I shouldn’t have talked to Max Zahn.
Hello Prof. Henderson,
I’m a reporter at Yahoo Finance working with Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer on a story about President Trump’s economic performance so far. I would like to speak with you today on the topic.
Please get back to me as soon as possible, as I’m on deadline for tomorrow morning. The conversation should take no more than 5-10 minutes.
My phone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx.
Best,
Max Zahn
So read an email I received from Max Zahn last Wednesday. I called back and we arranged to talk early Thursday morning. You might think that with his statement, “I would like to speak with you today on the topic,” that he meant the topic he mentioned in the previous sentence, namely “President Trump’s economic performance so far.” When I called him Thursday morning, I asked him if he had contacted me because he had seen my two Defining Ideas pieces (here and here) on Trump’s economic performance. He said yes. Then he asked me to say what I had said in the articles.
That’s sometimes a red flag. It can mean that he wants to get me talking so that he can move on to other things. It can also mean that he wants me to come up with slightly different ways of saying what I said in the article so that he can honestly say that he was quoting me instead of just referencing the article.
In this case, it was, unfortunately, the former. He ended up using literally nothing about that I said about Trump’s economic performance, even though that was at least 8 minutes of our 10-minute conversation. He used nothing from my two articles and nothing from my response to his questions about the minimum wage and infrastructure. On the minimum wage, Zahn had told me that Trump had promised during the campaign to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour, and Zahn claimed that that was a modest increase. I told him that a 40 percent raise in the minimum wage is not a modest increase and that I was glad Trump didn’t keep that promise; indeed, I said, one reason we have such great employment numbers is that the federal minimum wage hasn’t increased so that it’s easier for unskilled workers to find jobs. On infrastructure, I said that, given the players involved–Republicans and Democrats–I was glad there was no infrastructure bill because it would have been full of expensive subsidies. It would be far better, I said, if they encouraged infrastructure by allowing state governments to toll interstates (and maybe even cut the gas tax) and got rid of the Davis-Bacon Act, which makes infrastructure projects so much more expensive. I pointed to the fiasco with the expansion of the New York subway as an example where the Davis-Bacon Act was probably one of the culprits.
None of this made it into the article. Here’s the only part of Zahn’s article, written with his boss, Andy Serwer, that refers to our conversation:
“There is one thing I like about him.” says David R. Henderson, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a professor of economics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. “I like a Republican who fights back. [But] I think he’s a nasty man. I don’t think I’d want him as a friend, I don’t know if he even has friends.”
READER COMMENTS
Jonathan Goff
Nov 18 2019 at 5:39pm
David,
I hate interviews like that. Even with writers I generally respect, you never know what minor point you make in a 30min conversation they’ll decide is the one worth quoting.
~Jon
David Henderson
Nov 18 2019 at 7:44pm
Yup.
Steve Fritzinger
Nov 18 2019 at 6:23pm
General rule.
Never say anything to a reporter that you won’t want to see in print.
David Henderson
Nov 18 2019 at 7:45pm
I agree and I always follow that rule. I did in this case too.
Nick Ronalds
Nov 18 2019 at 10:07pm
I was recently pondering the New York Times’s 1619 project, whose goal is to purvey a new interpretation of American history in their news pages. It hit me that the NYT, like so many “newspapers”, are no longe newspapers in the dictionary definition sense of the word. They are opinion journals. The “news” articles are opinion columns. What’s appalling though is that the opinions expressed in the news articles are based on slanted evidence and confused reasoning built on ideological prejudices. In short, for the most part worse than worthless as news. How your interviewer used your quotes was a good example of how the slanting of the “news” to works in practice.
Phil H
Nov 19 2019 at 3:20am
I think the point is that the news has *always* been slanted. The reason a new interpretation is required is that many voices were ignored in previous interpretations. The old view was slanted, though perhaps many people didn’t realise how slanted it was, because it had *always* been slanted.
