Olbermann Flap Misses Point: Who's Really Paying Pundits?

[Commentary] The whole Olbermann flap over political contributions misses the point of the unholy alliance of money, the media and the punditocracy. The question isn't who are news correspondents giving their money to -- which is all in the public record if you look hard enough at Federal Election Commission reports. But rather, who's GIVING money to these journalistically self-styled soothsayers. To that end, a good place to start would be full disclosure of extracurricular speech making income for all TV journalists and pundits.

Newsweek, in its inaugural "Power 50" list of the highest paid pundits just last week made the point that Keith Olbermann doesn't give many paid speeches. But as for his colleagues, that's another story. If the Juan Williams debacle taught us anything it's that it matters who's paying our pundits. When networks describe their pundits as "political analysts" and "contributors" it's unclear if they're being paid by the networks for their unbiased opinions, or if they're shilling for the trade association who flew them to Pebble Beach the week before. The FEC discloses individual political contributions just fine. But now when are the networks and speakers bureaus going to follow suit?