16:57
anybody remember the last Trump press
conference I don’t but I’m only 66 years
old so you know but anyway so so anyway
I wrote this book and I wrote down a lot
of seemingly obvious things but I was
following the elements of style model
that you do need to remind people of
things that they already knew because
that’s faded they forgotten it’s in the
back of their minds and sometimes you
need to be reminded of the simplest
things like for example clicking on
links now everybody knows what a link I
think sure everybody in this room does
but a surprisingly large number of
people seemingly do not know what a link
is I know this because I’m always
getting people you know when I write
something though they’ll you know send
me an email or something and and say
where’s your documentation for this and
I’d say well if you clicked on
the link you’d you’d find the
documentation but on the other hand I
learned a few years ago that you have to
be very careful about links because I
just I discovered that my editor was
changing them now who know very few
writers I know certainly I don’t go back
and check all the links in something you
already wrote to make sure that they’re
right in this particular case I had
quoted then Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton on some point and I provided a
link that took you to the State
Department website to the page where the
speech that I was quoting appeared so it
was you know documentary evidence a
first you know a primary source document
and then later I needed to find that
quote again so I went to my own article
on the page place where it was published
and clicked it on and it took me to some
random article about Hillary Clinton
from that that same publication you see
because their attitude was we don’t want
people leaving our publication to go
someplace else even if it’s the State
Department we want people to stay here
so they they just pick some random
article about Hillary Clinton and stuck
that in where I had had a link to this
this primary source document and up
until that for all I know they could
have been doing that for years because I
never would have had any reason to check
it was just coincidence and and but this
gets me to a point which is you know the
many writers are very very lackadaisical
about using links and there are some
publications for example Reuters will
never include links in any of their
articles even to a primary source and
and maybe they have the same attitude my
editor had but it really irritates me
because I check a lot of links I always
want to know the documentation I want to
know where this information came from
and whether it’s from a quality source
in the old days you you check the
footnote you know you look at the bottom
of the page and there was your
documentation and even if you never
checked the source you could tell okay
is from a reputable publication or you
can see who the author is and say okay
that’s a reputable person or something
like that that would give you some
confidence that that the information
you’re reading was a could be trusted
obviously nobody uses footnotes anymore
academics hardly use them as much as
they used to and and of course it’s but
we have these links which theoretically
provide that same purpose excuse me
but very very often I will go to some
click on a link and it will be to a
secondary source it won’t even be to the
original reporter who broke a story I
mean we take I think some people have an
idea well I don’t like the link to
publications that are behind a paywall
or that require registration I’d rather
link to some ease public source that
people have no difficulty getting to but
that’s not the way I think I want to see
you know the documentary source or at
least the original source news source
where this article appeared or this
information appeared and it appears to
me the great many reporters simply don’t
they’re just too lazy you know they just
don’t want to be bothered and or or
maybe an editor or for all I know an
intern just stuck this into their story
and the reporter didn’t have anything to
do with it
but I think that this is a terrible
terrible waste of an extremely valuable
function which is documentation you know
and and I think that one of the reasons
the media have lost a lot of credibility
and maybe a lot of viewer readers is
because they have lost credibility
people just don’t necessarily believe
what they have to say and I think that
there’s ways they could they could deal
with this
for example this has been a pet peeve of
mine for many years a reporter will go
and do an interview with somebody
whoever and and then you get a couple of
quotes you know in the article that they
have you know chosen from this interview
but how do you know whether these
statements were made in color or quoted
accurately
here in context or what other
information was obtained in the course
of this interview that the reporter
didn’t think was important enough to
bother mentioning well why you know it’s
very easy to convert you know voice into
text and to they could post the entire
interviews now every once in a while
they will do this and it’s very it’s
always very useful when they do for
example last week the New York Times
interviewed Donald Trump and they did
post the entire transcript and what you
oftentimes find is that they bury the
lead that there was really much more
interest interesting information that
was left out of the article than was
included and I don’t understand why
papers just don’t post the stuff
routinely it’s added value for the
reader in and it would provide a very
important service in terms of giving the