Mark Z
Nov 19 2019 at 11:07pm
I don’t think it’s productive to ‘slant’ in the opposite direction to correct for past ‘slants.’ In the case of the 1619 project it has led to some ridiculous falsities leaking into ‘conventional wisdom’ such as cotton being the primary driver of American industry, that it made up almost half of the US GDP (that claim was literally the result of an embarrassing accounting error by a historian; it was actually ~5%). The point seems to be to portray the modern US and all its prosperity as primarily the result of slavery. It’s meant to suggest everything we have today comes from slavery, there’s proverbial blood on everything. But realistically, it didn’t play nearly as essential to the US’s economic development as portrayed.
Historically, history has often been practiced as a form of national hagiography. The 1619 project is basically inverted hagiography, and I don’t think going from “my country has always been great” to “my country has always been evil” is either more accurate or useful. Biases should be overcome, not inverted.
Phil H
Nov 19 2019 at 3:18am
Without wishing to downplay how frustrating it may be that your professional opinions were not properly represented… it kinda sounds like a nice problem to have. The rest of us don’t get asked our opinions by the media at all.
There are two issues here: First, I think Henderson is incorrect to think there’s any reason this journalist has an obligation to represent his economic views. The journalist clearly had a job to do; it intersected obliquely with Henderson’s desire to publicise his economic views; they interacted. Frankly, I don’t want journalists to be faithfully transcribing what their interviewees have to say. That isn’t, and shouldn’t be, how the media works.
Second is the matter of appropriate forum for your complaint. This idea comes from Tim Scanlon, a philosopher: You don’t get to complain about incovenient public transport if you normally drive a Ferrari. On a personal level, there’s no way I (or many other readers, I assume) can feel sorry for you because major international media didn’t use the bit of your interview that you’d prefer.
Jon Murphy
Nov 19 2019 at 9:15am
Oh? Then what should journalists do?
David Henderson
Nov 19 2019 at 10:03am
Phil H.
I wasn’t asking anyone to feel sorry for me. Instead, I’m pointing out a danger in talking to the media. That’s why it’s filed under “Media Watch.”
Cecil Bohanan and Jon Murphy have nicely handled the rest.
Jon Murphy
Nov 19 2019 at 9:18am
Yeah, you do get to complain. If someone has done you wrong, you have every right to complain about it. The mere fact a person “normally drives a Ferrari” has nothing to do with it.
This “ok, boomer” mindset that Phil expresses here drives me nuts.
Phil H
Nov 19 2019 at 10:50am
Jon: “Then what should journalists do?”
Journalists should pursue the truth and find out things of interest to their readers. The subject of the quoted article is a case in point: I don’t want journalists to simply report the views of President Trump. I want them also to let us know when they are true and when they are false; what they mean about Trump’s character; what their implications might be for the world. Trump has his own bully pulpit. I can read his Twitter feed direct. Henderson has a lovely platform right here – I choose to come here to read his views. Journalists do not exist simply to be mouthpieces for their interviewees.
As to the specifics of what happened here – two reasonable explanations seem very possible to me. (a) Zahn is planning to write multiple pieces, and may use Henderson quotes as relevant. The first to come out was this Trump piece. (b) Zahn used the economics talk as a way of softening H up, because he wanted to hear what important Republicans really think about Trump when they’re not being hyper-vigilant about what they say. Either of those would seem to me like perfectly decent journalistic practice. Or perhaps he meant to write about H’s economic views, but the article got shelved for something flashier.
Or perhaps he’s genuinely a bad journalist! Outing him on the web like this on the suspicion that he’s wasn’t doing his job well that day seems a bit OTT to me, but if that’s the way H rolls…
Jon: “‘incovenient public transport’…If someone has done you wrong”
The “not being able to read” mindset that you express here frustrates me, too, but we’ll both just have to live with the pain.
David: “I wasn’t asking anyone to feel sorry for me.”
In that case, I have misread your post. I have to tell you, from where I was sitting, it really did sound like you were. If your purpose was to warn other potential interviewees that this particular journalist is rather tricksy, then it seemed like you could have said so more quickly and directly.
