If Krugman deserves a Pulitzer, then what should we give Ira Glass?

I was amused to read Howell Raines' column at Portfolio, posted today, in which he states the case for tossing a Pulitzer on top of the slag heap of trophies for Princeton economist, and now Nobel Laureate, Paul Krugman. Raines' case is this: On Sept. 22, Krugman published his weekly column for the New York Times arguing against the Bush Administration's EZ-Simplified bailout of the financial industry.

It was, argues Raines, "the single most important newspaper column of this fall's meltdown. When the financial press was calling for immediate passage of Hank Paulson's now-infamous three-page bailout plan, Krugman spotted its fatal flaw."

Paulson's three-pager was a bad plan, and Krugman, to his credit, spotted it sooner than most. But Raines, who also stops to take credit for hiring Krugman to write said Times column, wanders off terra firma when he accuses the U.S. news media of being completely absorbed in the frenzy to pass the Paulson Plan. To hear it from Raines, poor Krugman was a lone voice crying in the wilderness.

Raines writes:

My wife, Krystyna, and I were on a long-planned fall road trip through the more remote parts of the Dakotas, Saskatchewan, and Montana during the first three weeks of the storm. We were news junkies cut off from our usual Eastern newspapers. So, driving across the seemingly endless vistas of a bumper wheat crop, we relied on satellite radio links to the financial reporters of National Public Radio and the cable-television news networks. We quickly came to identify the senior business correspondent of CNN, Ali Velshi, as a pacesetter on this story. ...

Velshi had little interest in what he later described to me as the "academic" story of how Paulson and his M.B.A.-holding boss had trashed the principles of free enterprise. "There's a fire going, and it's got to be put out," he said by way of condemning the House of Representatives for its initial vote against the Paulson plan. ...

All this, it seemed to me, veered beyond advocacy journalism into what could be termed conviction journalism--sometimes admirable for its sincerity but often alarmist in tone.

Well, if anyone knows what advocacy journalism is, it's the guy who once used the front page of the New York Times for a crusade to shame Hootie Johnson into allowing women to join the Augusta National golf club.

Interestingly, I too was cut off from the American news media for 17 days during the height of the financial meltdown, as Mrs. TVB and I took the train across Canada. Since we weren't in a rental most of that time, and wouldn't pay for satellite radio anyway, we relied on sporadic Internet grabs for our updates on the crisis. And on one stop in Nova Scotia, my iTunes grabbed the podcast of the new episode of one of our favorite radio programs, "This American Life," in which host Ira Glass spent the entire hour talking with and playing stories reported by his two guests, Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson.

The program, entitled "Another Frightening Show About the Economy," was true to its billing, each story more frightening than the one before: the unprecedented credit freeze that was stopping American industries in their tracks; the crazy form of legalized gambling known as credit default swaps; and the asleep-at-the-switch oversight by the current administration.

But then, in act four, came this remarkable exchange between Glass and Davidson. Our jaws dropped as we realized how quickly and dramatically the bailout bill was changing, even as "This American Life" was trying to make its deadline for distribution to stations. Diane and I spent the next hour talking about these seven minutes. Listen:

Little did we know at the time, but "This American Life" had just given us a blueprint for following the financial rescue story for the next six weeks. Sure enough, Secretary Paulson last week took advantage of that last-minute proviso allowing him to do a 180 and demand equity in the companies the government was bailing out.

So what have we learned? Among other things ...

• that Paul Krugman was not alone, and that the majority of economists surveyed were not only aware of a viable alternative to the Paulson Plan (the "ownership" or "stock injection" plan), they actually preferred it, liberals, conservatives and libertarians alike;

• that Howell Raines was listening to the CNN satellite radio station when he shoulda been listening to the public radio satellite station, or better yet, surfing the dial (I worked at KEMC-FM in my youth, so I know its signal has repeaters throughout eastern Montana);

• that events were breaking so fast, even hard-working, smart journalists were barely able to keep up with them ... and so fast that not even the well-oiled bank lobbying machine could prevent Congress from passing a bailout bill with the provision they so adamantly opposed.

I don't know if Krugman deserves a Pulitzer or not. But I think there's a lot to be said for journalism like the humble, self-effacing, tell-me-more approach of "This American Life," even if certain high-flying critics can't be bothered to listen to it.

Answer to my headline: Let us give Ira Glass our ears. Er, let us lend him ...

Previously on TV Barn: Is Ira Glass the new king of all media?

Comments

[Ron Fitzpatrick]

Those shows This American Life did on the financial crisis were so amazing and informative. I heard about things on those programs weeks before I heard about them in the mainstream media. Things like "credit default swaps" and details of how these high risk mortgages were passed off to unsuspecting (greedy) investors.

This American Life... I can't say enough good things about this show or the people that bring it to us.

[cg]

TAl can't get a Pulitzer because it's broadcast journalism. But I imagine those financial episodes will be a shoe-in for a Peabody, the broadcasting world's equivalent.