reader confidence that this interview
was was not a gotcha interview that the
quotes are honest and in context and so
on and as we know the president will has
been known to deny saying things that we
have tape video of him saying and so
it’s very it’s becoming even more
important not to be able to document the
things that are being said another thing
I talk about in the book that I found to
my really kind of surprising that so
many people commented on this to me but
I talked about libraries which I think a
lot of people have the idea that’s just
where you go to get books and if I’m
24:04
people is face or not no offense but
24:07
people are not quite as interested in
24:09
books as they used to be but one of the
24:12
things that that that libraries have
24:14
public libraries is online databases you
24:19
know that the where you can go on and
24:21
have access to information that would be
24:24
extremely costly if it was available at
24:27
all through a Google search or something
24:30
like that now my familiarity is with the
24:32
Fairfax County Library in in Virginia
24:35
and I use that almost every
24:37
all day there are very valuable web
24:41
search engines for for academic journals
24:45
and for data of various kinds that is
24:49
extremely valuable and I use quite often
24:52
and I think people’s just literally
24:55
don’t know that these things are there
24:56
because the libraries don’t advertise
24:58
them very much why I don’t know but I I
25:02
did a little bit of a search around and
25:04
every state not necessarily every local
25:08
library but every state has a state
25:09
library and they have many of these same
25:12
databases some have even better ones I
25:15
discovered that if you’re an alumnus of
25:18
a university in many cases you can have
25:21
some access to the university’s
25:25
library’s databases and again you’ll
25:29
have access to publications you wouldn’t
25:31
otherwise have or ones that that are too
25:34
prohibitively expensive for example the
25:37
fairfax county library gives me access
25:39
to the New York Times The Washington
25:40
Post every issue of The Washington Post
25:42
back to whenever the 1800s The Wall
25:46
Street Journal and other publications
25:48
that you might like to be able to read
25:51
but you simply can’t afford him I mean
25:54
the New York Times cost me a $15 a month
25:56
I can afford that but you know a lot of
26:00
people that would be you know more than
26:01
they could possibly afford I know people
26:03
are always complaining when I link to
26:06
something on Twitter and they say oh
26:08
that’s too you know the New York Times
26:09
and I can’t access that I’ve already
26:12
gotten my 5 for your articles for the
26:13
month or whatever the deal is but they
26:16
would have they could get it for free
26:18
through their library if they wanted to
26:20
go to the trouble well there there’s a
26:24
lot of other stuff that I could talk
26:27
about that’s in the book but I tried to
26:30
write something really genuinely for the
26:33
average citizen that would teach them a
26:35
little bit about some of the ways
26:37
reporters think for one here’s I have to
26:41
mention this because it comes up so
26:43
often people always ask me well why do
26:45
reporters seem to write and do this what
26:49
was commonly called he said
26:51
said journalism they say why can’t they
26:54
go to the trouble of of telling us what
26:57
they think or we’re doing some reporting
26:59
to be able to differentiate between two
27:02
different sources that give two
27:03
different answers to a question you know
27:06
a good example would be you know your
27:08
your reporter covering Hillary Clinton’s
27:11
campaign and she says something or
27:14
somebody on staff says something and and
27:17
maybe you you agree with it maybe you
27:20
you think it’s completely wrong but
27:22
rather than do some reporting and
27:24
analysis and say okay here’s what I was
27:27
told I’ve looked into this and this is
27:29
what it what the truth is they’ll go to
27:32
the Trump campaign and say here’s what
27:33
Hillary Clinton just said what is your
27:35
response and then you’ll see Clinton
27:37
said this Trump said that and that’s all
27:40
you get you know he said she said and
27:43
and the reason is really very simple it
27:46
all has to do with access you see in the
27:49
old days the reporters had the power
27:51
because the politicians had to go to
27:54
them to get their message out they had
27:57
to go through the media and the
28:00
reporters were the gatekeepers and the
28:01
editors now it’s the other way around
28:03
the media need access they need quotes
28:08
they need inside gossip they need
28:10
information from inside the White House
28:13
from inside a campaign and the only way
they can get it is if the person who’s
willing to give it to them trust that it
will be used exactly the way they want
it used and they will read the story the
next day and say was I quoted accurately
did they put in some snide remark that
would lead me to believe they are
hostile to our agenda and so the best
way the reporter can protect himself is
by just being stenographic you just take
down and report precisely what they say
28:44
and – and if you want to have some sort
28:50
of analysis or or or somebody to
28:53
contradict or fact-check you you have to
28:58
quote somebody else maybe saying what
29:01
you’re thinking you say and this was a
29:03
role that I know I often play
29:05
with various reporters I could tell they
29:07
were calling me because to say what I
29:10
knew they were thinking but could not