David: “I was pointing out a danger”
What danger? What bad thing actually happened here? This is why I still think you are complaining… What is this danger you refer to? So far as I can tell, the only negative that exists is that you lost 20 minutes talking to this guy, and you feel frustrated by the result. That’s… not much of a danger.
KevinDC
Nov 19 2019 at 11:35am
Wait…are you under the impression that David Henderson is a Republican??? Yikes.
Phil H
Nov 19 2019 at 1:51pm
I am indeed under that impression. He’s mentioned a couple of times being on the president’s economic advisors committee (I think I’ve got the exact name wrong, but you get the gist) under a Republican president. He’s mentioned a couple of other encounters with Republican politicians. I understood that to mean that he is someone with some standing in Republican circles. If that’s incorrect, then obviously my guess is wrong.
KevinDC
Nov 19 2019 at 2:12pm
You are indeed mistaken. By that reasoning, Larry Summers and Paul Krugman, alongside whom David also served in the same administration, would also be classified as Republicans.
Phil H
Nov 19 2019 at 4:02pm
My mistake, thank you.
Jon Murphy
Nov 19 2019 at 11:58am
That doesn’t involve “faithfully transcribing what their interviewees have to say?” Seems to me that would be part and parcel of what involves pursuing the truth.
Mark Z
Nov 19 2019 at 11:20pm
What you’re saying is basically that you don’t think there should be a disctinction between ‘news’ and ‘oped.’ That the news should be written as an oped. I don’t think that’s a good idea. If anything, journalists should be very restrained in their commentary of what’s true of false beyond transcription. If the president says Istanbul is the capital of Turkey, indeed they should say it’s actually Ankara. But if he says, “the economy is doing well because of my policies,” they should not opine on whether that’s true. It’s far too interpretive a statement. Even something like “median income has/hasn’t been stagnant the last x years” is very much a matter of interpretation; household or personal income? Which measure of inflation to use? Many people read the news as a source of ‘plain facts.’ Trying to present highly interpretive, contentious judgments about complex phenomena as epistimologically equivalent to “Ankara is the capital of Turkey,” or “the president met with the chancellor of Germany today” is very deceptive.
KevinDC
Nov 19 2019 at 1:46pm
Much about this response strikes me as odd. But just a few points –
Given the results we find on public polls on matters of even basic political or economics knowledge, this is probably a good thing. 😛
I don’t think David Henderson believes any journalist is under an “obligation to represent his economic views.” In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s a view Henderson would explicitly reject – believing anyone is obligated to provide him with a platform for his views would be pretty contrary to everything he’s written regarding free speech and the free press. His complaint seemed to be more along the lines of “if you’re going to ask someone to set aside some of their time to be interviewed, you should be honest and upfront with your interviewee about what the purpose of the interview is.” Just seems like basic decency to me, and you’re allowed to be annoyed when people don’t display that.
Um, why? I see no reason why this would be the case. If I was going through the airport and the TSA lines were backed up and everything was moving at a snail’s pace (which is usually the case when I travel) and people were grumbling about it (also very common), I wouldn’t begrudge anyone for grumbling. And if I knew one of the grumblers was someone who normally flew in a private jet but was flying commercial this time for thought experiment reasons…then what? Am I supposed to say (or think) “Hey, since you normally don’t have to experience this kind of inconvenience, you’re not allowed to complain whenever you do experience it!” Why would I say that? Why would I even want to think that way towards other people? That mindset just seems petty and spiteful to me – and there’s enough of that in the world as it is.
Phil H
Nov 19 2019 at 2:08pm
Petty and spiteful… because I suggest that the wealthy exercise some restraint in expressing their complaints? It is interesting to me how the below the line comments get very extreme very quickly.
The Scanlon thought experiment that I alluded to was this. (I tried to find the passage and couldn’t quickly, so this is from memory.) Scanlon was trying to develop a theory of how social status could affect morality, and he imagined a wealthy guy with a nice car, who one day has to take the bus to work because of some cause beyond his control – engine trouble, perhaps. The guy finds the public bus hot, crowded, and inconvenient (just like everyone else on there). Scanlon suggests that for that guy, it is not appropriate to complain bitterly about the bus to his fellow passengers, because he knows that in a couple of days he’ll be back in his car, whereas many of them have to take the bus every day.
