They call them “talking heads”. On almost every news show a so-called
“expert” is presented to comment on the current topic being presented. When Gabriel Giffords was shot, news agencies
hauled in brain surgeons to discuss brain injuries and possible recovery
scenarios. During coverage of wars,
politicians, generals, former generals and others are brought in to discuss
weaponry and war strategy.
These talking heads seem to be in abundance on opinion
oriented talk shows. Hannity, O’Reilly,
Greta Van Sustren… They usually have
them piped in from a studio in another city, but on the Sunday morning talk
shows they usually have them all sitting together.
One assumes that the so-called experts are speaking of
their own volition what they truly believe based on the available facts. On hotbed political issues one assumes that
politicians and their supporters will spin facts and argue their bent to the
advantage of themselves and/or their political party.
But you would never assume that any of these guys are
taking a certain position simply because they’re paid by the host to do so. That would be pretty low. In a recent column entitled “As Its Ratings
Slide, The Confessions Of A Recovering CNBC Pundit”, Jerry Bowyer admits to doing
just that.
In his column, Bowyer claims to have been a paid CNBC
contributor for two years, 2008 and 2009. In his column he makes it seem like Fox Ness
and CNBC were fighting each other to get him to be a talking head on their
networks. After puffing himself up quite
sensationally, he reveals that most of his appearances were on Larry Kudlows
“Kudlow Report”.
“My job,” he writes, “was to come on the air and make the
bull case.”
He says that Larry Kudlow was bullish on the economy even
into 2008 and 2009 when the rest of the civilized world was well aware that a
recession had arrived. Bowyer claims
that he himself was “very bullish” to about the middle of 2007. But that didn’t stop him from arguing the
bull case even though.
He describes how Kudlow was always “looking for the bull
case”. When the show had other talking
heads who did not agree with Kudlow’s ignorance, Bowyer was called on to “body
check them”. “I was willing to do that,” he writes. Bowyer describes his years as a paid
“contributor” as bending his mind and principles to continue in Kudlow’s good
graces and get publicity “continuing to automatically look for the bull case
even after the bull case was no longer the strongest case.”
I’m going to put forth my opinion here (and, mind you,
I’m not getting paid for it) and say that it is my belief that Bowyer didn’t
bend his principles solely for the money.
He did it to get on television where he could inflate his ego pretending
to be an economic expert.
