talking head

Probably from the fact that when a pundit is speaking on television, the camera often zooms in on his or her head.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtɔːkɪŋ hɛd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtɔkɪŋ hɛd/

• Audio (AU)

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• Hyphenation: talk‧ing head

talking head (plural talking heads)

1. (idiomatic, also attributive) A journalist or pundit, especially one on television, who presents or discusses issues of the day.
   • 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:

     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.

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

     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.

   • 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:

     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.