A particularly vexing problem for media professionals who are searching for appropriate scholars to help with their messages these days is overuse of a small subset of possible interviewees. An enterprising journalist discovers a good scholarly source who returns phone calls on time, who speaks in clear language rather than obscure jargon, who has impeccable credentials in their subject specialization, and who knows how to provide provocative quotes and sound bites. That source gets interviewed and quoted in the journalist’s work.
Soon 10 or 20 more journalists will find that interview archived in a database or on a website and call the same person. Pretty soon, that scholar is a recognized “pundit” in his or her area, and gets more opportunities to interact with media professionals than his or her expertise or credentials may warrant. Or, regardless of how outstanding his or her credentials, some scholars are simply used so much by popular sources as to obscure audiences from the complexity and differing perspectives in the field that may emerge if media professionals were to sample from a greater variety of expert sources.
Remember, it is hard for any human being to resist the urge to respond to the promise of flattery, attention and wide recognition. Especially with scholarly sources, who are usually not celebrities and who are sometimes diffident and hard to interview, it is tempting to use the same people over and over because they make the journalist’s job easier.
This is a serious error. Most scholars work in highly specialized sub-fields of widely disparate disciplines of knowledge and expertise. An expert on the political situation in Kenya is usually not qualified to speak equally authoritatively on the political situation in Egypt just because both countries are in Africa. Do not fall for the easy, lazy way out. You need to use the techniques we’ve mentioned throughout this chapter to identify the scholars who are truly appropriate for your message, not those that have become “pundits” for one reason or another.
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