Having watched the news in the background to some briefing I feel compelled to work on, I am surprised by the number of people who can speak intelligently in such stark contrast to the Supreme Court's gun ban decision, which came out a mere twelve hours ago. The decision is 157 pages! If it took the justices nearly four months to write it, how can anyone who hasn't devoted their entire day (as a lawyer) to reading it, possibly be able to speak with any more than a gut reaction? It simply leads me to think that maybe there is some truth to the idea that all of the media has simply sunk to the level of accepting uninformed musings from the left and right in a not-so-veiled effort to pander to whatever media market is currently in demand.
So, I decided to take a look at the resumes of the talking heads. I know Sen. McCain is not a lawyer, and Sen. Obama is, and interestingly, McCain explained how that was a great legal decision and Roe v. Wade was one of the worst, so I'll leave those comments for what they are worth. Obama is still figuring out how to disagree with it, although given that he is a self-proclaimed "constitutional scholar," he will have to concede that by a 5-4 decision, the second amendment says whatever the majority says it is. I'll reconcile all of this with the idea of a "living constitution" once I can figure out if it's even possible. But neither McCain nor Obama are running the media, so let's just look at the anchors facing the nation.
I'm simply pointing out high school graduation and college/grad degree, and relevance, if any. Feel free to correct me if I have been misled. I'm not going to comment on anything in particular except to mention that I usually watch the first segment or two of the O'Reilly Factor and parts of Anderson 360 (sometimes, and I usually flip to see if David Gergen or Juan Williams is on). Between the two of them, at least I feel that I am balanced out toward the middle. Most of the college degrees are in journalism/broadcast fields or they had some broadcast experience through radio or mixed media while in college (as one would expect).
Bill O'Reilly - college degree; masters in journalism from BU (which is one of the top programs in the country by the way).
Sean Hannity. High school grad and college dropout.
Alan Colmes - college degree.
Greta Van Susteren - college degree in economics; law degree from Georgetown
Chris Matthews - college degree
Keith Olberman - college degree.
Dan Abrams - college degree from Duke and law degree from Columbia
Lou Dobbs - college degree from Harvard
Larry King - high school grad.
Wolf Blitzer - college degree and masters in international relations from Hopkins
Anderson (Yes, I remember you were on Channel One) Cooper - college degree from Yale
And, to round it out: Nancy Grace - college degree, law degree from Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University, masters in constitutional and criminal law from NYU.
Now, of two of the lawyers who have shows (Abrams and Grace), I have been impressed with neither and now that I've discovered that Abrams is a lawyer, I would question where he comes up with some of his legal analysis, since it seems pretty cursory at best. I haven't watched enough of Greta Van Susteren to form an opinion about it one way or the other (although from what I have seen, it seems more informed and less aggressive than Verdict). I rarely even keep on Nancy Grace's show more than a couple seconds, although I did notice that she put up the address of the Texas Supreme Court when their polygamy decision came down and encouraged her viewers to contact them and complain. Yeah, that will work.
My point to all of this is merely to say that without Tim Russert (college degree and law degree from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University), there seems to be some room at the head of these networks for a pundit with a law degree who at least uses it productively. I liked Tim Russert's show and was saddened by his sudden death.
In sum, the fact that most of these broadcasters post-Russert are able to espouse their reasoning as to why such and so legal case was correctly or incorrectly decided, particularly when the odds of them having read through 157 pages as a lawyer would, is just funny. I am a lawyer and wouldn't give an opinion on television about it before actually sitting down for a couple hours and reading through the case. (My other comments today are uninformed at best, but the point of those entries wasn't to provide any legal analysis or opinion on them either). (I also must give some credit to Professor Bainbridge for making a similar point a few years ago when asked to comment on the Disney case when it came out). The fact that they have an audience that hangs on their words and forms an opinion based on their non-legal analysis, however, is not. Am I wrong in being jaded about this? Post away a counterpoint.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Pundits with Law degrees - there are only two!
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2 comments:
how about Charlie Rose? Duke undergrad, Duke Law, though it sounds somewhat degrading to call him a 'pundit'
A quick follow-up: I have watched the Greta Van Sustren show a couple of times now and appreciate her perspective, although most of the topics of her show simply do not interest me. In my limited observations of her program, I find her to be a fairly balanced reporter.
Haven't seen Charlie Rose though, sorry. I still haven't seen "morning joe" but I did see him on another show the other day and he seemed quite neutral as well. If only all news reporters aspired for the same.
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