Gene Epstein, Econospinning: How to Read Between the Lines When the Media Manipulate the Numbers. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2006.
"Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper." ~ George Orwell
Economists are familiar with the cliché "lies, damned lies and statistics," which puts statistics at the top of the pyramid of lies. ESPN sports radio personality Colin Cowherd, on the other hand, insists, "People lie, the numbers don’t."
Since people create the numbers the line between liars and bad numbers may be less than bright and clear, but Gene Epstein – economics columnist for Barron’s magazine and author of Econospinning – essentially sides with Cowherd. Epstein finds little fault with government’s economic numbers and plenty of fault with the reporters and pundits who use those numbers.
Perhaps surprisingly for a pro-market, anti-statist economist, I agree with Epstein’s assessment. Most of the numbers, especially the labor data produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics upon which Epstein concentrates, are tolerably reliable and accurate, provided the user takes the time to learn their limitations. In 2001–2, I was chief economist at the labor department, a Bush-Cheney political appointee of all things, and was quickly impressed with the thoroughness and professionalism of BLS personnel and their numerical output.
Epstein defines "econospinning" as the "sort of economic journalism that shapes data around a predetermined story rather than the story around the discoverable data." It is all familiar enough, now isn’t it? Rather than asking "What happened?," too many observers push their own agenda, fixing the intelligence around the policy as the Downing Street memo on Bush’s Iraq invasion put it.
January 26, 2008
