TV pundits and related matters

I’m always interested in the people who are put forward as pundits when politics is discussed on TV. Events happen and pundits tell us how we should think about them. Pundits are very influential people.

Some of them are good and some are pretty tedious. Chris Donnelly, for example, is very effective. He knows the detail of politics and the facts and figures behind it. He’s got an unflappable manner that is friendly and open to others. He identified the coming surge among nationalist voters in the election (He also, on BBC’s The View, sported the biggest Ash Wednesday cross on his forehead that I’ve ever seen on TV. Or off TV, come to think of it. Which actually raises an interesting question, if your experience matches mine: even among non-practising Catholics, there are many who like to attend the Ash Wednesday ceremonies and the daubing of foreheads with ashes. Given that, how odd that I’ve never seen a commentator, newsreader or other similar figure on television, north or south, with the ashes mark. Apart, as I say, from Chris Donnelly. Yet I’ve seen umpteen presenters and pundits sporting a poppy. Odd indeed).

Where was I? Oh yes, pundits on TV. In some ways, another The View pundit, Newton Emerson, is like Chris – around the same age, knows his facts and figures, speaks with a constant smile. Yet I find it hard to warm to him. Not so much because he usually – but not always –  takes a unionist line on things, but more because he looks as if he’s just dropped in after a basketball game or gym work-out, and will have to dash off again any minute now. There is also, if I’m not mistaken, a hint of self-love behind the grin – that unmissable air of a man who holds himself in high regard.

Sometimes, especially around election time, politicians get to by-pass the pundits and declare their own take on things. But the rules say that politicians, with rare exceptions, must direct their words to the person interviewing them. That lets the questioner/reporter set the agenda.

One politician who’s lately very visible on TV, telling us how to deal with things, is Ian Paisley. IP Jr appears to have undergone a metamorphosis. Once right-wing and contemptuous, he now comes across as thoughtful and open, emphasizing the things that unionism and republicanism have in common rather than their differences. And he’s developed an effective sense of humour. When asked on UTV if he was angling for Arlene Foster’s job, he pointed down the studio and told Mark Mallet: “There’s Paul Clark down there – do you want his job? It just happens there isn’t a vacancy!” So that’s a Yes, then, Ian.

As I write this, I’m watching a special The Week in Politics on RTÉ, and Aine Lawlor has just asked Mick Fealty to sum up our election. “To put it bluntly, and in a very northern way, the DUP have received a punishment beating”. Mmm. A punishment beating from Sinn Féin. That’s got the same spin as comments during the election from Fionnuala O’Connor, made, as social media immediately noted, when Caitriona Ruane left the BBC studio, not while she was there.

But sometimes TV journalists surprise you. On the same programme, RTÉ’s Tommie Gorman linked Sinn Féin’s election success to the influence of Martin McGuinness, “regarded by many as a Michael Collins figure.”

Same party, different pundit filter. We’d do well to remain alive to the pundits’ ability to shape our political reality, and to yell loudly any time we spot it producing a warped picture.