Big Fat Story
With his flame-red goatee, Chuck Todd reminds you of nothing so much as a conscientious assistant professor. He was hired as NBC’s political director in March 2007 following a career as the editor-in-chief of The Hotline—a job in which he learned how to talk about vote distribution at the county level. During the campaign, his inside information is first-rate and his straight delivery has helped fill the gravitas gap left by the late Tim Russert. Todd’s proclamation that John McCain and Sarah Palin seemed uncomfortable in a joint interview with Brian Williams unleashed a fury of speculation about their relationship.
Photo: Alex Wong/Getty
No pundit saw his star rise quite as fast as Silver, a former baseball geek who interpreted the avalanche of poll numbers that came pouring in every day. Silver began posting under the name “poblano” on message boards like Daily Kos, and later founded FiveThirtyEight.com, which housed his punditry for the cycle. His site had a small audience until the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, when Silver turned against the conventional wisdom and correctly called a big night for Barack Obama. Now he gets hundreds of thousands of visitors per day. He recently hinted that he might expand his numerical punditry to Hollywood or congressional races.
Photo: Charles Eshelman/Rapport/Newscom
This was the election in which reporterly bloggers were set loose to cover every twist and turn in the campaign as they happened. The biggest buzz emanated from the dueling blogs of Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin of Politico. Their punditry was somehow both microscopic and sweeping; they could take a small detail (a stray line in a press briefing; an unseen article in a local paper) and make it seem like the burning story of the day. Smith technically covers the left and Martin the right, but both are omnivorous in their reportage.
The Pundit Class of 2008
Pundits couldn't have asked for a better showcase than the 2008 election. There was the extended Obama-Clinton showdown, followed by the autumn of Palinmania. Plus, there more outlets than ever on air and online in which to display their wares. Some familiar names drove the coverage—Couric, Brokaw, Olbermann—but a new crop of pundits emerged, too. Here's a look at six who made their careers in 2008.
She stood up to the McCain machine.
With MSNBC and Fox speechifying from left and right, CNN seemed like the sleepiest of the cable networks; even its star pundits lacked bite. Then came Brown, who in a memorable segment grilled McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds about Sarah Palin’s foreign-policy credentials. (“Can you tell me one decision she made as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard. Just one?”) The campaign was so miffed that it yanked McCain from a scheduled schmooze date with Larry King. Brown, a veteran of NBC, attained a new prominence, and her show was renamed No Bias, No Bull.
Photo: Michael Buckner/Getty
Heir to Stewart, Colbert, Chappelle.
Grier is a pundit under only one definition: Comedy Central’s. But if it’s good enough for Stewart and Colbert, it’s good enough for us. Grier’s African-American-centric Chocolate News, which began airing last month, is a collection of fake news sketches and comic monologues. In one segment, a Chocolate News correspondent interviews “Maya Angelou,” as played by Grier, giving the comedian an opportunity to don a wig and recite a preposterous ode to Barack Obama.
Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty
Johnson, a news personality with Black Entertainment Television, came to the 2008 election with a wide-ranging resume. He had been an activist with the NAACP and a personality on BET’s Rap City. In January, Johnson snagged interviews with both Clinton and Obama for the network. (Obama told him, “[W]hat I always say is that hip hop is not just a mirror of what is. It should also be a reflection of what can be.”) In August, Johnson landed his own Sunday night news show, The Truth, which gave him an even bigger platform with which to drive the discourse about Obama and the African-American community.
Photo: Frederick M. Brown/Getty
This was the election in which reporterly bloggers were set loose to cover every twist and turn in the campaign as they happened. The biggest buzz emanated from the dueling blogs of Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin of Politico. Their punditry was somehow both microscopic and sweeping; they could take a small detail (a stray line in a press briefing; an unseen article in a local paper) and make it seem like the burning story of the day. Smith technically covers the left and Martin the right, but both are omnivorous in their reportage.
Heir to Stewart, Colbert, Chappelle.
Grier is a pundit under only one definition: Comedy Central’s. But if it’s good enough for Stewart and Colbert, it’s good enough for us. Grier’s African-American-centric Chocolate News, which began airing last month, is a collection of fake news sketches and comic monologues. In one segment, a Chocolate News correspondent interviews “Maya Angelou,” as played by Grier, giving the comedian an opportunity to don a wig and recite a preposterous ode to Barack Obama.
Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty
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