[untog]

I think where the comparison breaks down is that the laws of physics are the laws of physics. Reporting on them doesn't change them. But politics lives in the same world as reporting. It is shaped by it, politicians respond to it. So the Gell-Mann effect isn't quite accurate in that situation. Journalists do know the political world deeply because for better or worse they're involved in shaping it.

[aetherson]

I don't think it follows that people must necessarily know a lot about things they have a relatively large influence over.