Niall Ferguson is undoubtedly an expert. As the bio on his Newsweek column points out, he's "a professor of history at Harvard University. He is also a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford University, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution." His latest column (1/23/12) is about the need to sell the public on the policies recommended by experts: To the kind of people who spend their careers inside elite institutions, the technocratic turn is welcome. Decisions about economic policy, they reason, are too difficult to be entrusted to the people's elected representatives…. But there's a catch. The [...]
Nov
02
2011
It's All Greek to Them
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Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou's call for a referendum on the EU bailout package seems to have prompted media outlets to rummage through their store of Greek cliches. The Washington Post's editorial against "Mr. Papandreou's ill-advised announcement of a referendum" led with a classical reference: Not since the night when soldiers emerged from the belly of a giant wooden horse in ancient Troy has Greece engineered a more stunning surprise. On the CBS Evening News (11/1/11), Mark Phillips weighed in with a culinary metaphor: This was supposed to be the week that world leaders gathered in France to chart the [...]
Aug
02
2011
PBS in the UK?
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There was an interesting piece in the New York Times yesterday (8/1/11) by Elizabeth Jensen about plans to ship PBS programming across the pond. It's a hard concept to get your head around, especially if you're under the impression that Britain's public broadcasting system is superior to our own. That might not be the strangest part, though: W. David Lyons, chairman and chief executive of the Orca Exploration Group, which operates a Tanzanian natural gas field, is backing the PBS UK project financially. PBS described him as "a Canadian-born entrepreneur and venture philanthropist" who "grew up on PBS programming and [...]
Jul
26
2011
For Beck, Norway Shooter Wasn't Right-Wing–Though His Victims Were 'Hitler Youth'
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Glenn Beck (7/25/11, via Mediaite, 7/25/11) explains on his radio show why the right-wing Norway terror suspect is what we call left-wing here in America: This was one of the episodes where I showed the railroad tracks that were different than America. In America, the left railroad track is gigantic government–it could be Communist or Fascist, it doesn't matter, it's giant government. The other side of the track is anarchy or very, very small government. So that's the left and right here in America. The Left and Right in Europe, because, once they got rid of the kings, they didn't [...]
Apr
28
2011
Everyone Cares About the Royal Wedding
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A USA Today headline (4/28/11): Americans, Here and There, Get Swept Up by the Royal Wedding Much further down in the piece, evidence of that sweeping feeling: Polls initially indicated that most Americans were underwhelmed by the royal nuptials, but interest has spiked as the wedding day nears. U.S. media outlets are publishing twice the amount of coverage as the British media, according to a new Nielsen study. So people don't care about it, but the media care a lot–which is evidence of, well, something. And more on that: Jane Seymour, the actress-turned-correspondent for ET, says she hasn't met anyone [...]
Apr
26
2011
WashPost Explains 'Reality' to Europe: You're Rich and Must Tighten Your Belt
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Working in a time-honored corporate media genre (Extra!, 9-10/97, 9-10/05, 7/10), the Washington Post's Edward Cody (4/24/11) tells us that Europe just can't afford its generous social programs: From blanket health insurance to long vacations and early retirement, the cozy social benefits that have been a way of life in Western Europe since World War II increasingly appear to be luxuries the continent can no longer afford. Lest you think "appear" provides some wiggle room, Cody makes clear that, no, he's talking about objective truth here: In the new reality, workers have been forced to accept salary freezes, decreased hours, [...]
Apr
13
2011
Tom Friedman: Being a Columnist Means Never Having to Say You Researched
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One thing Thomas Friedman demonstrates over and over is that you don't need to know much to be an expert. Take today's column (New York Times, 4/13/11), which is based around a contrast between the European wave of democratization in 1989 and the current "Arab spring": Think about the 1989 democracy wave in Europe. In Europe, virtually every state was like Germany, a homogenous nation, except Yugoslavia. The Arab world is exactly the opposite. There, virtually every state is like Yugoslavia–except Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. That is to say, in Europe, when the iron fist of Communism was removed, the [...]
Nov
22
2010
Tom Friedman, Wrong About Another Thing
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The Irish economy is in need of a $100 billion bailout, thanks in large part to the bursting of its housing bubble. But for years the Irish model was lionized by U.S. pundits. ThinkProgress blogger Matthew Yglesias digs up a 2005 piece by New York Times columnist Tom Friedman that said: There is a huge debate roiling in Europe today over which economic model to follow: the Franco-German shorter-workweek-six-weeks'-vacation-never-fire-anyone-but-high-unemployment social model or the less protected but more innovative, high-employment Anglo-Saxon model preferred by Britain, Ireland and Eastern Europe. It is obvious to me that the Irish-British model is the way [...]
Nov
12
2010
Some Problems With Germany's Sermon for Obama
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The lead story in today's New York Times (1/12/10), written by Sewell Chan, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and David E. Sanger, focused on allies' complaints about Barack Obama's economic policies: There was no way to avoid discussion of the fundamental differences of economic strategy…. Major disputes broke out between Washington and China, Britain, Germany and Brazil. Each rejected core elements of Mr. Obama's strategy of stimulating growth before focusing on deficit reduction. Several major nations continued to accuse the Federal Reserve of deliberately devaluing the dollar last week in an effort to put the costs of America's competitive troubles on trading [...]
