Bill Keller, the former editor of the New YorkTimes, has ventured into economic commentary after tutorials from “a few economists respected for the integrity of their science.” Presumably, they all have impeccable Ivy League or Wall Streetcredentials. Keller concludes that the state of economics is “rotten” because the “democratization of media has diminished the authority once held — and sometimes abused — by a few big newspapers and broadcasters.”
I, hayseed that I am, had not realized that theNew York Times and CBS – not the editors of the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, or the Quarterly Journal ofEconomics — are (or were to Keller’s regret) the true arbiters of what is good or bad economics.