You may disagree, but it seems like a solid point to me.
KevinDC
Nov 19 2019 at 2:50pm
Well, no. I wasn’t saying that it’s petty and spiteful to think “the wealthy exercise some restraint in expressing their complaints.” In truth, I think people in general should show more restraint in expressing complaints – the ability to “grin and bear it” is highly underrated. But I do think it’s petty and spiteful to say that some people are uniquely obligated to restrain their complaints while others can complain freely. I think everyone’s concerns and complaints should be treated equally.
If you’re in a situation other people can complain about, you can complain about it too. And if it’s a situation where other people have to grin and bear it, then so should you. (I don’t have a precise formula for what situations are what, obviously.) If you’re on the same hot, crowded bus next to me, and I’m grumbling about it, you’re free to grumble about it too, even if you won’t be on the bus tomorrow. And if I complained about the bus, and you then tried to share my complaints and I told you that you shouldn’t complain about how uncomfortable the bus is today because you won’t be riding the bus tomorrow, that would be petty and spiteful of me to do. I would feel ashamed of myself for acting that way towards you. I would never want to treat someone that way and I wouldn’t encourage anyone else to act like that either. (Also, the reverse holds – if nobody on the bus is grumbling and everyone is handling the conditions in stoic silence, then you should too.)
Now, if the situation is that all the regular bus riders handle the conditions with restraint and the one rich rider is bitterly complaining to everyone, then yes, in that circumstance I’d say the rich guy is being a jerk and should keep his complaints to himself. But if everyone on the bus was handing the situation with calm detachment except for one regular rider who complained bitterly to everyone, I’d say that guy is being a jerk too.
David Henderson
Nov 19 2019 at 7:44pm
Well said, KevinDC. Thank you.
Re the Republican point, you could say I’m a Republican because I’m registered Republican. I virtually always vote Libertarian, unless the Libertarian is a real loon. In California elections now, I probably will increasingly vote Democrat in November because the system doesn’t allow anyone other than the two top vote-getters on the ballot. So in November 2018, for the first time, I voted for a Democrat for U.S. Senate. She lost to a horrible Democrat named Kamala Harris.
KevinDC
Nov 20 2019 at 10:19am
My mistake then David – I didn’t realize you were registered as a Republican. I knew you frequently voted Libertarian and having followed this blog for several years, I have seen you certainly don’t spare Republican politicians or political talking points some withering criticism, nor do you have any hesitation about giving Democrats their due when it’s merited. I guess in my mind it’s been all too easy, especially lately, to conflate being a self identified Republican (or Democrat) with being a partisan cheerleader. I really should be more mindful of that.
David Henderson
Nov 20 2019 at 11:17am
No problem, Kevin.
Actually I was registered Libertarian through a large part of the early 2000s, and registered Republican in order to vote for Ron Paul in the presidential primary in 2008. With some inertia, I stayed registered Republican and used it to vote for Ron Paul in the 2012 primary and for Rand Paul in the 2016 primary. I’ve stayed registered Republican. It gets me more easily invited to local Republican events where I argue against tariffs and restrictions on immigration and occasionally try to remind them of Ronald Reagan’s views on immigration.
Interestingly, I registered Republican the first time I registered, in 1986, shortly after I became a U.S. citizen. There were two reasons: (1) I kind of liked Ronald Reagan although I hated his drug war, and (2) of the two teenagers (and friends of each other) who approached me in a shopping center, one had a Republican sign-up sheet and the other a Democrat. The Republican kid had an interesting back story, if I recall correctly: he was the son of immigrants from Armenia and believed in “the American dream.” The Democratic kid was Ben Jealous, who was the son of Fred Jealous, who later became my friend. Ben later became friendly, and vice versa, though we weren’t friends. (We are still friendly.) Ben, of course, ran last year for governor of Maryland.
