Weekend Poll: America’s Worst Pundits
Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife
[Take the poll below]
I’m not including every pundit I can think of here, so you can write some in. I didn’t include Lou Dobbs because he quit. Feel free to write in your best and worst pundits in the comments and any reasons why.
I have a love/hate relationship with pundits. I think they’re full of crap to various degrees. I’ve written some pro-Glenn-Beck pieces but not because I actually like Beck. I think Bill O’Reilly is a hell of a lot more honest than Sean Hannity or Beck or most other right-wingers. Listening to Olbermann makes me feel physically ill. Maddow is so dripping with sarcasm I can’t stomach her, but I think she at least believes what she says, however overladen with snark it may be.
If I had to pick a favorite, I’d pick Stephen Colbert probably. Even though he’s all facade, I think he’s pretty much the most honest voice in television. I know, I know. Paradoxes.
My least favorite? That’s a secret.
America's Worst Pundit
- Glenn Beck (43%, 488 Votes)
- Rush Limbaugh (34%, 390 Votes)
- Sean Hannity (12%, 138 Votes)
- Keith Olbermann (5%, 55 Votes)
- Bill O'Reilly (4%, 41 Votes)
- Gretta van Susteran (1%, 16 Votes)
- Rachel Maddow (1%, 10 Votes)
- Jon Stewart (0%, 4 Votes)
- Stephen Colbert (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,142
Loading ...America's Best Pundit
- Jon Stewart (45%, 443 Votes)
- Rachel Maddow (25%, 245 Votes)
- Keith Olbermann (14%, 138 Votes)
- Stephen Colbert (10%, 95 Votes)
- Glenn Beck (3%, 32 Votes)
- Rush Limbaugh (2%, 21 Votes)
- Bill O'Reilly (1%, 13 Votes)
- Sean Hannity (0%, 3 Votes)
- Gretta van Susteran (0%, 1 Votes)
Total Voters: 991
Loading ...Exit question: how hard do you think it would be to take a very low budget, some honest commentators, and totally smash MSNBC’s lousy ratings?
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…And John Stewart out to an early lead!
To answer your exit question: I think if you took some honest commentators and had a low budget, you would smash ALL 3 of the 24 hr networks ratings.
I think people want honesty, maybe now more than ever.
I mean, everyone knows things aren’t rosy. So why keep playing that card?
In response to another comment. See in context »dtafs… if that were true, we would have a lot of honest car salespeople out there… and there are not many. You can’t trust what people say they want because the reality or what people do is almost always much different. People don’t want the truth or to be happy.
I think the way these shows are run is more about playing to an audience rather than reporting or being honest. It is what gets people making comments and watching, which makes money and in the end that is why these stations do above all else… make money.
Most of them make it out as “us vs. them” and the “us” is is always correct and always the underdog. I really think that most all humans have a innate desire to hate some group of people.. and politics plays into that desire. These show IMO have made more people pick sides creating more hate, well that plus the Internet allows for much more participation too.
In response to another comment. See in context »I hear ya. But I do think people want the truth. I also believe that many Americans want the news, the pundits, etc. to start talking to us as if we are adults, not 14yr old impressionable kids.
My biggest beef with politics today is that every time i turn on the TV to catch some news, I feel like i enter the twilight zone. I see members of congress using 4th grade-esque visual aids to make non sensical arguments about anything they feel like arguing about.
TBH, It’s f-ing annoying that these people who are no more experts than you and I in any given subject treat us like we can’t comprehend the complexities of a situation.
And it’s one of the reasons why I just tune most of it out these days.
In response to another comment. See in context »Well said. Which is exactly why I asked this exit question to begin with…
In response to another comment. See in context »people do not trust anyone anymore because we have been fed so much “theatre’ in the name of news over the past decade. I do think some honest commentators would be a welcome change and hopefully could last long enough to develop a following.
Then the question becomes – will the stations ever realize that there is a demand for this and actually back the idea with money? And then – is there something about the medium that dilutes or distorts the actual opinions and news being presented?
In response to another comment. See in context »It’s a great question, and one I have thought about many times.
TBH, I’m surprised that we haven’t seen it happen. And I would guess, someone, somewhere, has to have something in the works.
Journalism in our country has degraded to the point now where there is such a public distrust of anything presented on TV, that most people just don’t watch.
Hell, I’ll readily admit that I learn more from reading this blog, as well as a few others, than I could ever learn from watching a 24 hour news channel.
At least in the blogesphere, most (not all) opinions are backed up with supporting documents and facts. Although, that’s also now becoming laborious to sort through.
The bottom line is, I’m 35 yrs old and a reasonable person. If i wanted to have people lay out arguments to me with stick figure drawings and crazy colorful visual aides, I’d tune back into sesame street.
I want to do what I do in real life. Gather the facts and evidence, and come to my own conclusion and opinion on a subject. Not have someone hand me theirs, thinly veiled as “fact.”
Heck, half the time, I go here: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/
just to get a better feel of who in the media is being honest, and who isn’t.
It’s a pretty damning testament, on the whole, when you have to have a website that actually checks and rates the comments made by those in the media.
In response to another comment. See in context »oops, i replied to the wrong comment. Meant for this to be under your response to my post just above.
In response to another comment. See in context »Though the pundits you mention are all high-profile, I generally think of the more legitimate pundits as being newspaper columnists. So, I give Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post my vote for best pundit. His writing is honest, thoughtful and can be either forceful or funny when called for.
Erik, I’d love to see a follow-up poll where you look at the Carvilles and Matalins, the Dick Morrises and so on. Not the on-air talent, but the people who traipse one when they need an ‘expert.’ There’s so many of them on all 3 cable networks, and so many of them are so soooo terrible.
In response to another comment. See in context »That’s a great idea Michael. I’ll do that, maybe for next weekend’s poll.
In response to another comment. See in context »Sarah, I wonder if this is a result of the medium or the intended audience or what…? But I agree, though there are plenty of hacks in the world of the written word as well.
In response to another comment. See in context »You’re looking for the worst pundit and you didn’t include Bill Kristol?? You can’t be serious! He has NEVER been right about ANYTHING. Yet he keeps getting a forum. In answer to you exit question, let me ask you; how hard would it be to offer food to a starving person? At a “coffee with your congressman” (X. Becerra, actually one of the better ones) I stood up to speak. The meeting had been low key and plodding up until then, the questions/comments rather mundane and specific… but I was seething. As I ripped into the sell-out that Obama and the “Demo” congress have proven to be, (2 asian wars against innocent people, Wall St. criminals ruining real financial recovery, and the monstrosity that “health care” had become) the place erupted in applause and cheers. People are DYING for the truth. At coffee shops and other public discussions I constantly hear, “”why isn’t anyone else saying that?” You got an offer?
Rudy – again, I didn’t include all pundits, and I was mainly focusing on television. Bill Kristol would certainly fit nicely into the “worst” column in my book. He’s neocon in chief these days.
In response to another comment. See in context »I voted for Hannity as the worst, only because neither of the Twin Twit Twats was available, they being Monica Crowley and Ann Coulter. Every time I hear Crowley start off one of her racist, fearmongering, corporate-bought, utterly retarded remarks with “Look…” I want to kill abandoned kittens.
Blondes with nice legs, duh, helping to keep Joe Retard Plumber 6-Pack wolfing down the dogshit Beck and Hannity ladle out. I seriously don’t know how any of these assholes — Hannity, Coulter, Malkin, the whole crew – sleep at night. I sincerely hope the payola is worth all the dead soldiers and financially ruined proles.
[...] the results are in, and the winners [...]