The Academic-to-Journalist Pipeline
Left-wing scholars dodge peer review by taking their work directly to complicit cheerleaders in the newsroom. July 20, 2023 9:45 am ET Photo: Getty Images Joshua Rauh and Gregory Kearny’s op-ed “The Economists Who Would Rather Be Influencers” (July 17) highlights an unfortunate trend in scholarly research, extending well beyond the economics profession. Two decades ago, historian Michael Bellesiles lost a prestigious award after other researchers found evidence of data fabrication in his book “Arming America.” Had these events occurred today, an army of activist-journalists would likely rally to his defense out of agreement with the pro-gun-control message of his book. Similar examples abound. Journalists fawning over the sloppy and erroneous modeling of Imperial College’s Neil Ferguson provided a crucial boost for lockdowns during the Covid p
Photo: Getty Images
Joshua Rauh and Gregory Kearny’s op-ed “The Economists Who Would Rather Be Influencers” (July 17) highlights an unfortunate trend in scholarly research, extending well beyond the economics profession. Two decades ago, historian Michael Bellesiles lost a prestigious award after other researchers found evidence of data fabrication in his book “Arming America.” Had these events occurred today, an army of activist-journalists would likely rally to his defense out of agreement with the pro-gun-control message of his book.
Similar examples abound. Journalists fawning over the sloppy and erroneous modeling of Imperial College’s Neil Ferguson provided a crucial boost for lockdowns during the Covid pandemic. Media embrace of the error-riddled “1619 Project” propelled it into our K-12 classrooms as a new American history curriculum. And as Messrs. Rauh and Kearny allude, economist Gabriel Zucman first popularized the unfounded claim that the rich pay lower tax rates than the poor by releasing it to friendly journalists instead of other scholars, who quickly uncovered empirical sleights of hand in the underlying data.
To left-leaning academics, the incentives are clear. If your politics align with the press’s, it is now possible to bypass the inconveniences of peer review by taking your work directly to complicit cheerleaders in the newsroom.
Phillip W. Magness
American Institute for Economic Research
Great Barrington, Mass.
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