This article uses the work of Van Leeuwen [2007. Legitimation in discourse and communication. Discourse & Communication 1, no.1: 91–112] to examine the validating strategies of economics experts throughout radio interviews, and mirrors the work of Maesse [2015. Economic experts: A discursive political economy of economics. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 10, no.3: 279–305] in asserting that economists gain from their profession's legitimacy produced in academia, yet also admits that economists still need to work for societal validity.