“The nation’s economy might be coughing and wheezing, but there is no shortage of employment opportunities in Punditland,” writes the Washington Post‘s Paul Farhi today.
So why are there so many pundits these days on cable news? Farhi says that there’s a lot of campaign coverage, and, therefore, tons of time to fill. “We’re devoting as much coverage to the primaries as the networks gave to NASA in the 1960s, only we’re covering two or three moon shots a week,” MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann tells Farhi.
“My feeling is the more (pundits) the merrier,” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer says.
In fact, CNN political director Sam Feist adds, “I won’t say we won’t add more (on-air pundits)” as the political season progresses.
• Related: NewsBusters’ Noel Sheppard wonders why no one from “ratings leader” Fox News Channel is quoted in the Post story. It’s “almost like doing an article about this Sunday’s Daytona 500, and spending all your time talking about Tony Stewart instead of Ryan Newman, dontcha think?”