MM-Economists not heard on stimulus debate

[Mr Bean]

Media Matters

Wed, Feb 11, 2009 6:07pm ET

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Lack of demand: Cable channels, Sunday shows leave economists on the sidelines in recovery debate

Summary: 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.

In the hour following President Obama's February 9 press conference -- during which he gave a brief address about the economic recovery legislation currently moving through Congress -- cable news programs featured guests and panelists to discuss Obama's remarks. But CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC did not bring on a single economist to discuss the plan. The absence of economists in the post-press conference discussion was consistent with the observation made by Crooksandliars.com founder John Amato in a February 4 article on The Huffington Post: "I'm sure you've heard about the hundreds of economists that are either for or against President Obama's stimulus plan. My question to the media is: Where are they?" Indeed, a Media Matters for America review of the Sunday talk shows and 12 cable news programs from January 25 through February 8 found that during 139 1/2 hours of programming on Sunday mornings and weekday afternoons and evenings, of 460 total guest appearances in discussions about the economic recovery legislation and debate in Congress, only 25 were made by economists -- a mere 5 percent.

Media Matters purposefully used a broad definition of "economist" to be inclusive, coding as an economist any guest who has a master's degree or doctorate in economics or who has served as an economics professor at a university or college, as best as we could determine. (All current members of Congress were coded as non-economists.)

On cable news channels, economists made a total of 18 guest appearances out of a total of 399 guest appearances in broadcasts that included guest discussions of the stimulus. 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:

Snip Charts go to the link for them-Bean

Methodology
Media Matters counted as appearances instances in which someone appeared as a guest on a show -- either live during the show or in a taped interview aired during the show -- and discussed the economic recovery plan. If a guest appeared more than once in a broadcast during separate segments, that guest was counted only one time for the purposes of this study. Reported stories and news packages were not included in the study. Guests who did not participate in a discussion of the plan were also not included in the study.

All guests coded were classified as either an "economist" or "other." To be classified as an economist, a guest must have received an advanced degree in economics or served as an economics professor at a college or university. We used bios, profiles, resumes, and news stories available online to determine as best we could each guest's educational background and professional experience. We coded all current members of Congress as "other" without assessing their educational or prior professional background. Ben Stein, whose bio states that he "worked as an economist at The Department of Commerce," was coded as an economist.

Broadcast hours calculated for this study include only broadcasts in which at least one guest was on to discuss the economic recovery plan. Transcripts for shows were reviewed through the Nexis news database. Transcripts for CNN shows were also obtained through CNN's website. Shows for which no transcripts were available were viewed via digital recordings.

You have to love Media Matters, they take simple standard methodology and review the major News Networks from a Scientific prospective, state their methodology right in the piece they write up and expand on it.

Sad to say, the conclusion they came up with is that Economists are almost unheard on Cable news channels and sad to say that Glenn Beck had the most economists on(The likes of Ben Stein and Laffer who worshop at the alter of supply side economics).To note there's no separate category for members of Congress and Media Matters lumped them in with "Republican Strategists" or "Former McCain campaign advisers" or "Columnist; DNC Women’s Leadership Forum" or for fuck sake they had on Ann Culter on to discuss the stimulus package(It was Hannity but still...)

[KrauserKrauser]

Well, one could argue that economists aren't going to be in vogue as economists the likes of Greenspan were the architects of this wonderful situtation we are currently in.

That does not mean they should havemade no effort to find economists with better track records to give opinions on the current situation.

[Mr Bean]

Well, one could argue that economists aren't going to be in vogue as economists the likes of Greenspan were the architects of this wonderful situtation we are currently in.
That does not mean they should havemade no effort to find economists with better track records to give opinions on the current situation.

To that I say that Greenspan was a hard-core Randian and to quote one author "A Serial Bubble Blower" to refer to Greenspan's habit of urging the market to grow beyond it could support in a series of bubbles in various sectors and only by careful juggling did he ensure that only one burst at a time.

However I'd rather have three Greenspan appearances than one Curtis Sliwa appearance who's only claim to fame is being a Rush Limbaugh Acolyte and AM Talk Show host (And Hannity fill in host).

A quick wiki searched turned up this life history

Sliwa was born into a Polish-Italian[13] Christian family in Canarsie, Brooklyn, New York and raised a member of the Assyrian Church of the East. Sliwa attended and was expelled from Brooklyn Prep,[14] a Jesuit Catholic high school, and graduated from Canarsie High School, a New York City public high school in Canarsie, Brooklyn. Prior to founding the Guardian Angels, he was night manager of a McDonald's restaurant on Fordham Road in The Bronx.[15] His second wife was Lisa Evers,[citation needed] now a television commentator. In 2004 Sliwa married for a third time and became a father to his son, Anthony Chester.

Sliwa is known for his connection with the New York City community and frequently participates in local events. He is an active proponent of the game of stickball and sometimes refers to himself as the "Stickball Commissioner" of New York City. He is also a former host and participant in competitive eating events. His achievements in those events include four reigns as the world pickle-eating champion.

Better to ask the homeless of DC on their opinion because you just might not get recycled Republican talking points and instead get much more useful deranged ranting.

[CmdrWilkens]

I'm gonna quote fivethirtyeight.com in paticular Nate Silver talking mostly about Geither's recent congressional testimony but it applies to this situation as well, most folks just aren't qualified to truly grasp the breadth of this plan:

3. I'm sorry, but somewhere between 99.9% and 99.999999% of us are severely underqualified to be making policy recommendations on this particular issue. And I'm certainly in the majority on this one. My anecdotal experience for the past several months has been that the more someone knows about the economy, the more they know (or at least are willing to admit to) what they don't know. Anyone who is professing with certainty that this or that will work -- nationalizing the banks, for instance -- is an idiot.

4. So if I'm telling you to lay off the ideological smelling salts (not that you will) and that your ideas on policy are probably not contributing very much to the discussion (don't worry -- neither are mine) then what, exactly, do I want you to do?

What I'm asking you to do is to clear the playing field. This is neither the time nor the place for mass movements -- this is the time for expert opinion. Once the experts (and I'm not one of them) have reached some kind of a consensus about what the best course of action is (and they haven't yet), then figure out who is impeding that action for political or other disingenuous reasons and tackle them -- do whatever you can to remove them from the playing field. But we're not at that stage yet.

Yes Geither, Greenspan, hell Stein even may not be that good but I hold it would be FAR more conducive to good policy to have Krugman, Geither, Greenspan, Levitt, et al providing contrasting viewpoints, arguing in a public forum and providing a range of opnion from folks who study this issue almost exclusively than to have more politicians talk about what is good for the economy. Yes some of them are at fault for getting us into this mess but...think of it this way:

After the Minnesota Bridge collpase were we better served by testimony from engineers who designed and maintained that bridge (even though it collapsed) or the run of the mill politician from Podunk, OH weighing in on how we should be building our bridges in the future. I believe we should question those who have the credentials but fail and I also believe that hearing them talk about their area of expertise is still more valuable than listening to another randomn political science or law and government graduate.

[KrauserKrauser]

Agreed to both Bean and Wilkens, especially now that Greenspan has admitted the failures of his policies.

Is there an analysis on how many economists were talked to in this fashion when we were debating on the TARP funds? This might simply be a result of or indicative of the continuing downward spiral in the quality of journalism / reporting in the MSM.

[Darth Wong]

It wouldn't make any difference if they had more economists on. These opinion shows would just hunt for economists to support their preferred view anyway, and those aren't hard to find.