The crisis of credentialism

Why is it that, just as the value of credentials has declined, they have become increasingly fetishised by the media?

This article featured in our thirteenth print issue, available for purchase here.

The media has been slow to catch up with the pandemic. Over this year, we have seen countless examples of traditional outlets taking months to catch on to insights and concerns raised in online platforms. Detailed conversations about the efficacy of lockdown, the scale of non-Covid deaths induced by restrictions, or the way we talk about statistics were being had on internet forums, small outlets, and social media platforms as far back as February. So why is it that only now are we seeing shadows of these discussions reaching the print and broadcast outlets that have the ear of the mainstream and the decision-makers? The answer lies with a long-festering rot in public life: credentialism.

Traditionally, credentialism has referred to a belief or over-reliance on formal qualifications or titles to measure a person’s abilities. Over the past several decades, however, credentialism has metastasised into something far more dangerous: a tendency to treat credentials as the source of empirical and philosophical authority.

Rather than selecting the good arguments, credentialism allocates the public platform to sufficiently-credentialed 'experts'. This ethos is apathetic to the truth or validity of said 'expert's' argument and ignores challenges from those who are found to be insufficiently credentialed. Any challenges to the truth and validity of said argument only gains attention insofar as one can get another credentialed expert to articulate them.

Our response to the Covid-19 crisis is closely related to the prevalence of credentialism. Despite flaws in modelling and an absence of a real cost-benefit analysis beyond the scope of Covid deaths, civil servants, special advisors, and epidemiologists in favour of restrictions have had a near-monopoly over comment opportunities in newspaper and the broadcast media. The only fertile analysis and critique of credentialed narratives has occurred exclusively outside of mainstream outlets.

In a pre-internet age where education meant access to books, journals, and direct tuition, it would make far more sense to assume that credentials corresponded with authority and competence. This is no longer the case. The explosion of the data previously held by the cognitive elite has meant anyone with an internet connection can now theoretically cultivate the same level of knowledge as a world-leading expert.

This presents an interesting paradox:

Why is it that, just as the value of credentials has declined, they have become increasingly fetishised by the media?

One reason may be the more hectic nature of the news cycle, in which editors and journalists need more new content than ever in the form of quotes, briefings, and bylines. For hacks whose livelihoods depend on getting content out fast that will not land them in trouble, the safer and more expedient path is always to reproduce claims from someone with a title. It is far riskier and more time-consuming to do hefty independent research and scrutinise the logic and data behind claims. Another reason is that the media has come to be more reactive than proactive, with journalists tending more than ever to structure pieces around quotes or briefings pitched to them by PR agencies working on behalf of companies. PR firms have an incentive to pitch the views of the most prestigious spokesperson they can get from their client, while selecting easy-to-read pitches that quickly capture attention. As such, greater preference is given to credentials rather than substantive arguments.

Credentialism is also encouraged by a general sense of uncertainty in many people. While it is generally possible for any layperson to catch up with the most credentialed authority through independent study, the speed at which human knowledge is growing causes many of us to hesitate to offer our thoughts; we are very cognisant that there may be something we do not know about which undermines any putative case we may have. Journalists and editors are also prone to this fear and so feel safer believing that experts must be backed by some nuggets of high-level technical knowledge, rather than faulty assumptions or misaligned priorities.

In short, credentialism has risen because it is the path of least resistance. That means the best way to combat credentialism is to make it harder to get away with, by spreading greater consciousness of the practice and actively pushing back against outlets which partake in the system. Rather than building the reputations of experts, credential signalling must instead engender reputational mockery, and fill editorial mailboxes full of complaints and risk cancelled subscriptions to a publication.

We who find credentialism a threat to decent discourse must go on the attack, spread awareness of this practice, and make it painful to partake in.