All the news that's fit to predict

Downsizing news outlets doing more with less

By BRIAN LOWRY

AS DOWNSIZING NEWS OUTLETS endeavor to "do more with less," one might think old-fashioned reporting and analysis would be enough to keep them occupied. But no, the prevailing trend extends beyond that into Carnac the Magnificent territory, prodding pundits to forecast what's to come.

Welcome to the age of all the news that's fit to predict.

Lay part of the blame on ESPN and a sports culture shot full of steroids in more ways than one. Bob Costas examined that dynamic in his HBO series "Costa Now," in which veteran play-by-play man Al Michaels questioned how sportswriters on ESPN's talk programs can harbor such fevered opinions about so many obscure issues -- attacking a first-round NBA playoff game as if it were the Treaty of Versailles.

This beer-soaked mentality, alas, has bled into politics and showbiz news, and from TV into print. The Los Angeles Times, for example, introduced the "Movie Projector" column, which estimates advance box office figures complete with a chart of precise numbers.

For "Iron Man," the paper pegged the opening weekend at $72 million, which was only off by a factor of 40%. Although the Paramount/Marvel release surpassed the most optimistic projections, it's hard to see what value consumer newspaper readers derive from publishing such data Friday, only to have them proved glaringly wrong by Saturday morning.

Seriously, 40%? A monkey throwing darts could get that close.

NOT TO PICK just on the Times. From "Pardon the Interruption" to "The McLaughlin Group" to MSNBC's "Race for the White House With David Gregory," crystal balls are rolled out and gazed into all over television.

"I'm swingin' for the fences," blustered MSNBC's Joe Scarborough -- adopting an appropriate baseball analogy, if seemingly oblivious to the associated risk of striking out -- on Monday as panelists on Gregory's show each predicted Indiana and North Carolina primary results, down to exact margins of victory.

Such rotisserie-league-style prognostication would be mindless fun if it didn't feed news cycles and foster expectations that subsequently shape coverage. Moreover, there's no consequence for being wrong -- allowing talking heads to burp out brazenly misguided howlers, secure in the knowledge that Orwell's memory hole will swallow their screw-ups.

To be fair, everyone misses the mark now and again. Still, if my track record resembled that of, say, William Kristol -- he of the Weekly Standard, New York Times and Fox News, whose in-hindsight risible opining included anticipating that establishing democracy in Iraq would be a relative snap -- I'd hide in a dark room until "The Daily Show" signed off, like, forever.

The urge to handicap is partially attributable to the modern flow of information. When people instantaneously know what happened via TV or the Web -- and news producers have near-unlimited time to fill -- questions quickly turn to "What happens next?," even if we've barely had time to digest.

GROUSING ABOUT PUNDITS' inaccuracy recently flared in the blogosphere tied to the fifth anniversary of President Bush's Iraq speech backed by that "Mission Accomplished" banner. The irritation, though, began gaining steam after the expansion of 24-hour cable news. Indeed, a decade ago, the New York Times' Walter Goodman lamented how "television blowhards" can prattle on without fear of censure, as "neither excess nor error nor eccentricity can stay these spouters from their anointed rounds."

By contrast, Slate media critic Jack Shafer rejected grading analysts based on their clairvoyance, reacting to liberal complaints about the Times giving the much-loathed Kristol an op-ed forum.

"Pundits shouldn't lose or win gigs on the basis of how many of their predictions come true," he wrote, "but whether they write interesting copy" -- or, in TV parlance, communicate in effective soundbites.

The main difference from the time when Goodman unleashed his rant is the marginalization of thoughtful analysis amid the inane pressure to deliver hedge-free proclamations -- the kind of sweeping, specific declarations only rank amateurs would state publicly were they not pushed before a camera and instructed to be energetic, combative and entertaining.

Perfection can hardly be expected in these volatile fields, but when you study entertainment, sports or politics professionally, shouldn't there be a penalty for failing to be somewhere in the ballpark -- you know, plus or minus 40%?