It is difficult to understand why newspaper editors think that their typical readers have more time to evaluate the truth of politicians’ claims [than] reporters who have a full time job to do such things. However [this] seems to be a widely held view, since so often articles are devoted to telling us what the politicians claim without including any effort to uncover what is true.
Today’s he said/she said in the Post and the NYT is about high gas prices. The Democrats are looking to take back tax breaks from the oil industry while the Republicans are pushing to “drill here, drill now.” It would have been useful to include a bit of analysis so that readers could judge the likely impacts of the two policies.
Dean Baker at Beat the Press goes on to provide the analysis, as he often does.
I love Dean Baker: he’s been so far in front of other economists for so long it’s not even funny, and his take downs of journalists (esp. financial reporters) failing on the job are incredible.