Who are those so-called Experts?

Journalist and broadcasters always run to experts for comments on future predictions of upcoming current events. The so-called experts tell us, what will happen if we do this or do that?

When I was doing stories for CBS-2 in LA, and the CBS Affiliate TV-11 in Houston, Texas, I would always be told to have a :30sec. or so sound bite from the expert in the field dealing with the report. No one ever seemed to explain how this person became an expert in the subject. At least two-thirds of the time the experts were dead-wrong, or not even close to what would happen.

Example in Houston, I was supposed to interview an expert on Traffic Flow on the freeways. There was a proposal to cut-down on heavy freeway traffic during evening rush hours by reversing one of the inbound lanes on the freeway to be a one-way outbound lane during certain evening hours. The highway department would mark off the one lane and flow traffic into the lane going the reverse direction on the incoming side of the freeway. My job was to do a story about this traffic plan, and the producer wanted an expert on the subject included in my story. The expert said the plan would not work and was foolish. He predicted there would be mass confusion and in the next few weeks there would be a head-on crash and people would be killed. He had his say on TV. There was no mass confusion, in fact the plan worked and more traffic moved out of the city faster. No one was killed in a crash, but the expert was never challenged on his predictions as a so-called Expert.

As a reporter I saw this happen over and over. When the first Gulf War began the so-called experts said U-S Troops would be coming home in 50,000 body bags. That prediction was so far off. When I was doing another report a year later I ran into that same so-called expert, but that day he was an expert on a totally different subject. He was ready to be interviewed for my TV news story, and then I asked him what happen to his last prediction about the 50,000 troops that would be killed? All of a sudden he had to leave and could not do my interview. So that day I missed another phony prediction from a so-called expert.

Sometimes the news media point out how wrong these so-called experts are, but normally the media never ask why they were so wrong.

Here is an example from the LA Daily News about the Busway through the San Fernando Valley, called the Orange Line. About 18-years-ago when as a reporter I asked about Metro using the old railroad right-away across the San Fernando Valley for bus service? The so-called experts at Metro told me it would not be possible, and would never work. They were so sure, because they were the experts that TV news would always ask.

Fast forward to today (2007) and the Daily News is reporting that the Metro Orange Line has more than 23,000 daily boardings and the Metro experts had predicted that would not happen until the year 2020. Gee! Metro Guys you only missed it by 13 years and thousands and thousands of passengers. Who would think that if you put an express bus service with its own busway across the San Fernando Valley connecting to lines into the city, that the residents would not use it? I will tell you who, those so-called experts at Metro who never seem to know what they are talking about. They told me it was a subway system or nothing, and they did not have the money for a subway across the Valley.

All the major traffic intersections crossing of the Busway right-away had large expensive railroad crossing signals with crossing arms that would go down stopping traffic when the trains went through. Many folks, including me, said, why teardown those crossing guard signals, they could be used to protect the long-buses that will run on the busway when they cross street intersections. The so-called Metro experts said: those are railroad crossing signals, you can not use them for bus crossing signals on a busway. The signals were all torn down. Right after the busway was opened there were several major accidents of car or trucks crossing in front of one of the new long buses. The crossarm signals could have prevented these accidents. So what did the experts at Metro do, they made a new regulation that the express long buses had to stop at these intersections. That would be like removing the railroad crossing signals and making the trains stop at each road crossing. Standby, next week there may be a Metro expert that says stopping the trains at each intersection is a good idea. I think we could get better Metro experts if they all had to take the bus or subway to work. If they think it is such a good idea for the rest of us, why not have them park their cars and take the bus?

Note: Do not take one of these experts to a horse race; they would probably predict a NASCAR racer as the winner on a motorcycle.

Note: This article is by Judd McIlvain, who has been a broadcast reporter for 40 years. Filed April 2007