The “opinion/fact” distinction figures prominently within American political-media culture. It is inseparable from the “pundit/journalist” distinction that it supports.

The orthodox paradigm goes like this: Journalists trade only in facts. Commentators or pundits, on the other hand, are presumably not interested in facts, for their mission is to impart their opinions.

Since journalists are concerned only with facts, journalists as journalists resist indulging their prejudices and biases. They impartially report what they refer to as “the news.” Notice that events, facts, deemed newsworthy exist objectively in the world, and it is the job of journalists to identify them, as if these facts were like criminal suspects in a line-up.

The raison d’être of commentators or pundits, in contrast, is to share their opinions. They are expected to be partial, biased. Pundits are not journalists, and anyone who takes them at their word, or who takes seriously their commentary on the events of the day, makes a category error. Whether it is Tucker Carlson or Rachel Maddow, popular pundits from across the political spectrum — including, specifically, Carlson and Maddow themselves — have exploited this distinction between journalists proper, the merchants of facts, and pundits, entertainers of opinion, in order to defend........

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