Later in the 1980s, if I recall correctly, I registered Libertarian and stayed that way through the 1990s. I switched to Republican in 2000, if I recall the date correctly. Why? Because I was against the drug war. If that has got you curious, tell me and I’ll do a separate post on it.
KevinDC
Nov 20 2019 at 2:07pm
David –
That does sound like an interesting story! I’d like to hear more.
cecil bohanon
Nov 19 2019 at 5:31am
Phil H. I think your argument is wrongheaded. David H was reasonably led to believe that he was being asked to comment about X. He incidentally mentioned Y, and Y shows up in the reporters story. He finds this problematic. I concur. I’ve done interviews with journalists, albeit not on the same level or frequency David H has but I understand his frustration. Someone calls me about the proposed increase in the income tax, we also casually discuss bass fishing and I get quoted on bass fishing. Seems strange and I’d question the competence and ethics of the journalist. I don’t think David seems to mind being quoted on what he said–Trump’s personality, but not his policies. But if I were David, I would not return this guy’s calls again.
Brad Hobbs
Nov 19 2019 at 9:47am
How about what I tell my students? No matter who is President the notion that the President “runs”, ”directs” or “controls” the macroeconomy is foolish. It’s akin to duct taping the President to a Saturn 5 rocket, him putting his arms out just before liftoff and yelling “I’m steering this baby!”
David Henderson
Nov 19 2019 at 10:05am
You write:
You’re right. But that doesn’t mean a president has no effect on the economy. The tax cut and deregulation have had a major effect. So have Trump’s tariffs. It’s foolish to think otherwise. I think your students need to hear more nuance.
Alan Goldhammer
Nov 19 2019 at 1:00pm
I was the principal spokesperson for drug safety issues when I was working at PhRMA (retired back in 2010). I had to deal with interviews much tougher than the ones David usually fields. We had a requirement that all press interviews had to go through the public affairs office and we had to have a representative from that division on the call with me. this was to make sure the interview stayed on topic and that there was a second set of ears listening in that could track things. One doesn’t have control over what the reporter will do with the interview material. As David knows, things are easily taken out of context and the one or two most irrelevant quotes are in the story.
I have one funny aside to my working days. The late Robert Pear, who was one of the principal healthcare reporters for the NY Times, always called me on my direct line which was awkward. The first time it happened I put him off and went down to Public Affairs to let them know and ask what I should do in the future. They laughed and said this was Pear’s MO and that I should talk with him on things that were not controversial. My mantra at the time was “I’ve been media trained and can talk about anything without saying much of importance.”
David Henderson
Nov 19 2019 at 7:45pm
I wrote on this blog once about the great treatment I received from Robert Pear when he called me about health issues in the fall of 1982. He was a very careful reporter and he cut me some slack because he realized that I was new to the job.
Vivian Darkbloom
Nov 20 2019 at 12:11pm
I think that the most aggregious thing about this is that Zahn misrepresented to you the nature of the project in the first place. This was never intended, as the e-mail states, as a “story about President Trump’s economic performance so far”. The project was an open letter to the President expressing Andy Serwer’s views (following a similar letter he had written earlier in Trump’s term). Rather than a “story” it was much more in the nature of an opinion piece. There is a big difference: In an opinion piece the author is going to be looking for quotes to support his or her point of view. It is most likely that Serwer didn’t agree with the other points that you made and selectively picked the one quote that he agreed with (and that would “spice up” the letter). I’m not sure how you would have reacted if Zahn had been more forthright on the nature of the project, but I suspect that if he had been you might have declined to be interviewed. The interview was ostensibly about your views, not Serwer’s.
David Seltzer
Nov 21 2019 at 6:01pm
“I told him that a 40 percent raise in the minimum wage is not a modest increase and that I was glad Trump didn’t keep that promise; indeed, I said, one reason we have such great employment numbers is that the federal minimum wage hasn’t increased so that it’s easier for unskilled workers to find jobs.” Apparently Zahn displayed ignorance of Econ 101 principles. He believes demand is inelastic. Assuming unit elasticity, employment would decline by 40 percent.
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