The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page: Paul Krugman Asks a Question I Have Never Heard a Good Answer to...
7/7/09 8:54 PM
Grasping Reality with Both Hands The Semi-Daily Journal of Economist Brad DeLong: A Fair, Balanced, Reality-Based, and More than Two-Handed Look at the World J. Bradford DeLong, Department of Economics, U.C. Berkeley #3880, Berkeley, CA 94720-3880; 925 708 0467; delong@econ.berkeley.edu.
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The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page: Paul Krugman Asks a Question I Have Never Heard a Good Answer to... Paul Krugman wonders:
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The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page: Paul Krugman Asks a Question I Have Never Heard a Good Answer to...
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Secrets of the WSJ: This morning’s Wall Street Journal opinion section contains a lot of what one expects to see. There’s an opinion piece making a big fuss over the fake scandal at the EPA. There’s an editorial claiming that the latest job figures prove the failure of Obama’s economic plan — something I dealt with in the Times. All of this follows on yesterday’s editorial asserting that the Minnesota senatorial election was stolen. All of this is par for the course; the WSJ editorial page has been like this for 35 years. Nonetheless, it got me wondering: what do these people really believe? I mean, they’re not stupid — life would be a lot easier if they were. So they know they’re not telling the truth. But they obviously believe that their dishonesty serves a higher truth — one that is, in effect, told only to Inner Party members, while the Outer Party makes do with prolefeed. The question is, what is that higher truth? What do these people really believe in? The best conversation about this I ever heard was one I was not supposed to hear. But it was very entertaining to listen to. As I remember--and since I didn't write down notes afterwards, I may have some details wrong--I was seated at lunch in Washington DC, and at the table immediately behind me were then-representative Charlie Stenholm (D-TX) and Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH). They started talking about why the WSJ editorial page was what it was. They settled on the conclusion that the Journal editorial writers thought that their role was to make not the strongest but rather the most persuasive case for lower taxes and Republican candidates in every circumstance--that they had a duty not to inform their readers, not even to make the truest arguments for the side that they had been hired to support, but rather to make the arguments for the side they had been hired to support that would strengthen that side the most by convincing the most people. Then they went on to the second level: why did the rest of the Wall Street Journal allow this? Robert Bartley's (and now Paul Gigot's) editorial page was, they agreed, not good for the self-respect of the Bancroft family, and certainly not good for the reputation of the journalists at the news pages. One of them raised the possibility that the editorial page gets subscribers whose money can be used to subsidize the news pages, and that the news pages think that without the editorial page they would be unable to finance their high-quality news operation. But then they settled on the answer: Robert Bartley had pictures, pictures of senior Dow-Jones executives, pictures of senior Dow-Jones executives doing things that belong on Judge Alex Kozinski's website... RECOMMENDED (5.0) by 5 people like you [How? ] You might like:
Morning Daniel Froomkin News Roundup (@this site) Who the "Friends of the People" Are and Why We Bash the Neoconservatives (@this site) 2 more recommended posts » Brad DeLong on July 03, 2009 at 09:18 AM in Information: Better Press Corps/Journamalism | Permalink TrackBack TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00e551f080038834011571ae7a36970b Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page: Paul Krugman Asks a Question I Have Never Heard a Good Answer to...:
Comments Economic optimization is the answer. Liberals care about straight news reporting and will tolerate the editorial page if they perceive quality in the news gathering operation. Conservatives care about ideology (even if it involves lies to support it) and will tolerate that facts have a liberal bias on the news side especially if they perceive that those facts get softened due to the editorial influence.
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The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page: Paul Krugman Asks a Question I Have Never Heard a Good Answer to...
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After all, as I repeat ad nauseam, every Democratic member of Congress is responsible for multiple subscriptions to the Washington Post despite that the same information is available for free without enriching Fred Hiatt. Posted by: elliottg | July 03, 2009 at 09:45 AM And why don't you think this is a good answer? It is the best I have ever heard. To summarize: the conservative opinion rag is a high margin part of the operation in part because it need not be encumbered by facts, and it has a wired in market that will buy it no matter how stupid it is. (I was at Stanford Medical Center yesterday and came across a WSJ in a waiting room. Editorials by Karl Rove.) It is like junk food or porn. The news organization is lower margin -- perhaps even negative margin. Without the money pump it can't survive. In a strict dollars and cents summation it might be hard to justify why it exists at all, except if you argue that its prestige gives the branding that makes the op-ed part "legitimate." Posted by: Alan | July 03, 2009 at 10:08 AM Reading the headline of this post, I immediately thought. Of course he's heard a good answer. It is "photographs some very interesting photographs." I read that here w.o. reference to judge Kosinski. Reading the post, I realize that this is not the answer to the question that Krugman aksed, but it is the answer that popped into my mind when I read the title and, lo and behold, there it is in the last line of the post. Posted by: robert waldmann | July 03, 2009 at 10:29 AM OK what I read here was actually "pictures, very interesting pictures" not photographs, but my memory of what you typed way back when is closer than yours. http://tinyurl.com/lkxhnd Posted by: robert waldmann | July 03, 2009 at 10:32 AM Why is it so hard to think that "intelligent" people can believe things at variance to the evidence? About 80% of the US population believes in a variety of supernatural things based only upon doctrinaire writings from the past. To cite only one example: a fairly comprehensive study was done on the effect of intercessionary prayer on the recovery outcome of heart bypass patients. There were two variations, those told that they were being prayed for and those not. The ones told actually did slightly worse. Neither group did any better than the control group that was not prayed for. You can read all of the "explanations" for this lack of effectiveness by those who refuse to accept scientific evidence. In areas of human behavior and the effects of social policies on future outcomes the cause and effect relationship is much less obvious and the ability to believe what one wishes much easier. Then there is always cognitive dissonance - the ability to hold contradictory ideas simultaneously. The human mind is a wondrous thing Posted by: robertdfeinman | July 03, 2009 at 10:38 AM "Then there is always cognitive dissonance - the ability to hold contradictory ideas simultaneously. The human mind is a wondrous thing" That's right Brad Delong is able to consider Greg Mankiw worth listening to and deserving of his Harvard professorship while pointing out again and again the total hackishness of his public statements. Posted by: elliottg | July 03, 2009 at 11:21 AM Two points: 1) the Kozinski story although a popular idea is not a good reference see http://patterico.com/2008/06/16/alex-kozinskis-wife-speaks-out/ via Jeralyn at Talkleft 2) could robertdfeinman please post links to the intercessionary (sic) prayer study. I would appreciate seeing something I could read as opposed to what get's spread around in the media, vague accounts of studies that showed benefit.
