Judgment Journalism
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 By Mike MaurerSubtitle, “Most journalists lean left” or “Darrel Rowland thinks Steve Austria is an idiot”
Here’s a brief in its entirety in the Dispatch:
Austria blames [Great] Depression on Roosevelt
U.S. Rep. Steve Austria said he supports a scaled-down federal economic-stimulus proposal, but the Beavercreek Republican told The Dispatch editorial board that the huge influx of money into the economy could have a negative effect.
“When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression,” Austria said. “He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use the Keynesian approach, and our country ended up in a Great Depression. That’s just history.”
Most historians date the beginning of the Great Depression at or shortly after the stock-market crash of 1929; Roosevelt took office in 1933.
First paragraph, fine. Second paragraph, fine.
What’s added by the third? Nothing except Rowland’s (or his editor’s) view of the important context. Cut that paragraph and you lose nothing. Conservatives, who tend to read, will have been aware of Amity Shlaes and Milton Friedman and general competent economic thought and will be aware of the basic argument, and will say, “About time someone said it.”
Liberals will say, “Wow, what an idiot.”
All good. Add the third paragraph, and all you’ve got is that Rowland felt it necessary to do additional research external to the story, just to put his thumb on the scale. That, and presumably there is the 40 percent “moderate” who doesn’t even know enough to take a position, and that person might very well be persuaded that Austria must indeed be an idiot.
Anyway, Darrel, I’ll make you a deal. You send me the list by which you concluded that “most” historians feel that way (what, not most economists?) and I’ll send you the list by which I concluded that most journalists lean left.
