The challenges of the economics beat

David Kestenbaum of National Public Radio talks with Brooke Gladstone of “On the Media” about making the switch from covering science for the past decade to covering the economy.

Here is an excerpt:

DAVID KESTENBAUM: Sure. I mean, it’s not like physics, right? In physics and science in general I would argue, you are, in general, moving toward truth. You know, you’re moving toward an answer. I mean, no one thinks Einstein was wrong. Right? But economics, you know, I just feel like there are very few solid places to stand.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So here you are, you’re new, chaos all around you. I don’t know — what do you do?

DAVID KESTENBAUM: Basically my approach is to talk to five times as many people as I normally would [BROOKE LAUGHS], you know, on a beat that I know well. I just over report all these stories. You know, when someone says something to me, I say it back to them. I say, are you saying this, this, this? Do I have that right?

And a lot of the errors in reporting happen this way, right, it’s that you think you’ve understood something, and that you haven’t. And so I’m trying to be really careful that I actually — what I understand is correct.

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