saying "how". I'm saying "why".

I'm not saying "how". I'm saying "why".

Oh, well, they're being paid because some idiots need their opinions spoon fed to them. Spoon feeding opinion is apparently a very good business.

Beyond merely not paying pundits, I think they should have to pay for the privilege of addressing us.

Beyond merely not paying pundits, I think they should have to pay for the privilege of addressing us.
Well, women in Norway have to pay men for the privilege of fellating them.

Makes sense to me.

Norwegian Court Convicts First Woman for Rape

Thu Apr 28, 9:15 AM ET

OSLO (Reuters) - A Norwegian court has sentenced a woman to nine months in jail for raping a man, the first such conviction in the Scandinavian country that prides itself for its egalitarianism.

The 31-year-old man fell asleep on a sofa at a party in January last year and told the court in the western city of Bergen he woke to find the 23-year-old woman was having oral sex with him.

Under Norwegian law, all sexual acts with someone who is "unconscious or for other reasons unable to oppose the act" are considered rape.

The court sentenced the woman Wednesday to nine months in jail and ordered her to pay 40,000 Norwegian crowns ($6,355) in compensation.

"This is a very harsh sentence," the woman's lawyer, Per Magne Kristiansen, told the Norwegian news agency NTB. The woman argued the man had been awake and consented.

The prosecutor had sought a 10-month sentence and argued the court should not be more lenient with a woman than a man. It was Norway's first conviction of a woman for rape.

Norway has long traditions of equality -- 40 percent of the cabinet of Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, for instance, are women.

The recent thread on Cohen made me think.

There are quite a few people with opinions. Sometimes, some of them have well-reasoned, well-supported arguments. Other times, they suck.

We see it all the time here. Some are more consistently good than others. But none of us on NS General are paid to be pundits (although I think we post here because we want to get that opinion out).

Why, then, do we pay pundits to blather in the editorial section, or to talk on news talk shows on the radio and television?

The overall quality of these asshats isn't any better than what I've seen here - and they are being paid big bucks to spout stuff that they don't even show a link for.

Anytime anyone posts an editorial here, it is immediately assailed and dismembered.

So, why bother paying them? They aren't doing a real job.
I think they get paid--and get paid attention to--for finding ways to put pieces of disparate information together in a new or interesting way, or when they're able to transform complex situations into layman's terms. The problem, obviously, is that too many of them these days get paid to scream loudly, and since they're columnists, they're not generally held to the same level of factual accuracy as regular journalists are.

There's a blogger/writer named David Neiwert (Orcinus) who talked about what he thinks the problem with the current pundit class is. He says that in years gone by, pundits, particularly newspaper columnists, were journalists who'd worked their way up to punditry. They'd had solid training in fact-finding, in sniffing out bullshit from sources, in the work of following a story, and the column was a reward for that work. Too many columnists today never had to go through that, and so they have less respect for the job and for the intellectual rigor that comes with it. The people I think of when I hear this complaint are people like Jonah Goldberg or Michelle Malkin. I'm sure there are similar folks on the left, because this is a politics-wide phenomenon.

But I think there's something to that argument. I mean, what has Ann Coulter done to deserve that megaphone she wields? George Will earned his position. Is it any surprise that I'm more likely to occasionally agree with Will than with Coulter?

I'm beginning to think it's worse than that. A lot of reporters don't bother with fact finding and intellectual rigor, either.

Witness the demise of Dan Rather, or the "fair and balanced" Fox News (just the "reporters" - O'Reilly is a pundit).

The news itself is becoming tripe.

I'm beginning to think it's worse than that. A lot of reporters don't bother with fact finding and intellectual rigor, either.

Witness the demise of Dan Rather, or the "fair and balanced" Fox News (just the "reporters" - O'Reilly is a pundit).

The news itself is becoming tripe.
That you can blame on the move toward making the news division a profit machine. Investigative reporting is expensive.

That you can blame on the move toward making the news division a profit machine. Investigative reporting is expensive.

When companies that get most of their money through entertainment own the news, the news turns into entertainment.

The recent thread on Cohen made me think.

There are quite a few people with opinions. Sometimes, some of them have well-reasoned, well-supported arguments. Other times, they suck.

We see it all the time here. Some are more consistently good than others. But none of us on NS General are paid to be pundits (although I think we post here because we want to get that opinion out).

Why, then, do we pay pundits to blather in the editorial section, or to talk on news talk shows on the radio and television?

The overall quality of these asshats isn't any better than what I've seen here - and they are being paid big bucks to spout stuff that they don't even show a link for.

Anytime anyone posts an editorial here, it is immediately assailed and dismembered.

So, why bother paying them? They aren't doing a real job.\
Good post. *bows*

Also, i'm going to take some satisfaction that, in your way, you mean to compliment a few of the posters here.
And per an earlier statement, i have to point out that a few pundits don't even bother with columns.
Anyone have any from Michael "Savage" Weiner, for example?
I know he has books, but they're actually worse than his show, and it's not much of a stretch to think he smeared several pages' worth of type with his rabid mouth-foam.

When companies that get most of their money through entertainment own the news, the news turns into entertainment.
Yep.
*bows*