29:12
put into their own words because they
29:14
weren’t allowed to interject themselves
29:16
or seem to interject themselves into the
29:18
story and so the balance of power has
29:21
very much changed to the detriment I
29:24
think of truth now what what
29:26
publications have done to deal with this
29:29
problem is they create a fact-checking
29:32
sites and the washington post site is
29:35
run by one of their oldest and most
29:38
experienced reporters a guy named Glenn
29:40
Kessler but there are many other
29:42
organizations and groups that do this
29:44
Paulette polity fact and Barry’s things
29:48
like this and and what they will do is
29:50
they will then subsequently look at some
29:53
of these stories evaluate them subject
29:56
them to analysis and data and so on and
29:59
so forth and they will render a judgment
30:02
that oh what this candidate said the
30:05
other day is just a ranked lie or maybe
30:08
it’s a little white lie or maybe they
30:09
were just bending the truth a little bit
30:11
or whatever it is they do and but the
30:14
problem with that is fact-checking to my
30:17
mind is journalism it’s not a separate
30:21
branch of the media that it’s over here
30:24
in its own little ghetto by itself it
30:27
should be it’s integral to every single
30:29
thing that is is written in a newspaper
30:32
or reported on television fact-checking
30:34
is journalist if you’re not doing fact
30:36
you know what are you doing you know and
30:39
so I mean we can look up official
30:42
statements you know from the White House
30:44
and other places and read what they have
30:46
to say we don’t need a third party to
30:49
download that information for us and
30:52
tell us what what was said maybe in the
30:54
old days you did I mean the reason you
30:56
had White House correspondent is is
30:58
because they would issue press releases
31:00
and they’d only have a few dozen copies
31:02
and you’d have to get one to know what
31:04
the president was saying and you’d have
31:06
to report it for for your readers but of
31:09
course now everybody can download that
31:10
information for themselves they don’t
31:12
need the intermediary yet a lot of what
31:15
the people in the White House do is they
31:18
sit around waiting for handouts you know
31:19
it’s it’s really a kind of a criminal
31:21
waste of resources in a time when
31:24
resources are scarce but anyway I’ve
31:28
talked on a little longer than I
31:29
intended to and I do want to take some
31:31
questions and as we said you need to go
31:34
to the microphones I don’t think you
31:36
necessarily have to induce yourself but
31:38
feel free to do so if you’d like so this
31:47
is really more about your transition
31:49
from a conservative Republican to an
31:51
independent yeah so what happened to the
31:55
Republican wing of or the the Reagan
31:58
wing of the Republican Party and and do
32:01
you feel like a lot of your political
32:03
associates agree with you well I don’t
32:07
have nearly enough time to answer that
32:09
question perhaps I’ll write a book about
32:11
it someday but you know there you know
32:15
as my wife always says you know she
32:18
didn’t leave the Republican Party the
32:20
Republican Party left her I was very
32:22
comfortable working for Ronald Reagan I
32:25
felt that the Reagan wing of the party
32:27
is perhaps more conservative than I am
32:30
today but I never thought it was
32:32
irresponsible I thought Reagan was a
32:34
good president I think he was very much
32:36
underrated by his enemies and now that
32:40
we’ve seen the people who have come
32:43
after him I think there’s a probably a
32:46
lot of people on the Left who have
32:47
greater appreciation for Reagan ‘then
32:50
than they did at the time but he was a
32:52
serious responsible person and you know
32:55
and maybe they have them here in the
32:57
store but there there’s some books that
32:59
were edited by Annalise Anderson and
33:04
Martin Anderson and a woman named
33:06
Skinner who’s they I don’t remember her
33:08
first name but anyway they went into the
33:10
Reagan Library and found during the time
33:13
between when he was governor and the
33:15
time he started running for president he
33:17
gave radio he did radio shows and he
33:20
would just read a little script it
33:22
wasn’t like a call callin show and he
33:25
wrote a syndicated newspaper columns and
33:28
they found the drafts of these speeches
33:30
or the
33:31
radios transcripts and the the columns
33:35
that he wrote all by his lonesome self
33:36
he had no research assistance or
33:38
anything in his own hand on you know
33:40
legal paper and they and with notes in
33:44
it about where he got the information he
33:46
was very very well-read and and knew an
33:49
enormous amount about public policy
33:51
quite apart from his time as governor
33:53
and I just think you know would be
33:56
really nice if we had somebody like that
33:58
you know as president again so I don’t
34:01
know I don’t I can’t say anything more
34:04
without going down a path that will take
34:07
too long
34:09
hi Phil Gail what’s actually I’m a
34:12
journalist so I appreciate getting your
34:14
thoughts as a source behind a lot of
34:16
Charles comment and a quick question if
34:19
I could I I guess I take a lot of your
34:21
things that he said she said a lot of
34:23
things I really appreciate what you said
34:24
I think I needed one thing I was
34:26
stressful that journalist is not a
34:27
monolithic group all all newspapers
34:30
magazines are not alike as you know all
34:32
journalists on the same organization are
