Why I hate elite journalism

In a short jab at Paul Krugman last month, ABC's The Note encapsulates everything I hate about the DC insider journalist perspective:

Paul "Pauly One-Note" Krugman of the New York Times looks at international examples of privatizing retirement funds and says he isn't buying the Administration's arguments, saying that privatization cuts benefits and leaves more retirees in poverty. LINK

Not only is The Note obviously uninterested in actual policy issues like Social Security (the reason we have politics in the first place), but it dismisses Krugman with casual disdain as "Pauly One-Note". This attitude is why Slate tries so desperately to be counter-intuitive -- because elite journalism prizes being unpredictable above all else. Krugman is consistently anti-Bush; therefore his writing is dismissed as partisan hackery even when it's not. What's sad about this is the press has a pitiful level of understanding of Social Security, and they could learn something from Krugman, one of the top economists alive (who has written a nice primer on the issue for the online-only Economists' Voice [196K PDF]). Here's a case in point: numerous reporters can't even understand the percentage of income that would be diverted into private accounts. It's certainly true that Krugman sometimes bangs the drum too hard or fails to find fault with liberals, but there's nothing wrong in principle with being a forceful and consistent advocate for your views.

(For the best in-depth look at this issue, see Nick Confessore's 2001 profile of Krugman for Washington Monthly.)

Update 1/25: I've written a response to criticism of this post by Ken Waight and Donald Luskin.

Comments

[Duncan Brown]

I agree with Krugman on everything substantive. But I don't like his tone. He is consistently ad hominem about the Bushes. (I am too, but it's at the breakfast table, not the Op-Ed page of the NY Times.)

He'd be a lt more persuasive if he dropped that tone.

DB

[David]

I'm a professional actuary. I have found Krugman's discussion of Social Security to sometimes be dishonest. He has been willing to misuse data in order to support his political arguments. Unfortunately, his misuse of data isn't apparent to a layperson. Because he's such a noted economist and because he writes for the New York Times, he gets away with sloppiness.

[russ]

The really sad fact is that it seems that both Krugman and Nyhan don't seem to grasp the fact that Social Security is at best a Constitutionally questionable Ponzi scheme...

Can anyone find anywhere in the Constitution or the amendments where it says that the federal government is suppose to bail people out in their old age?

[Tom Maguire]

On Krugman, Mr. Nyhan says "therefore his writing is dismissed as partisan hackery even when it's not.

How does a non-expert judge whether Krugman has crossed into partisan hackery on the Social Security debate?

Just for example, here is Krugman engaging in a deliberate misrepresentation of the legal security provided by the Social Security Trust Fund; here he is deliberately overestimating the fees that would likely be associated with personal accounts.

Look, Ann Coulter is fun (for some folks, I guess), and so is ER, but I don't think they are taken as gospel for news on politics or medicine. However, there seem to be people who think that Krugman would not let his politics interfere with his views as a professional economist, despite evidence to the contrary.