Every conservative I have ever met has been an armchair economist, with cookie cutter like prescriptions. The conservative media owners certainly know better than those overeducated PHD economists. Just ask them.

The number of economists who can appear on teevee and sound coherent without a script and an editor is probably pretty small. When you eliminate the coherent-sounding economists with a liberal world view like Robert Reich and Paul Krugman then, well, you're going to struggle to be able to fill even five percent of your open time.

not unlike how you never ever saw human rights/civil rights activists -- or those who treat torture victims -- to be a part of what passed for a national discussion on the use of torture as a part of u.s. policy.

but i do remember lotsa drooling fanboys citing '24' as a rationale.

Is the problem the lack of economists, or the anchors and reporters? I mean, economics is a painfully complicated subject. They can't have their personel revealed to be the slack jawed idiots many of us suspect - it would be terrible for ratings.

sorry, Dick Armey, you don't make the cut

Or you, Ben Stein. Sorry Arianna Huffington.

The other point is that few, if any, were not politically charged. Summers, Orzag and Romer are in the Obama administration. Reich was in Clinton's. Huffington is primarily known for politics, and Krugman isn't that far behind. That makes up all 11 of the left leaning economists. I assume by the shows that most of the rest are recruited for their views rather than their expertise. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, Ferguson was on MSNBC yesterday arguing that what we need to fix the economy is to reboot the home building industry. Jeesh.

Don't forget to go give Dubya and Phil Gramm your votes for being responsible for the financial meltdown at Time Magazine's rogue gallery of those implicated:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1877351,00.html

So what is an acceptable percentage of time for economists?

If Barney Frank is explaining it in adequate terms, does it matter that he isn't an economist?

Since news shows cover the news, and it is the lawmakers that are making the news, I think it makes sense to be interviewing the lawmakers.

The time period here was January 25th to February 8th, when most of the focus was on the give and take between Obama and Congress.

And then, of course, in the "be careful what you wish for" category we have Glenn Beck.

Steve Benen wrote: "Americans would benefit from understanding the scope of the economic problem ... all of the kind of things an economist is qualified to talk about."

This is a perfect example of "sensible liberal" confusion about the media.

The purpose of the corporate-owned mass media is not to "benefit" Americans by improving their "understanding" of economics or anything else.

The purpose of the corporate-owned mass media is to propagandize Americans into supporting the corporate agenda -- into supporting, or at least passively acquiescing to, the ruthless, relentless, rapacious class warfare by America's Ultra-Rich Ruling Class, Inc. against everyone else.

The handful of giant corporations that own and control virtually all of the so-called "mainstream" mass media would really prefer that we watch commercials, interrupted by brief segments of "Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous" and other programming that idolizes the ultra-rich ruling class.

And when they do present infotainment masquerading as "news" and "journalism", they are certainly not going to feature economists whose expertise might lead the audience to question the corporate agenda. Instead they will feature propagandists for the corporate agenda, like Republican politicians and fake, phony pseudo-experts from corporate-funded propaganda mills masquerading as "conservative" think-tanks.

If we look at the numbers and consider only credible economists -- sorry, Dick Armey, you don't make the cut -- the 5% figure Media Matters found would be even smaller.

So much for Donald Luskin, too.

If Barney Frank is explaining it in adequate terms, does it matter that he isn't an economist?

Yes, it does. He's a politician who's staked out a position on the matter, he's necessarily not going to be an objective analyst, neutrally evaluating the claims of the interested parties. I grant you that no one's ever going to fit that bill perfectly, but an academic economist is going to fit it better than a politician.

(For the record, I strongly support Barney Frank.)

By "economists," I think you mean folks like this guy, found at Red State by John Cole at Balloon Juice:

"But tax cuts actually are the answer.... The most radical, and effective, thing we could do for the economy right now is this: Stop collecting all forms of Federal business, income and payroll tax. EVERY PENNY OF IT. RIGHT NOW. Gasp! Yes, I said it, and I meant it. Go on an absolute, 100% Federal tax holiday. That’s a real shot in the arm that would suddenly inflate the economy by a solid $1.5 trillion or more per year."

We learn something new every day now. Just yesterday, for example, I learned that FDR caused the Great Depression. I mean, we have long known that he totally failed to deal with it, and even made it worse and prolonged it, but I never understood that -- obviously based on the mathetical insights of Karl Rove -- we can now be certain that 1932 actually came before 1929.

And now I've learned something new for today as well.

When economics is rooted in a politically charged issue, it's going to be impossible for economist to appear "unbiased." You're either for government spending stimulus or against it. The same can be said for the proposition that tax cuts constitute stimulus.

My question is: why aren't shows airing both sides and debating the issues? I suspect it's because they feel viewers will reach the "wrong" conclusion (i.e., ours).

This is a great post. The media's discussion on the problem (excluding some jobloss statistics) has been whether any R's will sign on to a plan. How about some detail? How about international implications? How insolvent are the big boys? There's little discussion about the severity of the problem and what we are in for.

On that note, the "Let every financial institution, every Bank, Car Company, and business fail!" mantra being recited by the deadenders on the internets is astonishingly common. Reading a couple of international news sites for JUST TODAY's headlines describes the economic hemoraging...

Bank of England: UK in 'deep' recession

Universities 'risking bankruptcy'

Toxic debt threat to EU

European banks' toxic debts risk overwhelming EU governments.

China's exports down 18% in Jan (13 year low)

EU banks may need £16.3 trillion bail-out, EC doc warns

Japan exports down 35% in Dec, industrial output down 9.6%. Japan economy contracting 12% annually.

German orders down 25% in Dec

French house prices down 10% in 4th qtr, steepest since data began in 1936

Spain's unemployment has jumped to 3.3m – to 14.4%

Ireland lost 36k jobs in Jan – equal to a monthly loss of 2.3m in US

Dec industrial output down 27% in Ukraine, down 10% in Russia

"We're dealing with truly appalling data, the likes of which have never been seen before in post-War Europe," said Julian Callow, Europe economist at Barclays Capital.
rate in the fourth quarter.

I guess Larry Kudlow would just qualify as an 'economist" under today's generous definition. Too bad.

I have a undergrad degree in government. I guess that makes me a politician much like, say, Obama.

But since I also took some year-long courses in biology, I am also qualified to go on TV and opine about stem cell research.

The Repub war on expertise continues.

This is because the republicans are lousy at economics and all their policies and proposals have been tried and failed. They never want to discuss the economy with legitimate economists ...just look at George Will when Paul Krugman was on...Will looked like the fool he is when discussing economics.

It's all about not making the Repukes look bad.

btw...there are all kinds of economic reports that could have been presented but the corporate media couldn't fit them into their agenda of don't look at the economy.