34:34
not alike the deadline pressures could
34:38
you talk about would that belief that
34:40
what what journalism out there do you do
34:44
you look to what is good I guess what I
34:45
would say is that there are journalists
34:47
out there today we’re not on a deadline
34:50
every 20 seconds great public a public
34:53
Isaac yeah a nonprofit that does large
34:55
investigation stories are running media
34:57
all over the country and they can they
34:58
give it away from free the impact of
35:01
journalists you know what you know the
35:03
Washington Post look at the impact they
35:04
had on the Alabama Senate race so you
35:06
don’t think Washington Post is necessary
35:07
look who the look who won the Senate
35:09
race obviously there was a little bit of
35:11
impact from some journalism there you
35:13
know question about is that impacting
35:15
the administration asked Tom Price what
35:17
on the form of Health HHS secretary what
35:20
impact journalism having always taking
35:22
so with that in mind what areas of
35:24
journalism do you look at as you know
35:26
there is some good out there it’s not
35:27
all yes
35:28
chaser well one of the things that I do
35:30
is I’ve tried to one of the things I
35:36
talk about in the book is kind of
35:37
creating your own newspaper and you can
35:40
do this very easily through something
35:42
call it an RSS reader which was kind of
35:44
a
35:45
a few years ago and now people seem to
35:47
have forgotten about it but it’s an
35:48
extraordinarily useful tool I use one
35:52
called feedly f e d f ee d ly feedly and
35:56
what you do is you put in sources that
36:00
interest you for example you know you
36:05
don’t have to have ever get everything
36:06
that comes from the New York Times you
36:09
can just get only the stories about the
36:11
economy or only the stories about
36:12
politics or whatever and it’s brought to
36:15
you directly you don’t have to go to the
36:17
Times homepage to look and see what’s
36:20
new here I already read that story is
36:23
this one new I can’t tell blah blah blah
36:24
this way it that the minute it’s posted
36:27
it’s sent to the reader and and you can
36:30
find out something that when it’s
36:33
available
36:34
the minute it becomes of L and so we can
36:36
do is you can kind of create your own
36:38
virtual newspaper by saying well instead
36:41
of reading the New York Times as
36:43
political coverage all reap oolitic owes
36:45
and that gives me my politics maybe I
36:49
prefer the Wall Street Journal’s
36:51
economic coverage so I’ll get that and
36:53
so you can put together bits and pieces
36:55
of publications out there that maybe you
36:59
don’t like in general but do like some
37:02
aspect of and of course you can do it
37:04
for any number of things not just the
37:06
sort of things that we’re talking about
37:08
today of sports you know cooking
37:12
entertainment to gossip whatever you can
37:14
put together your own little newspaper
37:16
and similarly with Twitter which I use
37:20
quite a lot say there’s some publication
37:24
that you generally don’t like for
37:25
summaries and say the Washington Post
37:28
but there’s this one reporter there that
37:29
you really like that reporter you
37:31
subscribe to her Twitter feed and what
37:35
you’ll not only find out everything that
37:37
she has written because reporters are
37:40
very you know they always repost their
37:42
own stuff first and foremost but they
37:45
will also post things that they think
37:47
are interesting that perhaps they have
37:49
vetted themselves so that you can trust
37:52
the reporter that you trust to give you
37:55
to send you to another story another
37:58
Porter’s work that maybe you wouldn’t
38:00
have otherwise seen that that will then
38:02
come to your attention so you can have a
38:05
whole list of reporters or commentators
38:09
that you particularly like and just have
38:11
them all on your Twitter feed and that
38:12
way you can get stuff from the people
38:15
you have grown to trust I think of it as
38:18
similar to a movie reviewer you know you
38:21
you’re you don’t want to go to a movie
38:24
and not be not not enjoy yourself but
38:27
over time you learn a certain reviewer
38:29
has the same tastes you have if they say
38:31
this is a good movie I really like that
38:34
then I’ll go see it and more than likely
38:35
I’ll be satisfied and it’s the same
38:38
thing with reportage on any number of
38:40
other subjects that you you learn to
38:42
trust and learn to to to use the
38:47
material that this person has vetted and
38:50
curated and chosen to call to your
38:52
attention and so I think between Twitter
38:54
and an RSS reader you can create a
38:57
virtual news source for yourself that
38:59
exactly suits your interests with only
39:02
sources that you feel comfortable
39:04
trusting Pete Pete Davis Bruce and I
39:09
worked together as economists on Capitol
39:11
Hill and formulated the Reagan tax cuts
39:13
and you made a very important point
39:15
distinction between primary sources data
39:18
documentation secondary sources and just
39:23
fabrications right and so when you came
39:27
to me and said gee let’s do this tax cut
39:29
I had an actual computer model with real
39:32
tax returns on it and we kicked it
39:35
around and came up with real data and
39:37
how much it would cost and who would be
39:39
affected and so on well now try to find
39:43
things on the White House website look
39:47
at the budget cuts for the IRS SSO uh
39:50
statistics of income look at the budget
39:52
cuts we may have a failed census could
