Washington Post
Brad DeLong has a howling rant against the Fiscal Times this morning, apparently because he's outraged that the Washington Post's ombudsman opined on Sunday that it was ok for the Post to run occasional stories on fiscal policy from the FT.
Full disclosure: I have a vested interest here, because I have signed on as a paid contributor to the Fiscal Times and will writing on a semi-regular basis for it in the months ahead.
I promised over the weekend that I had much more to say about Saturday's Washington Post editorial on the deficit that was...well...completely wrong.
Take a look.
Wars and Health Care Reform Should Both Be Paid For
Oct. 27, 2009
By Stan Collender
Roll Call Contributing Writer
The Washington Post ran a budget-related editorial on Saturday (“A critical question”) that attempted to explain why it insists that health care reform not increase the deficit even though it doesn’t believe that spending for activities in Iraq and Afghanistan have to be offset. The Post’s arguments weren’t just unconvincing, they also don’t make any sense.
I'm going to have much more to say about this early next week, but this editorial in today's Washington Post is so wrong about the federal budget that it really has to make you wonder what they were thinking.
Here's the whole editorial for what I'd normally say should be your reading enjoyment. I doubt you'll find it very enjoyable, however.
Back in July when it became news that the Washington Post was going to charge lobbyists and others for off-the-record dinners with editors, reporters, and sources at the home of its publisher, I posted that the only thing the Post did wrong in response to the firestorm that occurred was apologize.
I haven't thought much about that since, but a search over the weekend indicated that my post was inspiration for many others. One comment in response to a post over at The Curious Capitalist particularly caught my attention. Here's the money quote:
The conservative magazine cruise he mentions is National Review. They are an opinion magazine not a news organization like the (Washington Post).
The commenter is wrong. The notion that newspapers mostly provide news is quaint, romantic, and a throwback to the time before 24 hour a day cable television news stations and the internet.
Over at his own blog, Brad DeLong argues that my post on The Washington Post was wrong. He doesn't disagree with my basic point that the Post didn't need to apologize for its plan to monetarize its assets by charging lobbyists and others a fee to attend dinners at its publisher's home, he just doesn't want to enable the Post by creating a new source of revenue for a newspaper whose reporting and analysis he finds dismal.
Someone please remind me not ever to get on Brad's bad side.
