talking head

plural talking heads

1. alsoattributiveidiomaticA journalist or pundit, especially one on television, who presents or discusses issues of the day.

   We've seen the respect once reserved for serious thinkers transferred to talking-head experts, skilled at reducing their messages to thirty-second sound bites.

   1999, Laurence G. Boldt, “The Leisure to Grow”, in The Tao of Abundance, New York, N.Y.: Penguin/Arkana, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Early TV newscasts consisted largely of "talking heads"—a reporter reading news bulletins or interviewing prominent politicians—but maps were frequently employed as visual aids, particularly for war news.

   1989, Mark [Stephen] Monmonier, “Maps in the Electronic Media”, in Maps with the News: The Development of American Journalistic Cartography, Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 203

   But Theodore Lowi is not a talking head leveling vitriol against the political system to make money. He is a thinker making a powerful, well-reasoned argument that resonates even with his critics, though sometimes the prose style is a little dense.

   2015, Thomas T. Holyoke, “Theodore J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States”, in Steven J. Balla, Martin Lodge, Edward C. Page, editors, The Oxford Handbook of Classics in Public Policy and Administration, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 221