thegipples/journalism

From the page: "Right now -- as the American press corps celebrates itself for demanding Saberi's release in Iran -- the U.S. continues to imprison Ibrahim Jassam, a freelance photographer for Reuters, even though an Iraqi court last December -- more than five months ago -- found that there was no evidence to justify his detention and ordered him released. The U.S. -- over the objections of the CPJ, Reporters Without Borders and Reuters -- refused to recognize the validity of that Iraqi court order and announced it would continue to keep him imprisoned."

From the page: "The media have a tendency to write glowing accounts of people in positions of power in the United States. I recall when a person I knew quite well was given a high position, the news reports described this person as being brilliant and having a sharp intellect. I personally liked and respected this person, but I doubt very much that anyone who knew this person would have made a point of talking about their brilliance or sharp intellect.

Unfortunately, reporters often seem to believe that it is their job to promote confidence in the people in power. It isn't.

--Dean Baker"

From the page: "The basic issues were extremely simple. There was a massive asset bubble that created $8 trillion in illusory housing wealth. The collapse of this bubble was going to lead to an economic disaster. This was simple, really simple, and any competent economic analyst could see it coming.

This bubble was being supported by a flood of really poorly written loans that would go bad at huge rates when the bubble burst, leading to massive losses. This was simple, really simple, and any competent economic analyst could see it coming.

How do we prevent such a disaster again? We tell the Federal Reserve Board that part of its job is to combat asset bubbles. We tell them that Alan Greenspan was wrong in thinking that asset bubbles are really cute. It would probably be good to fire some of the people at the Fed who didn't warn of an $8 trillion housing bubble, just so that they know we are serious."

From the page: "While it is possible that Obama officials actually think that Krugman is naive there are other plausible explanations for their behavior and comments. For example, the Obama administration is closely tied to many top Wall Street executives. It is possible that it is designing its bank policy to serve the interests of Wall Street rather than the country as a whole, as has been argued by people like MIT professor Simon Johnson, the former chief economist at the IMF."

From the page: "the issue over different types of capitalism that is coming up at the G-20 summit is whether the government exists primarily to redistribute money to the wealthy or to serve some other social end."