Funditry with Punditry

The Economist’s economics blog, Free Exchange, explains why punditry veers into the bizarre. Read the rest of the post for the justification, but here’s the key bit:

If you want to be on television, you need to be the chap saying something that is

  1. Unequivocal
  2. Something no one else is saying
  3. Testable

There’s no money in sensible, predictable advice. Anyone can give you THAT. People latch on to sensationally successful, novel predictions and tend to ignore or write off the failures. To become a pundit, predict something remarkable that no one else is predicting and be right about it once. Then make sure everyone hears about it.

That having been said, it is possible to lose your credibility eventually. Just look at John C Dvorak.

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