Paul Krugman - "Unpersons" - Pro-Keynsian Economists

[TomCADem]

Krugman laments how the media is portraying the debate as purely between those folks who say there should not have been any stimulus, and the Obama administration who is defending the stimulus. Paul Krugman notes the curious absense of folks who have been arguing that the amount of the stimulus is too small.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/unpersons/

###

One of the mysteries of the way issues are covered in much of the news media is how certain views get ruled “out of the mainstream” and just don’t get covered — even when many well-informed people hold those views.

The most notorious example was during the buildup to the Iraq war: skepticism about the case for war was treated as a fringe view, even though the evidence being presented by the hawks was flimsy on its face, and the ranks of the skeptics included a number of people with excellent national-security credentials.

But in a way, the implicit censorship on the stimulus debate is even stranger. During the initial discussion of the stimulus, the debate was framed almost entirely as a debate between Obama and those who said the stimulus was too big; the voices of those saying it was too small were largely frozen out. And they still are — if it weren’t for my position on the Times op-ed page, there would be hardly any major outlet for Keynesian concerns.

###

[KakistocracyHater]

1. to me the tv news & newspapers are written & presented from the rich man's

point of view & not much of anyone else's views.

[depakid]

2. It's not that way so much in other western nations

[KakistocracyHater]

3. I know that, but did you catch the bbc bowing to the 'global warming is

just a hoax' crowd? Then there is Berlesconi in Italy, apparently having bought too many newspapers/channels.
Here, in the U.S. was my focus, but there is a potential for other countries to fall into the same pattern. The probablities vary by nation, but it is still possible.

[applegrove]

4. The rich have much more power in the USA. Much more effect on the news. America

is much less equal than other western nations. Your rich basically got ahold of the agenda in the early 1980s and have had control of it, off and on, since. Hopefully Obama will be able reset things.