'Fake experts' now a feature of US election

My father, Billy Heffron, was enjoying himself, mid-flow in conversation, a cup of tea in his hand and biro-filed paperwork strewn across the kitchen table of his host - a small farmer outside Ballyhaunis. 

As agricultural consultant, Billy had called to his farming client a few hours earlier to complete forms for some farm scheme or other. However, in the lively talk and laughter afterwards, which is a well-known feature of my father’s visits, the evening had closed in quickly. Too quickly. 

The farmer jolted forward and yanked up the volume on the radio which had been infusing the room with low-level Midwest Radio in the background. Suddenly the familiar bars of a jig filled the small kitchen. 

“Billy are you going to stay to listen to your show?” he asked, somewhat confused. 

Emitting an understandable profanity, the local radio’s agricultural correspondent jumped up.

"Sure, amn’t I meant to be doing it now!" he said before rushing off into the night. 

After what seemed like a Guinness-Book-of-records number of diddle-eye-de-dye repeats, Billy entered the Midwest Radio studio, apologised to his listeners (and my mother who was a nervous wreck by her radio at home) and began his popular weekly show Farming Matters.

A self-taught farm advisor, my father is an expert in farming and rural affairs, borne out of a keen mind, an engaging love of people and their issues, and decades of experience being a farmer, GAA leader, political and community activist, while also chairman of the multi-million euro Aurivo co-op (or NCF as it was then). Yet his radio programme also featured his interviews with those with knowledge and experience that he didn’t possess, even if he disagreed with them. Billy’s interviews with politicians such as Ivan Yates, Paul Connaughton and Mark Killilea were always done to elicit relevant information for the listener, finding common ground and never using ‘gotcha’ questions or soundbites. As long as his guests were authentic and knowledgeable, that was enough.

Three decades and a universe away, I am watching the immaculately turned-out CNN host looking earnestly into the camera.

"Let’s get some insight now from former White House Communications Director, for Donald Trump, Anthony Scaramucci, who joins us now. Anthony, great to be with you as always."

His guest is an equally smartly coiffured Italian-American who gives his expert analysis of the Trump’s campaign’s reaction to Harris’ rise in the polls. This 10-minute clip has 1.3 million views already, but is just one of a daily multitude put out by each news network.

Scaramucci’s so-called expertise is solely rooted in him being Trump’s former Communications spokesperson for 11 days before being dismissed on July 31, 2017. Previous to Scaramucci ever joining the Trump team, he had supported the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, while reportedly telling Fox Business in 2015 that Trump was a "hack politician". 

Known as ‘The Mooch’, he had a change of heart to join the Trump campaign finance committee and later their transition team. It was only after Scaramucci had another coming-to-Jesus moment in 2019, when he found he could no longer support his former boss, that th loud-mouthed, Wall Street financier found his political ‘expertise’ required on cable TV and podcasts.

If Scaramucci is more like a ‘junior B football’ chancer on The Sunday Game, Stephanie Grisham is a sly inter-county veteran, often interviewed for her political insight by CNN and the liberal MSNBC. She did serve in several high-profile positions in the Trump administration, only resigning her position in the wake of the January 6th rioters tearing through the Capitol building. So unlike ‘The Mooch’ she had actual experience to write a tell-all book detailing her time in the White House. 

Grisham recently extolled the dangers of another Trump term when speaking at the Democratic National Convention, claiming she had been one of Trump’s closest advisors. She insisted that her decision as the first White House Press Secretary to never hold press conferences was because she didn’t want to lie for Donald Trump — even though she conducted interviews with conservative news outlets all during this time, including defending Trump's description of ‘Never Trump Republicans’ as "human scum" and attacked a fired Chief of Staff, as "totally unequipped to handle the genius of our President".

The authenticity of an expert should matter, perhaps more than their expertise, but the unrelenting 24-hours news cycle requires presentable ‘experts’ to repackage the same nutrient-deficient news stories of the day into goldfish-memory soundbites - as long as they don’t stray far from the narrative. ‘Why should we be listening to this person?’ is never asked. The bias of each ‘former Trump insider’ is almost never challenged. The fact that they have no present insight into what is going on is avoided.

But there are limits. When NBC hired the ousted head of the Republican party, Ronna Romney McDaniel, as another political expert, the outcry from without the network - but more especially from within - saw her depart only a few days later. Her unfailing loyalty to Trump right until her enforced resignation last March, including backing his false voter fraud claims, was a bridge too far for some NBC employees. Unfortunately, she was the exception that proves the rule.

In fairness, this ‘fake expert’ tendency is not recent nor limited to the US. Frances Lawrence, the widow of Irish headmaster, Philip Lawrence, who was fatally stabbed in December 1995, after intervening in a gang attack on a pupil at his London school, was sought out as ‘an expert’ by the Daily Telegraph in 2002, seeking her opinion on government attempts to control violent crime. She was certainly a victim, but no expert on knife-related violence. Her very understandable emotions did not inform reasoned debate, especially relating to the actions of the killers of her innocent husband.

When Michael Ring came onto Billy’s ‘Farming Matters’ programme, seeking to ‘put a ring in the Dail!” at one too many times during the interview, Billy avoided asking the obvious political questions that would have forced the future Fine Gael minister into replying by rote. Instead he asked the Westport auctioneer of his work, what the issues were for local people and why he wanted to stand as a TD, while teasing out Ring’s genuine opinion on issues for rural Mayo and small farmers in particular. Whatever the listener’s thoughts on either of the men, it could hardly be said they were not authentic experts who knew of what they spoke. Neither would have survived long on Cable TV in the USA.