February 13, 2006
Special Note on ERR
Dear ERR Readers,
As the Economic Reporting Review approaches its 10th anniversary, I have decided to give up writing the review in its current format. CEPR will continue producing an ERR-like feature, most likely a blog offering occasional comments on economic reporting, which I'm very excited about. We will continue producing ERR until its 10th anniversary on April 3.
I think that ERR has had a considerable impact over the past decade and I hope that you agree. I wrote ERR to push people to think critically about economic reporting and the economy. We've grown from just a handful to over 3,500 subscribers and I trust that ERR has been beneficial to each of them.
I know that ERR has influenced reporting. Many reporters (some not at the Times or Post) have discussed issues raised in ERR with me. Not all of them have agreed with the comments and criticisms that I have made, but getting them to take these points seriously is an important step. Whether directly or indirectly, people learn much of what they think about the economy through the media. When the media fails to present issues accurately or provide a full context in which facts can be understood, it is inevitable that the public will be ill-informed.
ERR has benefited greatly from the work of many excellent editors over the years: Pat Watson when I was at EPI, Jim Naureckas when ERR was hosted by FAIR, and my co-director Mark Weisbrot over the last six years. Our staff at CEPR (Andrea Blatchford, Marya Diaz, Josiane Georges, Nihar Bhatt, and Kathryn Bogel) have spent much time over the years in the design of ERR, the maintenance of our lists, and also helping with copy-editing.
Changing ERR's format will let me focus on other work. ERR began on April 1, 1996 (yes, April Fool's Day) when I was still working at the Economic Policy Institute. Since then I have written roughly 50 editions of ERR a year. To produce these, I read the New York Times and Washington Post cover-to-cover each and every day, which takes 15 to 20 hours of reading and writing each week. After ten years of this, I am ready to move on to other challenges.
Thank you for your support over these many years. I hope that you'll tune into CEPR's new blog and that you'll continue to demand that reporters get the numbers right.
Dean Baker
Author of ERR
Center for Economic and Policy
Research, 1611 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 293-5380, Fax: (202) 588-1356, Home: www.cepr.net