39:55
you could you elaborate on and how
39:58
important it is to have real data well I
40:01
I you know I was asked you know what
40:03
sources I rely upon and I one reason I
40:06
don’t use the media for in some ways the
40:09
way I used to is because I do go to the
40:11
primary
40:12
resources you know the Bureau of Labor
40:14
Statistics website is still very good
40:16
you might as well go there to find out
40:18
the unemployment rate why read a news
40:21
report about about it you know there’s
40:24
really no need to do that and of course
40:26
you know the Bureau of Economic Analysis
40:29
and the Federal Reserve and so on but
40:32
you’re right about the deteriorating
40:34
quality of government data sources I
40:37
mean there was a study on the Treasury
40:39
website as you know that that they got
40:41
rid of because it flatly contradicted
40:44
the administration’s line on who
40:47
benefits from corporate tax cuts the
40:49
Treasury’s own economists had done a
40:51
study saying what was it seventeen
40:53
percent of the benefits of a corporate
40:56
tax cut end up going to workers and they
40:58
said well we don’t agree with that even
40:59
though our own people did this and was
41:01
based on as you say real data from tax
41:05
returns and and so on so they just they
41:09
just deep-sixed it of course a lot it
41:11
had already been published in an
41:13
academic journal so it wasn’t lost but
41:15
it’s a but it’s it’s stupid from the to
41:18
do this or a thing and you’re right
41:19
about the census it’s something that
41:20
worries me a great deal I don’t know
41:22
what to do about that
41:24
I have some familiarity with data
41:27
sources in foreign countries like China
41:29
where sometimes you have to find your
41:31
own data for example in China the GDP
41:35
numbers were so unreliable that
41:37
economists were going to the power
41:39
companies to find out how much
41:41
electricity they were creating in a
41:45
given month and using that as a kind of
41:47
proxy for you know the manufacturing
41:51
sector and you know sofa lot of
41:53
electricity was being used maybe
41:55
manufacturing was doing well and so on
41:57
and I think unfortunately economists are
41:59
probably gonna have to do a lot more of
42:00
that in the future I don’t know what
42:04
else to say i I wanted to first thank
42:09
you for your advocacy for just media
42:12
literacy in general don’t throw things
42:16
but I’m in the social media space I’ve
42:18
gotten really early on and was a huge
42:20
advocate and I curse it especially often
42:23
when it comes to media
42:25
and so when you were talking a lot about
42:27
I thought a lot of the things you said
42:29
today apply it’s kind of reading
42:32
established media and some of the
42:34
different things to know of when you’re
42:36
reading that but I think there’s a big
42:37
difference between journalism seat’s day
42:40
online social media have established
42:42
plate places that have editorial
42:44
processes they go through and then you
42:46
have online where anybody can start a
42:48
website ABC comm Cove look like ABC
42:52
started another name where
42:54
hyper-partisan sites that have no
42:56
editorial process and unfortunately in
42:58
this last election the months leading up
43:00
to the election that type of news that
43:04
like action actual fake news that’s
43:06
funny to say that outperformed more
43:09
established sources so I think there’s
43:11
this line of like media literacy for
43:14
inholding established media
43:16
organizations accountable but there’s
43:18
also you know when you need to cut sugar
43:20
you don’t go shoot heroin right and so
43:23
like how do we is there any advice that
43:25
you have for in a day of helping people
43:28
understand the difference between some
43:31
of these sources and how to consume that
43:32
and in some of the other kind of
43:35
legitimately faker or super hyper
43:37
partisan so you know it’s interesting
43:38
you bring up the social media because
43:39
there was a very interesting study out
43:41
just today that was referenced in the
43:43
New York Times where some political
43:45
scientists had looked at the spread of
43:48
fake news through social media and they
43:52
found that Facebook was the biggest
43:54
problem area and they also found that
43:58
that I mean if you talk to people in
44:03
social media or in the tech industry
44:05
they think well we’ll just come up with
44:07
a fix you know some kind of software
44:09
thing whatever well Facebook tried to do
44:12
that they came up with a way you could
44:15
flag stories in your newsfeed that you
44:19
thought were fake news and they would I
44:21
guess investigate them somehow or other
44:23
and and make a determination they’ll put
44:26
a little tag or something on the story
44:28
so if P other people saw it they would
44:31
see this has been deemed to be fake news
44:33
what it turned out is people read those
44:35
stories even more than they did before
44:38
they
44:39
started flagging then and and
44:41
unfortunately this is a relates to other
44:44
phenomena that I’ve read in in the
44:46
psychological literature and arel
44:48
elsewhere where when you where they’ve
44:51
sat down with people to try to talk talk
44:54
to them about fake news stories that for
44:57
some reason rather they believe and they
44:59
discovered that in the process of
45:01
refuting them they came to believe them
45:03
even more now what what do you do when
45:07
you simp when you’ve lost the ability to
45:09
use logic and evidence in support of
45:12
your position you’re you’re just adrift
45:14
without a compass I don’t know what to
45:17
do about that I have some hope that it’s
45:19
a generational problem that some of the
45:21
people old people that is to say people
45:23
older than me the threshold for being
45:27
old rises but but I think there’s a lot
45:31
of unsophisticated people out there one
45:33
would hope younger people are more
45:36
sophisticated they can tell the
45:38
difference but I don’t I haven’t seen
45:40
any actual data to confirm that I just
45:42
don’t know but you know one of the
45:45
things that I talk about in the book is
45:47
that the various tools that that help
45:51
spread fake nimi a news can stop it for
45:55
example when you come across a story
45:58
that that’s that sounds oh boy this is
46:00
really interesting I’m gonna click this
46:02
on what what well you know if you can
46:04
just get people to slow down for a few
46:06
seconds and go to Google News or or
46:09
search you know some aspect of that
46:11
story to see if anybody else is talking
46:14
about it now you know it might be the
46:17
very first report okay and maybe you
46:19
know you lose a few seconds telling your
46:21
friends about it but more often than not
46:23
you’re gonna protect yourself from
46:25
spreading a lie that’s very very hard to
46:27
take back some of you may have saw a
46:30
scene the other day who was a Jenna
46:32
Fischer is that her name she used to be
46:34
on the office an actress anyway she
46:38
posted something on Twitter that turned
46:41
out to be not true and she wrote a nice
46:43
little response of the next day
46:45
apologizing for doing so but I mean how
46:48
many people do that you know
46:50
it’s you know yeah I very unfortunately
46:55
I sold more on the profiles for how many
46:57
fake stories you shared and maybe people
46:59
will stop sharing it I don’t know I
47:00
don’t know thank you alright
47:02
I think your next question my name is
47:04
Jim Berlin time living Texas is back
47:06
you’re visiting you mentioned earlier
47:08
about the build your own newspaper with
47:11
the sites like feedly one concern I
47:13
would have and I’d like to ask your
47:14
opinion on how to avoid the potential
47:16
pitfall is building your own Fox News or
47:19
building something regardless of what
47:21
your bias is that you’re only going to
47:22
be getting something within your own
47:25
epistemic ly closed set of there’s
47:30
nothing you can do about that but that’s
47:31
you know I mean that’s that’s freedom of
47:33
the press you know and people I have I
47:36
wrote a paper about Fox News once in
47:38
which I said that it was essentially
47:41
self brainwashing but but this is
47:45
actually rather important you see one of
47:48
the reason why conservatives and let’s
47:50
be honest it’s it’s a problem mainly on
47:52
the right side of the political spectrum
47:53
to be so gullible about some of these
47:56
stories is because you know dating back
47:59
some of us here in this room are old
48:01
enough to remember Spiro Agnew when he
48:03
gave a speech attacking the media in
48:05
1969 I think this is when he said
48:08
nattering nabobs of negativism but but
48:12
at that time the media was in a much
48:14
more powerful position and it was
48:16
frankly somewhat more to the left than
48:18
it is today certainly to the left of the
48:21
Republican Party and in Spiro Agnew and
48:24
and so in all the years since then I
48:29
think conservatives just grew up all
48:32
their lives with a chip on their
48:33
shoulders about the the bias of the
48:36
media against them and even once that
48:39
bias disappeared the chip on the
48:41
shoulder was still there you see so
48:43
people talk about the left-wing New York
48:45
Times and I say they must be reading a
48:47
different paper than I’m reading and
48:49
things of this sort but but but my point
48:52
is that as a result of this attitude
48:55
conservatives have long cultivated an
48:58
alternative media long before Rush
49:02
Limbaugh and
49:03
Fox News and Breitbart you know they
49:06
they were more willing to listen to you
49:10
know little newsletters and things like
49:12
human events a National Review or the
49:15
the rare major newspaper I remember the
49:18
the the Richmond Taunton was know that
49:21
it was Richmond News Leader the
49:23
afternoon newspaper that was was even
49:26
more conservative than the morning paper
49:28
and people would subscribe to that and I
49:31
remember when I when I was a kid I live
49:33
in Dallas the Dallas Morning News in
49:35
those days was very conservative
49:36
newspaper and you know people would seek
49:38
out this sort of thing and and and and
49:42
learn to trust non mainstream sources is
49:46
what I’m trying to get at and I think
49:48
that is still come down to the present
49:50
day just gonna make a quick comment just
49:52
in the interest of time I’m gonna call
49:54
these the last three questions I my
49:57
reading of your material goes way back
49:59
to when you were writing editorials for
50:01
The Wall Street Journal and a particular
50:04
interest is Tax Policy and the scoring
50:07
the static and dynamics
50:09
he used to do the scoring so my question
50:13
today so there’s always like you you
50:17
look at a source and you say well are
50:21
they biased in their modeling and so I’m
50:27
interested in what would you say are the
50:29
best sources for especially dynamic
50:32
scoring dynamic scoring takes into
50:34
account the actual effects of beat on
50:37
behavior when people respond to the
50:40
incentives or disincentives provided by
50:42
