Media, media, media

A couple things media-related things have caught my attention so I thought I would throw them into one post.

1. From Marginal Revolution:

Econospinning: How to Read Between the Lines When the Media Manipulate the Numbers, by Gene Epstein, economics editor at Barron's.

Imagine lengthy polemics against the use of numbers in the work of Paul Krugman (most of all), the Op-Ed page of The Wall Street Journal, Brad DeLong, Steve Levitt, and Barbara Ehrenreich, among others. Except the vehicle isn't the blogosphere, it is a book!

This one is guaranteed to ruffle feathers. Here is the book's home page.

2. Helpful writing guide at The Economist. h/t Greg Mankiw

3. Finally, what kind of blogger would I be if I didn't get in on the ballyhoo of recent media scandals? See here, here and here. Tisk, tisk on the NYT: once for this, and again for this. If I were a freelancer, I'd be concerned. I'm not quite as angered as others are, but I'd be less shy to blog about the drama if: i) the cynicism of the media were expressed in a clever fashion; and, ii) I had a television to get my fix of drama elsewhere.