(HOST) It’s early days yet for candidates to begin to line up for the next
presidential election, and commentator Bill Seamans says that’s a problem
for certain members of the news media.
(SEAMANS) These are tough days for the celebrity newspersons who are called pundits. It has been said by some political science scholars that it’s really these ultra opinionators who choose the presidential
candidates because of the influence their commentaries allegedly have over what we the people think about the contenders.
We are now at the very early stage that is uncomfortable for the throng of commentators from Washington following the New Hampshire primary battle. They must file daily columns for the print media or sound knowledgeable as talking TV heads feeding the hungry cable news monster that never sleeps. It is too early for them to extract anything but speculative perspective from the opinion polls. If the candidates’ rhetoric is in a rut the pundits must go with what they’ve got and make it sound newsworthy – a technique called pseudo-news.
At this stage the pundits try to read some meaning into the repetitive stump speeches the candidates give at those cozy house parties or for the big so-called town meeting in some local hall like the high school gym.
For the pundit caravan the only hope of breaking through the generalities is the occasional sharp question from the audience that impels the
candidate to go off-message and say something new. There also is some deliberate leakage from the ubiquitous aides who might suggest anonymously that their candidate is deeply disturbed by something like Russian President Putin’s undiplomatic remarks about our missile program.
At this pseudo news stage the pundits usually resort to play-it-safe noncommittal fire-escape journalism. They wrap their commentaries in words like maybe, perhaps, it’s possible that, but on the other hand, it’s a very tight race, time will tell – and heard lately – those New Hampshire voters are so darned unpredictable.
A last resort for the pundit is creating pseudo news about personalities – has Obama really given up smoking as he claims? Is Obama walking on the
water of favorable media coverage or is he skating on thin ice. About Hillary we hear that some fashionistas suggest that she go back to skirts or some cynics ask whether her personal baggage is too heavy a burden to carry to the White House. Even the Mudfellas are suffering a tough time these days unable to dig up a juicy scandal for the pundits to feed on.
Finally, I’m reminded of an editorial cartoon that showed a mother
explaining the political drama to her little boy standing in front of a
voting booth. She says, We go inside, dear, and make a pencil mark on a
piece of paper or we press a button next to the name of the person we want
to be president – and then all those crazy people will go away!
Bill Seamans is a former correspondent and bureau chief for ABC News in the Middle East.