Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Its Goolsbee NOT Goolsby

In this pathetic New York Times article by Kevin Sack on the candidates health care plans, there is a clear "tell" that Sack is out of his depth. Any reporter who has been covering economics would know by now that Austan Goolsbee is spelled with 2 e's and not a "y":

"Mr. Obama receives advice from Mr. Cutler, David Blumenthal and Jeffrey Liebman, all of Harvard; Stuart Altman of Brandeis; Austan Goolsby of the University of Chicago;..."


Read Don Pedro's post for a thorough dismantling of this piece. The article basically says that since economists are not totally unbiased we can't learn anything about the merits of each plan. You would think that 2 weeks before the election the New York Times could find somebody to take the time to read through the 2 plans and provide at least some informed guidance about them. What is the purpose of this kind of an article?

As Brad Delong would say..."why oh why can't we have a better press corps?"
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousOctober 22, 2008 at 12:28 PM

    in fairness, it could have been a rogue copy-editor.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 22, 2008 at 6:34 PM

    i thought about that, except that Goolsbee is such a prominent name you'd think any writer worth his salt would know it by now.

    I would not imagine say David Leonhardt or Greg Ip (WSJ) ever screwing that up ... unless Goolsbeee had just come on the scene.

    ReplyDelete