Those annoying media pundits.

• Author: Saltzman, Joe

It's getting harder and harder to find straight factual accounts of what is going on in the world today. Reporters and editors in all media long ago decided that it is their obligation not just to report the facts, but to interpret them. Reporters and editors in the 1990s have carried this a step further. They now believe it is their obligation to predict what will happen in the future, too. And if the broadcast or print medium is powerful enough, the predictions may even result in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It is not enough for the media to endlessly report on Pres. Clinton's possible infidelities, but also to speculate on his future in public office, his future relationship with his wife, his future problems with the American people and Congress, and even the remote possibility of the President's impeachment. To give these predictions credibility, anonymous and on-the-record sources are quoted validating or questioning the predictions; sidebars are written explaining how the impeachment process works; and various columnists offer advice to the President on how to handle the present crisis.

The arrogance of it all overwhelms even the most devoted supporter of the media. It is one thing to report a news event. It is more difficult, but possible, to interpret that news event. But it is practically impossible to predict what the future will bring, and often the media predictions, devised under severe deadline pressure, are based on the flimsiest of evidence. When did the journalist become our seer, our psychic, our zodiac calendar?

In the 1960s, television reporters were pressured to end their stand-up reports with some conclusion about the event. Serious journalists laughed at their predicaments and their ludicrous attempts at predicting how the situation would be resolved. Most reporters ended up simply saying something to the effect that those in the know were keeping a watch-and-wait attitude. As the years passed, print editors, hopelessly beat on any breaking news event. began pressuring all of their journalists to do more than simply report what happened, there it happened, when it happened, who it happened to, and how it happened, and to concentrate on the why. Let TV and radio give the public the bare facts. Newspapers and magazines would put it all into perspective. The mantra was: We'll tell the readers what all of this means. Today, even that doesn't seem good enough. The journalists now feel an obligation to take their analysis...