[soVeryTired]

On one hand, I agree with what you're saying. On the other, I don't think I'm going to apologise for venting my frustrations. Take a look at the range of topics this 'panel of experts' are polled on [1]:

Health insurance

Standardised testing

Sports stadiums

Robots and artificial intelligence

California's Drought

These people are not experts on these topics. They're basically mathematicians. Most of them likely made their name proving facts about their mathematical models. Remember that these are models that have a lousy track record describing the real world. And yet it sounds incredibly persuasive to run a headline stating "Economistis united on proposition X".

Here's a suggestion. Let's have a panel of experts, but we'll include one economist. We'll also include a social scientist, an engineer, a banker, a lawyer, a government policy wonk, and a social worker. The media can poll them, and might actually get a plurality of views.

[1] http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel