Nobody knows what will happen next — and certainly not journalists

From the US presidential election to polling about the Albanese government, journalistic punditry is far more interested in telling us what will happen next rather than reporting on what has happened.

The facts, as Atlanta-based journalist and academic Nicole Carr says, are non-negotiable. But, she adds, framing is a choice. Political punditry in America and Australia, using the often unreliable tools of pattern recognition, correlation and recency bias, has opted to frame those non-negotiable facts into a predictive narrative of how the future will unfold.

This narrative gets massaged and delivered through agenda-setting panel talk shows, with viral grabs pumped out by social media algorithms. We’ve seen it here in Australia, where shows like the ABC’s Insiders have become obsessed with asking “What happens next?” — rather than digging into the past week’s news to explain and give context to events. It’s become a weekend form guide explaining who’s on top and who’s headed for the winning post. 

Paradoxically, the best of sports commentary — like Insiders’ companion show, Offsiders — has become less predictive, more reportorial and analytical about the practice, culture and business of sport.

Elections are becoming less about political choices and more about gambling opportunities. According to The Guardian, the 2020 US presidential election was among the top 10 betting events in world history, a market worth £1.7 billion alone on the leading British gambling exchange, Betfair.

We’ve already seen our first big scandal in this year’s British vote, with the country’s gambling commission investigating 15 Conservatives over placing bets on the election date. Another two candidates (one Labour, one Conservative) are in trouble after betting against themselves.

In the US, the not-at-all-sketchy-sounding “crypto-based prediction market platform Polymarket” has taken in a reported US$400 million in bets on US elections so far this year. It’s backed by US$70 million from investors, including Trump-enthusiast tech billionaire Peter Thiel, and has engaged polling guru Nate Silver to help frame the betting markets.

It’s now the business model for struggling media outlets to use their hold on prediction to fight their way back to the centre of the attention economy.  

Languishing audiences of the US cable news networks are back up off the past three weeks of their “Biden’s got to go if Dems want to win” frenzy. According to CNN’s Reliable Sources: “America’s eyes are finally fixated on the 2024 election.” No wonder they’re so keen to pivot their campaigning from “Biden out!” to the demand for the ongoing theatre of the Democratic nomination.

Back in the 1950s, Frankfurt School philosopher Theodor Adorno dug into the predictions of the Los Angeles Herald’s astrology forecasts to ask just what media soothsaying was for. In his essay “The Stars Down to Earth”, he concluded they were a tool to tease readers with the anxiety of an emerging threat (like now: Trump will win!), before offering a passive way out (dump Biden!). 

For Adorno, it’s about generating a complacent citizenry dissuaded from activism, offering instead simple, personal solutions to complex, often social problems: “The threat must be mild in order not to really shock the reader who would give up looking into a column which caused direct discomfort.” 

It’s the same with the US media’s recent obsession with predicting that Biden’s elderly age will help elect Trump. The pundit’s solution of choice is not political engagement to build coalitions for change, but elite insider engagement to change the public face of the Democratic Party.

Media pundits have a key advantage over astrologers: they not only make the predictions, but they also get to brag when they get it right — even if only in a ”busted clock twice a day” way — and to quietly bury (or “reframe”) when they get it wrong. Better yet, between elections, they get to call the wins and losses that frame the narrative, as we get to see in Australia whenever the traditional media go through their contortions to explain their regular opinion polls.

Journalism remains essential for telling us what’s happened, so we can make our minds up. Here’s a better tip to understanding what’s likely to happen next: no-one knows for sure — particularly not the pundit class.