Krugman-Okrent debate

NYT Public Editor Okrent issued some surprising critcisms of the paper's columnists in his final column for the paper; in particular he effectively accused Prof Krugman of fraud in his columns and of publishing wrong or deliberately inaccurate analysis.

Krugman objected and asked for rebuttal.

The NYT now has a "public debate" between them, carefully buried on their Public Editor website at
here is the main page, scroll down for the back-and-forth.

All I can say is "You have got to be kidding me".
Or maybe "Okrent is full of shit".

A couple of items grabbed my attention: "When I had the chance to consult some of my reader mail later in the week, some of his greatest mis-hits immediately came to the fore." - Okrent.

Er, no. When you wrote the column you should have had the explicit instances in mind, not cherry pick what some Luskin-reading nutcases sent you later as examples they thought were a problem.

"This was the first he heard from me on these specific issues partly because I learned early on in this job that Prof. Krugman would likely be more willing to contribute to the Frist for President campaign than to acknowledge the possibility of error." - Okrent.

Er, 1) It was Okrent's job, as I understand it, to raise the issues at the time
and, 2) he did so, on several occasions he then itemises, and where there was an ambiguity, Krugman clarified or corrected.

This whole episode is pathetic and NYT should be ashamed.
Krugman should switch to the Post or somewhere else, anywhere else.


Oh, and Okrent is playing out of league; I don't think he even knows the rules he is playing under...