Dean Baker Is Remarkably Calm and Measured, Considering...

Dean Baker on Washington Post "reporter" Michael Dobbs's claim that:

[T]ake your pick. Depending on the statistics you use, Mexican economic growth over the last two decades has been either [the Post's claim of] 337 percent, [the IMF's] 125 percent, or [Dean Baker's] 83 percent.

The Post Goes Post-Modern on NAFTA: Mr. Dobbs... seemed to come to the conclusion that there are different ways to measure growth, and you get to pick the one you like best. While I tried to explain that this is not true, I apparently could not convince the Post's fact checker....

[I]f the Post wants to use the methodology from its NAFTA editorial... it should use the same methodology to report GDP growth for other countries. According to the Washington Post methodology, Argentina's economy has grown... 11.6 percent annually. Venezuela... 10.5 percent....

The Post has never used these numbers in discussing growth for other countries. This is not a debatable point. The Post used an inappropriate methodology... it is time that the Post came clean...

Comments

[MattF]

Not to mention growth in Zimbabwe. Off the charts-- but whether it's the top of the charts or the bottom of the charts is up to you.

[pgl]

Let's go back to the beginning. Dobbs is trying to defend a story that reported nominal GDP growth with no adjustment for inflation. Now he decides there may be alternative means for capturing real growth? OK - but to ignore inflation altogether is not a credible exercise (even if Lawrence Kudlow does this routinely over at The National Review).

[tedb]

The Post has a fact-checker?

[Charles]

Tedb asks, "The Post has a fact-checker?"

There are four definitions of fact checker. The Post has a fact checker who meets the requirements of three of them, but does not actually check facts.

As for the Dobbs story, it's becoming clear that the Washington Post has examined the entire field of news and has decided to focus on reporting Alternate Realities.