What Do They Know?
by digby
I wrote a while back that I wished we could clone Paul Krugman and Dean Baker (I should have added James Galbraith, who is awesome) so that they could go on TV and explain economics to the dolts who were chattering ignorantly about it. (And I say that as someone who is hardly an expert, but who has been stunned — once again — by the audacity of the know-nothings who arrogantly populate the airwaves speaking complete gibberish that even a layperson like myself can recognize as crap.)
If one of the duties of journalism is to educate the public about complicated issues, you would think during a crisis like this they would have a stable of economists rather than political hitmen and village gossips discussing the issue. But, they don’t.
A Media Matters study of Sunday talk shows and 12 cable news programs from January 25 through February 8 found that few economists have been given time on television to talk about the economic recovery plan. During 139 1/2 hours of programming in which the economic recovery legislation was discussed, economists made 25 guest appearances out of a total of 460 — only 5 percent.
I know it’s boring stuff. But it’s important. And it’s more important for both the public and the villagers to hear from people who at least speak in the proper terms than it is to hear from gasbags like Alex Castellanos and Michele Bernard.
Here’s the saddest part:
The show that featured the most guest appearances by economists was Fox News’ Glenn Beck, which featured seven: Arthur Laffer, Stephen Moore (who appeared twice), Barry Ritholtz, Amity Shlaes, Thomas Sowell, and Ben Stein:
With the exception of Barry Ritholz, they are all discredited hacks. Naturally, they are getting airtime.
Cable channels Program Economist guest appearances in which stimulus was discussed % Total guest appearances in which stimulus was discussed Hours of programming in which stimulus was discussed The Situation Room 3 4% 73 30 Lou Dobbs Tonight 1 4% 27 10 Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull 0 0% 26 8 Anderson Cooper 360 (10 p.m. ET hour only) 0 0% 31 9 Your World with Neil Cavuto 2 4% 53 10 Glenn Beck 7 33% 21 9 The O’Reilly Factor 1 7% 15 7 Hannity 0 0% 44 10 Hardball with Chris Matthews (5 p.m. ET hour only) 1 2% 46 10 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue 1 3% 37 9 Countdown with Keith Olbermann 1 7% 15 9 The Rachel Maddow Show 1 9% 11 8 Among the Sunday shows, ABC’s This Week was the only one to feature at least one economist on each broadcast:
Sunday shows Program Economist guest appearances in which stimulus was discussed % Total guest appearances in which stimulus was discussed Number of broadcasts in which stimulus was discussed This Week 3 15% 20 3 Face the Nation 1 14% 7 3 Meet the Press 2 14% 14 3 Fox News Sunday 1 5% 20 3 The following is a list of all the guest appearances by economists coded in the study:
Date Network Show Guest 1/28/2009 MSNBC Hardball with Chris Matthews Armey, Dick 2/5/2009 CNN Lou Dobbs Tonight Ferguson, Niall 2/4/2009 MSNBC Countdown with Keith Olbermann Huffington, Arianna 1/25/2009 ABC This Week Krugman, Paul 2/4/2009 MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show Krugman, Paul 1/28/2009 FNC Glenn Beck Laffer, Arthur 1/28/2009 FNC Glenn Beck Moore, Stephen 2/2/2009 FNC Glenn Beck Moore, Stephen 1/27/2009 MSNBC 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Orszag, Peter 2/5/2009 CNN The Situation Room Orszag, Peter 2/5/2009 FNC Your World with Neil Cavuto Orszag, Peter 2/8/2009 ABC This Week Reich, Robert 2/3/2009 FNC Glenn Beck Ritholtz, Barry 1/30/2009 CNN The Situation Room Rivlin, Alice 2/8/2009 CBS Face the Nation Romer, Christina 1/26/2009 FNC Glenn Beck Shlaes, Amity 1/30/2009 FNC Glenn Beck Sowell, Thomas 1/30/2009 FNC Glenn Beck Stein, Ben 2/6/2009 FNC The O’Reilly Factor Stein, Ben 1/25/2009 NBC Meet the Press Summers, Larry 2/8/2009 ABC This Week Summers, Larry 2/8/2009 FNC Fox News Sunday Summers, Larry 1/30/2009 FNC Your World with Neil Cavuto Wheelan, Charles 2/1/2009 NBC Meet the Press Zandi, Mark 2/6/2009 CNN The Situation Room Zandi, Mark A list of all the guests who discussed the recovery plan classified as either economists or non-economists is available here.
(I didn’t know Arianna Huffington was an economist, but you learn something new every day…)
The entire discussion of the stimulus package was a muddle and I’m fairly certain that people were more confused at the end of the debate than they were before it began. Which, of course, played into the Republicans’ hands. Confusion helps them because they have a bunch of tired bumper stickers people can fall back on whenever it all seems too much.
Ian Welsh has written a concise rundown of Krugman’s keynote yesterday at the Thinking Big conference yesterday, here. (You will be able to see the video sometime today, at the second link.) The word is that the wingnuts are on a tear calling their Reps, shrieking incoherently about how the stimulus plan is going to kill them by taking away their health care. So, if you have time to call yours and give a rational view, it would be helpful. Click here.
Update: Michael Hirsch at Newsweek has a good column today about one of the central questions nobody ever seems to ask: what are we going to do about this “too big to fail” moral hazard, which is one of the main factors at the heart of he banking crisis. Common sense should have told us that these international financial behemoths were trouble.
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