a change in tax policy what would you
50:46
say are the best models so that you can
50:49
go to that website in particular meant
50:51
mention whether you you you find it
50:54
useful to go to the Tax Institute for
50:56
example and any other particular sources
50:59
I would say that the Tax Policy Center
51:01
is would you agree is the well but the
51:05
Tax Foundation is is an conservative
51:07
organization which does okay well you
51:11
know more about that than I do
51:13
so the Tax Foundation and the Tax Policy
51:15
Center
51:16
tax institute no I mean there is a place
51:19
called the tax institute but that’s not
51:20
gonna give you any useful okay but let’s
51:23
see the problem is that if you if you
51:26
feed in a particular GDP growth rate any
51:31
models going to give you the same you
51:33
know the same results the question is
51:35
where did where did that GDP number come
51:37
from
51:38
and and what the administration decided
51:41
to do is they simply made it up out of
51:42
thin air
51:43
they just said if the economy grows
51:46
twice as fast as its ever grown before
51:49
we’ll get twice as much revenue as we
51:51
got no I understand I mean they just but
51:53
you do have to feed in some number
51:55
that’s true but that is partly the
51:57
effect of the tax policy itself yes but
52:00
there’s there’s debate about all these
52:02
things the Congressional Budget Office I
52:05
think most economists would rely upon
52:07
they have done any number of studies
52:09
over the years
52:10
comparing the growth effects of
52:13
different policies there they have a
52:16
book they put out every year on reducing
52:18
the deficit that often has a lot of data
52:22
in there about for example the impact of
52:24
a tax increase well these numbers tend
52:27
to be symmetrical so you can just change
52:29
the sign and find out what the model
52:31
would tell you about a tax cut of the
52:34
same magnitude and there’s a table in
52:37
the budget or at least they used to be
52:38
that would tell you okay if interest
52:41
rates are one percent higher over the
52:43
next ten years how much will that add to
52:45
you know spending and there’s a lot of
52:48
you know a back-of-the-envelope kinds of
52:52
places you can find that kind of data
52:54
but in general I would rely upon
52:56
Congressional Budget Office the Joint
52:58
Committee on taxation the Tax Policy
53:00
Center and the Tax Foundation you know
with the caveat that they are going to
if you if you’ve got a range of answers
and this one is good for the Republican
Party and this one isn’t this will be
their answer they they tend to
cherry-pick of for the benefit of their
own you know philosophical point of view
an honest answer would be I mean the
honest answer to almost every tax
question is I don’t know but nobody
nobody gives that yes and all
all of those sources give dynamic
scoring to some extent I mean one of the
problems with dynamic scoring is you can
only do it every once in a while because
not because you’re doing a tax bill
that’s big enough to affect the
macroeconomy
I mean if a tax bill is only you know
53:48
doing a few billion dollars worth of tax
53:50
increasing or tax cutting you’re not
53:52
going to get a dynamic effect you know
53:55
it’s just too small so you have so I
53:57
mean how many years has it been since we
53:59
did a tax cut of the kind we just did
54:01
you have to go back at least of the
54:03
early years of the Bush administration
54:04
right so you know you’re not going to
54:08
get the opportunity to even be able to
54:10
study dynamic scoring except once every
54:13
you know dozen or so years I would
54:16
mention by the way since the Republicans
54:21
continued to call their monstrosity tax
54:24
reform if you look up an article by Alan
54:27
Auerbach and Joel slam rod in the
54:30
Journal of economic literature 1995 1996
54:33
thereabouts they did a very very
54:35
thorough study of the Tax Reform Act of
54:37
1986 which was a big piece of
54:40
legislation the corporate tax rate was
54:42
reduced by 12 percentage points from 46
54:45
to 34 percent the top income tax rate
54:47
was reduced to 28% much lower even than
54:52
than they’ve done this time and they did
54:54
a big study trying to find out what the
54:56
economic effects were and it turned out
54:58
was zero nothing bad nothing good maybe
55:02
everything washed maybe all the bad
55:04
stuff in the legislation cut was
55:06
compensated for by the good stuff but
55:08
the net effect was it had no effect on
55:11
the economy all it did was cause people
55:13
to do a lot of tax planning and Martillo
55:18
bellas around here he Pryor remembers
55:20
doing a lot of work to help his clients
55:22
say that but megistus oome because a tax
55:28
bill is a big bill affecting a lot of
55:30
revenues and a lot of industries that
55:32
it’s gonna have a big effect sometimes
55:34
it had no effect at all
55:38
thank you I’m going to stand up here for
55:40
a while I don’t I don’t want to hold up
55:43
people I like just a couple of points
55:48
about newspapers and newspapers now and
55:52
then when I worked on Capitol Hill in
55:55
the 70s we used to agree that if we were
56:00
honest yeah we generally believed
56:03
everything in the New York Times in the
56:05
Washington Post except the stuff we were
56:08
actually directly involved in because
56:13
the facts can be correct but just the
56:15
way they’re presented can change the
56:17
meaning but meanwhile I don’t know quite
56:20
what you mean by revealing their sources
56:23
because newspaper articles aren’t
56:26
