I agree with Stan -- this post by Brad DeLong about his appearance opposite Grover Norquist on a BBC "news" program is a classic.  If Norquist is the BBC's idea of a right-of-center expert on the challenges facing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the implications of those challenges for federal policy, then the BBC does not qualify as a news organization.  And as a result I care as much for its continued existence as I do any other reality TV program, which is not much at all.

The New York Times and other media outlets reported today that Rush Limbaugh has signed a contract extension through 2016 worth about $400 million.  Perhaps with an eye toward higher marginal tax rates in the years to come, about $100 million is in the form of a signing bonus.

I think Rush Limbaugh could lay claim to being the original blogger.  The core of his 3-hour weekday show is Limbaugh's commentary on and parody of what newsmakers have said.  Roll an audio clip.  Criticize or find an inconsistency in the speaker's argument.  Lampoon the speaker in the process.  Reaffirm ideological views.  Roll another clip.  He makes no apologies for his conservative ideology and his partisan edge.  You find a lot of this in the blogosphere, except that Limbaugh constructs and distributes his work as audio rather than as text. 

Consider this quote from this Sunday's New York Times Magazine cover story by Zev Chafets.

A colleague of mine put it best when he said, "Now how will we ever get either of these candidates to answer a question?"  The only time I met Tim Russert was last September when he was the moderator of the Democratic Presidential candidates debate.  This debate was one of the first to occur after the first YouTube debate.  Here's what I posted:

My biggest lesson of the day was that Tim Russert is an extremely talented moderator. With him at the podium, there was no need for gimmicks.

So this is how I'll remember him:

Paul Krugman begins his column today, "Bits, Bands and Books," with an interesting question:

Do you remember what it was like back in the old days when we had a New Economy? In the 1990s, jobs were abundant, oil was cheap and information technology was about to change everything.

Sure I remember the 1990s.  In addition to the things listed above, we had Paul Krugman writing insightful and witty books and articles about economics.  I don't know if it will last, but we have that Paul Krugman back today.  I particularly liked these paragraphs near the end:

Indeed, if e-books become the norm, the publishing industry as we know it may wither away. Books may end up serving mainly as promotional material for authors’ other activities, such as live readings with paid admission. Well, if it was good enough for Charles Dickens, I guess it’s good enough for me.

I was on NPR's Marketplace this evening with a commentary titled, "We need a carbon tax on gasoline."  Here's the teaser:

Can you put a price on pollution? That's the question Congress takes up this week as they begin debate on the Climate Security Act of 2008. The legislation would enact a cap-and-trade system, whereby large polluters would buy and sell emission permits.

Commentator and economist Andrew Samwick has taken a look at his carbon output and his family's. He says if we're serious about cleaning up our act, we should consider a straight tax on carbon.

In a nutshell, while it is true that the largest part of our emissions come from automobiles, plenty still come from heating our homes and traveling by air.  The more emission reduction we can get at the thermostat and in the air, the less we need to squeeze out of automobiles.

Enjoy!

Andrew, I share your frustration, but you have to keep in mind that The Wall Street Journal editorial and op-ed pages are not now and never have been "news."  (I remember someone calling them the closest thing to the funny pages you'll find in the Journal).  For that matter, no newspaper's op-eds qualify as news unless the writer is for the first time saying something very different from what they've said before.  For example, an op-ed by George W. Bush saying that taxes should be raised would indeed be news.

Anyone who has tried to place an op-ed with the WSJ recently knows that if you're saying something different from the paper's editorial position, you have a very very small chance of actually getting it published.  The op-eds are seen as an extension of the editorial board's positions or as validation for what the paper either has already said, or agrees with but prefers that someone else say.

You raise the right point in your post: the op-ed ignores the fact that taxes could be higher than 19.3 percent if we wanted them to be.  But that's not the point the WSJ wanted to make.

Andrew...I was there with you all the way until the last sentence. In talking about the media you said "... they have no one to blame but themselves for their declining reputations and increasing irrelevance." 

Here's my problem: we (and I'm putting myself in this category) are all assuming that reputations and relevance are what motivates media types.  Or we want to think that's what's motivating them.  Or should be motivating them. 

That might have been the case at one time and for some it may still be.  But I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that monetary compensation is the primary, and perhaps overwhelming motivator.  Higher readership, page views, subscriptions, and ratings arew what get you bonuses and raises.  That makes it important to attract the largest audience possible and keep them reading/ listening/watching for as long as possible.

Stan picks up on Brad DeLong's posting of Ezra Klein's thoughtful op-ed in the Los Angeles Times to address Brad's oft-asked question, "Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?"  To understand Brad's exasperation, I think we should consider three progressively more challenging meanings of the word "better" in these posts: competent, professional, and inspirational.

In case you're not familiar with it, the title above is the frequently asked question from Brad Delong a highly regarded professor at the University of California, Berkeley (my alma mater) and former Treasury Department deputy assistant secretary.

I first became familiar with Brad when he submitted responses to the questions of the week I used to ask when I was writing a column for the online version of National Journal.  I've since taught a class or two for him when I was visiting the Berkeley campus several years ago, his extraordinary blogging was the original inspiration for my starting CG&G, and he has been exremely gracious in linking to several of my columns and many of Andrew's, Pete's, and my CG&G posts.

Brad's latest post finally prompted me to enter the fray about the media.

Even a PR guy (my day job) like me is truly impressed by what Greenspan's publisher has been able to do to launch his book.

Front page stories in The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post on Saturday, a interview on 60 Minutes Sunday night, an interview on the Today Show on Monday morning that was simulcast and CNBC, a separate interview with CNBC senior economics correspondent Steve Liesman, a special with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC Monday night, and on and on and on and...