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Posted by: Marc Sobel | July 03, 2009 at 11:22 AM I've wondered the same thing about congressional Democrats and come up with the same default answer -- blackmail. Posted by: sm | July 03, 2009 at 11:23 AM "I mean, they’re not stupid — life would be a lot easier if they were. So they know they’re not telling the truth." Can't say whether the Journal's editorial writers believe the stuff they write; don't know them. But I do know many smart corporate executives who genuinely hold the views that the Journal's editorial page prints. Expertise doesn't travel well. Being world-class at X doesn't give you any special insight into Y or Z. So business executives' views on the macro-economy, politics, foreign affairs, etc. are about as thoughtful and sophisticated as the guy on the next bar stool. In fact, if you drink at the right bar, that guy is likely one of them. These people are the Journal's target audience. From its news pages, they get a dispassionately-accurate rendition of the day's facts. From its editorial page, they get an an articulate formulation and expression of their own feelings. Posted by: pireader | July 03, 2009 at 11:27 AM http://piecontest.com/newsroom/press_releases/060407step.html And the Templeton Foundation really wanted it to work. Posted by: elliottg | July 03, 2009 at 11:36 AM In an interview on his retirement, Bartlett as much as said that his role was to carry the flag for the political interests of the WSJ readership, even to the point of disingenuousness. WSJ goes beyond the 'mere myopia' of the Sunday morning talk shows, though they're addressing much of the same audience. Posted by: MaryCh | July 03, 2009 at 11:39 AM What do these people really believe in? 1. Leo Strauss 2. Ayn Rand I submit that soaks up a lot of the variance. Posted by: Michael Froomkin | July 03, 2009 at 12:44 PM A game called: Ignorant, stupid, insane, or just plain evil? I've been playing this game for 25 years. Identify a conservative who consistently tells half-truths or lies and then try to determine which category he or she belongs in. Some, like Gingrich and Rove, are clearly just evil ... others, Reagan for instance, are harder to categorize ... but after Reagan said, "A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not." I started leaning towards insane ... As for the WSJ editorial page??? Posted by: Kevin O'Neill | July 03, 2009 at 01:01 PM The best explanation I could come up with was doublethink (Orwell's 1984; e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink ); not a cognitive dissonance or an epiphenomenon but a utility. Posted by: RW | July 03, 2009 at 01:48 PM "What do these people really believe in?" "We're only made of water/The full moon gets us high/We can change our shape into anything as often as we like." *** Posted by: The Raven | July 03, 2009 at 04:14 PM (And the asterisks were intended to be a link to these lyrics:) http://www.newmodelarmy.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=192:water&catid=30:lyrics&Itemid=26
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Posted by: The Raven | July 03, 2009 at 04:36 PM Among many others, such as economists, they facilitate the Masters of Mankind in the exercise of their vile maxim "Everything for myself, and nothing for Other People.". Such was the story of FreeMarketDemocraticReform in Russia. Millions of Russians died, and tens of millions more were rendered utterly destitute, in order to concentrate wealth in a few corrupt hands. Now we have a global financial crisis doing the same on a far greater scale. At least Russia had Putin to crush the power of the Russian oligarchs and give Russians a New Deal. All we've got is Obama and 60 Democrat-votins Senators. We're so screwed. Posted by: rkka | July 04, 2009 at 05:32 AM "...the Journal editorial writers thought that their role was to make not the strongest but rather the most persuasive case for lower taxes and Republican candidates in every circumstance" Basically what I've long thought, though these are much better words for it. And honestly, I think its because there's money to be made doing this. It sells the paper, and it makes them seem more credible to a certain audience. All human beings, be they liberal or conservative, find people who are like them to be more credible. All human beings, myself and Prof. DeLong included will tend to see the evidence they want to see, and discount the evidence that contradicts them. You can't become a good scientist without confronting that fact. I think you can become a highly successful editorial writer, though. All human beings, myself included, along with all other commenters here, believe that they are good people, even when the facts say otherwise. So yes, Ronald Reagan was insane, but it's a very garden-variety of insanity. To me, figuring out he was wrong, and trying to make it right, puts Ronald Reagan in a class of above-average human beings, even though I really dislike nearly all of his politics. In his time as president he did this more than once, too. Posted by: Doctor Jay | July 04, 2009 at 10:47 AM "Then there is always cognitive dissonance - the ability to hold contradictory ideas simultaneously." Cognitive dissonance is not the ability to hold contradictory ideas simultaneously. It is the result of holding tow contradictory ideas simultaneously. The result of cognitive dissonance is that one of the ideas is changed to reduce it, irrespective of anything like evidence. Posted by: student | July 05, 2009 at 03:59 PM
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The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page: Paul Krugman Asks a Question I Have Never Heard a Good Answer to...
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