Expert Witness

Writing about Nick Pope, self-appointed UFO-expert, set me to thinking about the whole issue of media 'experts' . It seems to me that just about anybody can set themselves up as a so-called expert these days and pontificate on all manner of subjects. The proliferation of 24 hour news channels and online news outlets means that demand for 'expert' comment and analysis of current events is growing, Indeed, I'm thinking of setting up in business myself and offering my services to the media. I've yet to decide what I'm going to be an expert on exactly. It doesn't really matter if I actually do know anything about whatever it is I comment on. All you need to be able to do is demonstrate some kind of connection to the subject you want to hold forth on, and the media will fall over themselves to ask your opinion. Your connection to the subject can be pretty spurious - a onetime colleague of mine regularly turns up on TV and in the newspapers billed as a 'former government intelligence officer'. The reality is that he was a regular army officer who once had a temporary posting to the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS). To be honest, I can't actually remember exactly what it was he did in the DIS, except that the rest of us actual (civilian) intelligence analysts thought that he was a bit of a joke.

Clearly, I'm in the wrong business and should be billing myself as an 'intelligence expert'. The trouble with that is, I might actually know something about the subject. Highly dangerous in the world of media. No, I clearly need to become an expert in something more peripheral. I was watching Time Team the other day (I was feeling masochistic), and they happily trotted in some guy saying he was a local historical expert. Hell, I thought, my degree is -at least partly - in history and I've even taught some history, I should be doing that! I could just see myself wandering onto the site of their dig (probably a caravan park in Essex, where they're trying to uncover evidence that Julius Caesar once parked his van there whilst on holiday in 55BC) and spouting absolute bollocks. I'd just love to see how long it would take any of the programme's other so called experts to challenge me. But if they did that, they might risk exposure themselves. Frankly, I think that it is about time we banned these 'experts' outright. Fill the dead air time left by their absence with a juggler, or something. It would be just about as informative as anything the 'experts' might say.