Friday, February 7, 2014

What Krugman Said

Second-Order Journalism
Politico-style journalism deprives the public of the actual data they need to make informed decisions.  Every minute buffoons like Chuck Todd and Morning Joe Scarborough are on the TV blathering about the horse race is a minute that could have been spent on substance - and wasn't.
Weigel actually makes a point beyond the one I made back in 2004. Not only does second-order reporting deny readers/viewers the information they should be getting; the truth is that nobody knows how any particular news item will play politically.What the political scientists tell us, in fact, is that most of what gets reported on in political journalism matters not at all: elections are primarily determined by economic developments and occasionally war, not by gaffes and all that. So reporting on the journalist's view of how the perceptions of a budget document will affect the next election is a purely destructive action: not only does it divert scarce time and resources from reporting on the actual policy issue, it has zero value even in its ostensible goal of predicting future political developments.
All sauce and no goose.

No comments: