Paul Krugman is running roughshod over New York Times
editors. In
previous incidents we've seen Krugman accuse fellow academic
Times bloggers of making statements that are "flatly
untrue or deeply misleading." In the latest episode, Krugman
clashes
with Times reporter Edmund Andrew over his front
page story
warning about the unsustainability of U.S. government deficits.
Once again Krugman not only disagrees with his Times
colleague, but he also questions his motives and journalism, at
least indirectly.
Krugman starts off by stating that Andrews wrote a biased piece:
"[Andrews's article is] saying that, on the one hand, some people
say that we’re going to have a debt crisis any day now, while on
the other hand … well, actually we never hear from the other
side."
And he concludes that Andrews has ulterior motives in mind, or is
serving those with nefarious designs: "This suggests that
James Kwak is right: a lot of this is about scaring the
government into inaction on unemployment."
One of these days he's going to slip and condemn the whole paper
as a mouthpiece of the Republican establishment. I hope that his
editors are watching closely.