When the Platform Outgrows the Knowledge - Expertise overreach media responsibility
Marc van Ranst is an expert on viruses. Anuna de Wever has certain knowledge about the climate. Greta Thunberg has CO₂ graphs memorised. That is important knowledge, each of them in their own fields, they deserve attention, recognition, sometimes even admiration. But somewhere between the platform and the microphone, something has gone wrong. Because today those same figures, with that same confidence, are offering their opinions on the Middle East, one of the most complex geopolitical conflicts in the world, and the Flemish media let them do it unchallenged. This is a textbook case of expertise overreach, and the media responsibility that comes with it is being claimed with alarming infrequency.
The phenomenon has a name in academia: the halo effect. Whoever acquires authority in one domain unconsciously radiates that authority onto others. Van Ranst became a national face during the pandemic. That visibility sticks. And so a virologist can suddenly also become a geopolitical commentator on Gaza, Israel and the Palestinian question. without anyone asking about his qualifications in that area. His activism around the Middle East has nothing to do with his medical expertise, but the public barely makes that distinction.
The same applies to the climate activism that made de Wever and Thunberg famous. Climate science and Middle East politics are two completely different domains. One revolves around atmospheric data and energy transition; the other around decades of colonial history, religious tensions, UN resolutions, international law and geopolitical power dynamics. Anyone who thinks that activism and outrage are sufficient to pass judgment on the latter is deeply mistaken. Yet these figures consistently position themselves against Israel, a stance that is rarely nuanced, rarely put in context, and rarely questioned.
And that is where the real problem begins: media responsibility.
Journalists are the gatekeepers of public debate. Their task is not only to record what well-known people say, but also to assess whether those people have the necessary expertise to speak on a given subject. When a virologist makes statements about international politics, the first question any journalist should ask is simply: "On what basis?" Not as an attack, but as an elementary editorial consideration. In Flanders, that question is asked far too rarely.
The result is a media landscape where expertise overreach becomes normalised. Fame replaces knowledge. Outrage replaces analysis. And the activism of people with large platforms, showever sincerely intended, is uncritically passed on to an audience that believes itself to be well-informed. About the Middle East, a subject to which historians, lawyers and geopolitical analysts devote their lives, opinions are shared as easily as views on a climate march or a vaccine.
That is not a service to bring news and knowledge to the public. That is a disservice.
What is missing in this debate is editorial courage. The courage to question a well-known name. The courage to say: "You are not the appropriate voice here." Not to damage that person, but to give the subject the seriousness it deserves. The Middle East is not a matter you understand through a climate argument or a virological model. It requires knowledge of history, of law, of the internal dynamics of Hamas, the PLO, Israeli politics, the role of Iran, Qatar, the United States. Those who lack that knowledge would do well to remain silent, or at the very least, to start by listening.Now we can see from people like Van Ranst, de Wever and Thunberg that listening is not exactly their strongest suit. They primarily want to broadcast and attract media attention. Once the war in the Middle East is over, will we then notice what their next area of self-proclaimed expertise is going to be?
Expertise overreach is not a crime. But when it is combined with loud activism, a large platform, and media that are insufficiently critical to apply the brakes, it becomes dangerous. It poisons the debate. It reinforces prejudices. And it shortchanges the people who truly understand the conflict, whose voices are rarely heard.
The media responsibility here is clear: give the floor to those who have the knowledge, not to those who have the most followers.
Image credits: Aslihan Altin via Unsplash
