(Why) are questions about what Rush Limbaugh or Fox News [personalities] say off topic?

Question

Are these opinion makers/leaders not (highly) relevant politically? Some of them have a greater audience than many local politicians, whose sayings would undoubtedly be on-topic. And yes, these are political pronouncements. I'm not saying that what Beyonce says about hair style should on-topic (despite her large audience), but maybe if she says something about abortion and it gets discussed in the media, that could be political; or about the police.

But to keep this focused, the media personalities I'm talking about here, e.g. Limbaugh almost exclusively talk about politics. According to Wikipedia's bio of him:

Limbaugh has been one of the premiere voices of the conservative movement in the United States since the 1990s. He has been inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame and the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.[4][5] During the 2020 State of the Union Address, President Donald Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.[6]

So why can't I ask here about what Limbaugh says about something political? (Similarly, I can ask the same question about Hannity etc.)

Answer 1

Popular pundits should be considered as political opinion journalism. Its value as a topic here would be in proportion to what's said is:

• verifiable. Pundit asserts that a candidate is secretly a lizard-man, because of evidence X,Y, and Z. Questions about X,Y, and Z should be OK, even though we're skeptical that lizard-men exist.

• measurable. Pundit usually screams with rage whenever a certain politician's name is mentioned, but coos with pleasure when a rival is named. Questions about the average decibel contrast between respective screams and coos should be allowed.

• acted upon. Pundit promotes anti-lizard-man bill, which becomes law due to Pundit's popularity. Questions about implementation, costs, and effects of said law should be allowed.

Answer 2

If we allow questions that enquire about the opinion of this or that pundit to run rampant on this website, two things will happen: it'll invite more of the same types of question, which gives more publicity to people who and ideas that at times make you wonder if humanity deserves to go extinct; and, it'll attract polarized answers from both sides of the aisle, which then degenerate into soul draining threads of pointless comments that waste everyone's time (the moderators' time in particular).

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There's way too much to be aghast about. Just tune in to Alex Jones for a half hour and you'll come out of it concluding that Sean Hannity and Kellyanne Conway are beacons of reason and wisdom. There is so much in need of getting explained or debunked if you care to dig, in fact, that there is an entire wiki dedicated to just this topic. This is on top of the numerous fact checking websites that have been with us for years on end, and the countless news organizations that have set up a fact checking team in the aftermath of 2016.

It's worth pointing out that each of these information venues are one way information streets. Rational wiki is edited by a small team of trusted contributors to avoid trolling and vandalism, and reliable fact checking websites aren't crowdsourced for a similar reason. Contrast this with Politics SE, where a flame baiting troll can easily become a 20k+ rep user if they bother to wear a fig leaf.

Yet another issue springs to mind if you take the latter point to its logical conclusion. Namely, picture Politics SE a few years down the road, swamped by hordes of 4chan users who troll the site and the HNQ with a nauseating stream of "why does [quack] say [flame-bait]?" types of questions.