The Future of News Reporting and the Rise of the Academic Blogger
This New Yorker piece bemoans the death of "old-school" Walter Cronkite journalism. Back in the day (pre-Internet), reporters had all day long to drink and think and eventually file their story for the next day's paper. Such "time to build" has value added and this has been lost in the "24 hour continuous news cycle". While there is some truth to this claim, the author seems to have forgotton that nature hates a vacuum.
If news reporters are now running around blogging and commenting on Cable TV and not having the time to think (as this long New Yorker piece argues), then who will fill this void? The answer is obvious--- tenured academic nerds. Has anyone noticed the proliferation of academics who are now doing some serious writing for mainstream media? Glaeser and Mulligan at Economix, Simon Johnston for the Atlantic and there are dozens of other examples including Stavins for the Financial Times and soon Kahn for the Christian Science Monitor.
Is it obvious that journalists have a comparative advantage in doing policy analysis over academic nerds? While my opinion is biased, I don't think so. For years I would read the business section of the NY Times and would be amazed at how little connection there was between what serious academic researcher thought about issues such as takeovers and mergers and what was written in the Times. Same thing with business cycles. Today, I see a promising trend that barriers to entry are falling and academics are competing with journalists for scarce newsspace and the blogs have expanded the access that academics have for writing directly to the public.
Just as some PHDs can have a great career teaching at a Business School, there are some academics who can write for the public and we all gain when they do so.
Now, where this New Yorker piece makes an interesting point is when it argues that Obama's policy may be influenced by the 24 hour cycle that a vicious cycle can arise such that he makes a bad decision because he didn't wait to think things out. To the President's credit , he showed in the case of Afghanistan a great deal of patience so this plausible thesis may not be right.
If news reporters are now running around blogging and commenting on Cable TV and not having the time to think (as this long New Yorker piece argues), then who will fill this void? The answer is obvious--- tenured academic nerds. Has anyone noticed the proliferation of academics who are now doing some serious writing for mainstream media? Glaeser and Mulligan at Economix, Simon Johnston for the Atlantic and there are dozens of other examples including Stavins for the Financial Times and soon Kahn for the Christian Science Monitor.
Is it obvious that journalists have a comparative advantage in doing policy analysis over academic nerds? While my opinion is biased, I don't think so. For years I would read the business section of the NY Times and would be amazed at how little connection there was between what serious academic researcher thought about issues such as takeovers and mergers and what was written in the Times. Same thing with business cycles. Today, I see a promising trend that barriers to entry are falling and academics are competing with journalists for scarce newsspace and the blogs have expanded the access that academics have for writing directly to the public.
Just as some PHDs can have a great career teaching at a Business School, there are some academics who can write for the public and we all gain when they do so.
Now, where this New Yorker piece makes an interesting point is when it argues that Obama's policy may be influenced by the 24 hour cycle that a vicious cycle can arise such that he makes a bad decision because he didn't wait to think things out. To the President's credit , he showed in the case of Afghanistan a great deal of patience so this plausible thesis may not be right.
posted by Matthew Kahn at 6:55 PM
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