Experts May Be Hazardous To Your Newspaper

New York Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent has critiqued the practice by his newspaper and others of relying on information from "expert analysts" without informing readers that many of the experts represent the interests of their financial sponsors. "Bad reporters find experts by calling up university press relations officials or brokerage research departments and saying, in effect, 'Gimme an expert,'" he writes. "Really bad reporters, paradoxically, work a little harder: knowing the conclusions they want to arrive at, they seek out experts who just happen to agree with them. Give me a position, and I'll find you an expert to support it - and not just an expert but one with an institutional affiliation sounding so dignified it could make a nobleman genuflect. Give me a Center for the Study of ..., an Institute for the Advancement of ..., or an American Council on ..., and often as not I'll give you an organization whose special interests are as sharply defined as its name is not." Worse yet, some reporters seem to simply invent anonymous experts as a way of inserting their own viewpoint into the story. For example, Okrent took a look at the the October 26 issue of the Times noticed that 17 articles in that issue "cited the wisdom of 'experts,' 'industry experts,' 'military budget experts' and the like, but failed to name - or even describe - a single one."