generally footnoted and they may make a
56:29
reference to a document that’s printed
56:32
and full but that’s fairly rare so well
56:36
I’m referring to the current year in
56:37
which almost everything is available
56:39
online and and and what that eliminated
56:43
I mean it used to be the report editors
56:45
probably spent 90% of their time cutting
56:47
articles down to fit in the literal
56:50
amount of space we got 12 inches for
56:52
this story and sometimes they would just
56:54
cut from the bottom up you know and and
56:57
yeah and I’m just saying they’re not
56:59
space constrained anymore they could
57:01
provide more information more
57:04
documentation or just provide better
57:08
links to these sources because I think
57:11
it’s in their own interest to to to to
57:14
improve the quality of their credibility
57:15
for the benefit of their skeptical
57:18
readers in this face that there’s a lot
57:20
of skeptical readers out there you’re
57:22
you know you just mentioned oh I I know
57:24
something about this particular story I
57:26
was there and this isn’t right you know
57:28
well I think people probably have more
57:31
access to the news because we have 24/7
57:34
cable networks and you can watch you
57:38
know that silly woman in the White House
57:40
give her press briefing every day and
57:42
you know watch it from beginning to end
57:43
without any trouble used to be if you
57:46
weren’t physically in the room that was
57:49
the only way you knew which with the
57:51
press secretary
57:52
you had to trust that the reporter is
57:55
going to tell you what you want you you
57:58
would have wanted to get out of the
57:59
briefing if you yourself had been there
58:02
that is they were standing in your place
58:06
telling you what you would they think
58:08
they think or hope you would like to
58:10
know and now you don’t have to do that
58:12
you don’t have to read somebody’s
58:14
write-up of of the press Secretary’s
58:18
prep news conference you can just watch
it it’s it’s on YouTube you know and so
I’m just saying there’s a different
dynamic here and I think the media could
help itself get people to trust them
more if they would provide more
documentation they’re sinners there’s no
space constraint to not do so that’s all
I’m really saying I see I thank you so
much for speaking tonight someone
earlier asking a question use the word
fabulous which is a word I personally
love although not necessarily in this
context but I do believe we are we are
such creatures of emotion and
59:00
storytelling and I wanted a few had
59:02
advice for readers on how to demand
59:04
engaging stories that are still well
59:07
documented but we do expect to be
59:09
engaged and interested and how do we
59:11
balance that as readers and those
59:13
writers well that’s interesting
59:15
I suppose in theory the market kind of
59:19
takes care of it I mean people are you
59:22
know acutely aware of how many clicks
59:24
their stories get and presumably they
59:28
try look and see oh jeez this one got
59:30
way more readers than my last one what
59:33
did I say what did I do
59:35
that’s different and hopefully they can
59:38
kind of learn from that I certainly try
59:39
to but but the fact is a lot of us just
59:44
look you know you just happen to be
59:47
there when a story broke and you were
59:50
the first one to be able to report it so
59:51
you got a lot of links even if your
59:53
writing was pretty crappy now one of the
59:57
things that that’s I don’t know what
59:58
this is still true but I mean reporters
60:01
used to not really even have to be
60:03
writers they had
60:05
what we called rewrite desks and a
60:07
reporter would call in and give the
60:09
basic facts to an editor or a writer who
60:14
would then do the literal writing and so
60:17
I think there’s probably a lot of
60:18
Pulitzer Prizes that were given out over
60:20
the years to people who didn’t literally
60:23
write the stories they may have gotten
60:25
the facts and broken the information and
60:28
so on but they didn’t do the literal
60:29
writing somebody else who’s a much
60:31
better writer than they did the actual
60:34
writing and so so I don’t know whether
60:38
though that kind of function can even
60:41
exist in this era where we don’t even
60:43
have photographers anymore you know you
60:45
have to take your own pictures with your
60:47
with your phone you know if you want to
60:49
have some illustration to go along with
60:51
your story everybody has to be a
60:53
jack-of-all-trades and now you have to
60:55
do video too and post that on and they
60:59
like video because it keeps more
61:01
eyeballs on the site you know as you
61:03
watch through this this stuff and and
61:07
and I think you know being a
61:09
jack-of-all-trades is fine but being a
61:10
specialist is better and reporters can’t
61:14
don’t have the luxury of being
61:15
specialists anymore and saying okay I’m
61:18
just covering the house side of Capitol
61:23
Hill now you’ve got to cover both sides
61:25
you got a know way more about everything
61:28
that’s going on and so on and it’s
61:31
there’s spread too thin to do a good job
61:34
and the most important thing that’s
61:36
being lost in my opinion is
61:38
investigative reporting which might take
61:40
months and months of serious legwork and
61:44
phone calling and all kinds of stuff
61:47
that newspapers can’t afford to do
61:50
anymore they only have so many staff to
61:53
cover what’s happening today and that I
61:56
think that’s bad for society okay thank
62:00
you how about one more round of applause
62:02
for aspiring
62:04
you