Dennis Rodman went to North Korea. Dennis Rodman met the new North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un–the first American to do so. Dennis Rodman is a former professional basketball player. Dennis Rodman is probably smart in his own way, but he is not a scholar of international relations. I don’t recall him every claiming to be. But that didn’t the media (and the State Department) from marching forth on an equally bizarre narrative and coverage of this event. The State Department said it would not debrief Rodman on the trip, despite by most accounts no one in the U.S. government even knowing if the North Korean leader even speaks English. What has happened to “all options are on the table”? In all seriousness, it is hard to understand this peculiar reaction which has most just been to ridicule both Rodman and Kim Jong-un. George Stephanopoulos seemed unaware of who Rodman is, getting all serious in his interview with him as if Rodman were a politician. Did I mention that Rodman is a former basketball player? The underlying sentiment is that Rodman has done some harm to…something I’m not quite clear on. After all he didn’t highjack high-level negotiations. He didn’t travel there illegally. He didn’t misrepresent his credentials. What exactly did Dennis Rodman do wrong? It really seems to boil down to “we don’t North Korea” and “Dennis Rodman is weird.”

On Sunday, along came this “debate” in the NYT about celebrity diplomacy. The question at hand is “Can celebrities like Rodman, Bono or Angelina Jolie who get involved in diplomacy or antipoverty efforts offer a useful diplomatic service, or are they just putting pretty and recognizable faces on complicated and unwieldy issues?” There’s just one problem (actually several but that’s for a later post). Rodman never said he was going as an ambassador or citizen diplomat. He went on basketball tour. And one might ask, isn’t any contact with the so-called Hermit Kingdom good, at least on an intelligence level? George Kennan, the estimable American diplomat and scholar spent time chatting with a prostitute in Hamburg during World War II just to better get a sense of the city, its people and his surroundings. Perhaps its a stretch, but if someone as prescient as Kennan saw value in collecting intelligence from a prostitute (he bought her a drink and cigarettes in a cafe and paid her usual fee in exchange for the chat), then what’s wrong with going with flow on the Rodman visit? The interesting thing is that it’s journalists (State notwithstanding) who seem to have the biggest issue with this. Real diplomats don’t seem to have a problem with it and indeed see value and lessons that can be gleaned from the entire episode. What would Kennan have thought?

The Carnegie Endowment’s Karim Sadjadpour was on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday today to discuss the Iranian nuclear situation. (He was also on Fareed Zakaria.) Sadjadpour always has interesting and insightful things to say on Iran. Today, I found his positive assessment of the Obama administration’s handling of the situation most interesting. His contention is managing the situation–that is keeping Iran at about the status quo while implicitly signaling that no military action is in the offing–has amounted to a successful policy. I wouldn’t disagree. It is continually interesting to read experts and pseudo-experts grapple with this crisis. So many analyses and requisite “Dealing with a Nuclear Iran” reports amount to proposing that and hoping the U.S. can get something for nothing in terms of negotiations. It reminds one of the Bush contention that if Iran would just stop enriching uranium, the U.S. would sit down with them to talk about their not enriching uranium, a stance which Colin Powell characterized as ridiculous.

This isn’t a post so much about foreign policy. Rather it’s about public policy and the media. This has implications for foreign policy as well. After President Obama called for an increase in the minimum wage in his SOTU address, I have been surprised at the “debate” that has ensued. Let me address why I put debate in quotes and why I’m surprised before moving to the crux of this post. I’m surprised because it seems like we have this debate every time a suggestion of an increase or an actual increase in the minimum wage is made.  And it also seems to me that the way things go down is like this every time: the proposal is made; opponents say it will only hurt businesses whose bottom line will be affected thereby in the end affecting negatively the very same workers who the increase is supposed to help; economists say “no” that’s not how it works; the economists are proven correct; we wait until the next proposal and rinse and repeat. That’s both my surprise and why I write “debate.”

A story on NPR this morning took up the debate (and now that I look for the link I note that the story is titled “The politics of raising the minimum wage” which takes some of the wind out my sails). The issue I raise is that Scott Simon, the NPR host, poses this question: “Does raising the minimum wage help families if it discourages hiring?” Fair question. My beef? Who does he turn to for an answer? An economist? No, a journalist. In this case David Leonhardt, the Washington bureau chief of the New York Times. I’m sure Leonhardt understands more than basic economics and with a bachelor’s degree in applied math from Yale, is a really smart guy. But why do so many media outlets today turn to non-specialists when there are so many scholars out there that could put a more decisive and rigorous stamp on the argument? You know, maybe like a Nobel prize winning economist, who might also write a column for the paper of record and a blog. And wait, what if that same Nobel laureate addressed the issue? NPR is generally much better than other news outlets, especially television in doing exactly what I’m complaining that they didn’t do in this case — go to a bona fide expert. And this brings me to the foreign policy aspect of this. Those same news outlets seem loath to go to actual experts when discussion foreign affairs. They’d rather put a political spin on issues and invited politicians to weigh in. Granted some politicians, e.g. the newly installed secretary of state have plenty of foreign policy chops. But is John Kerry for example an expert on Syria even though he’s spent time there? I would argue not. Why such reluctance to engage experts? Blogs and social media make them so much more accessible today. Wonder who you might call for comment on Syria? Maybe a scholar who writes a blog called SYRIA COMMENT. Don’t get me wrong. Many news outlets, especially print and radio do this (BBC being an excellent example). But for a large part of policy discussions, the media would rather approach the issues as one of politics and sidestep expert opinion in favor of political, and often ill-informed commentary. That’s a shame and completely unjustifiable these days.