Comments on Economic Education and Journalism.

This article presents the author's comments on articles on the relationship between journalism and economic education, which appeared in the September 2004 issue of 'Journal of Economic Education.' This topic--the relationship between the economics profession and the media-- is near and dear to my heart. I have been on every side of it--as an academic economist, as a practicing journalist, and as a journalist being interviewed by other journalists. There are two ways of looking at this relationship. One is from the perspective of economists, the other is from the perspective of journalists. All four of these articles, not surprisingly, are written from the economist's perspective. So after I discuss them, I will add some words about how it looks from the media side. First, the overview: All four articles were very good. There was nothing in any of them where I sat up and said, 'That is wrong.' I thought Hamermesh's article was an excellent explanation of the nuts and bolts of dealing with journalists--one of the best that I have ever seen. I especially liked the part where he reassures junior faculty that there is nothing harmful to their careers from talking to the media. I also liked the examples of research in which journalists might be interested.