Here's the Daily Mirror's polling day advice from days when it was more fair and balanced (h/t Guido) http://t.co/GJ5CNGMoRj—
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) May 07, 2015
Newspaper bias just ain’t what it used to be
10 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, Public Choice Tags: British elections, creative destruction, expressive voting, London newspapers, media bias, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, red scares
Hopeless KiwiRail bailout reporting by Radio New Zealand
10 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economics of bureaucracy, economics of media and culture, politics - New Zealand, rentseeking, transport economics Tags: corporate welfare, KiwiRail, media bias, privatisation, public ownership, Radio New Zealand, state owned enterprises
This morning on 9 to noon on Radio New Zealand, Kathryn Ryan, the compere of the program, repeatedly claimed that the government pumped $1 billion into the KiwiRail Turnaround Plan between 2010 and 2014. I was so annoyed by this that I made a broadcasting standards complaint while the program was still being broadcast on my mobile as a one finger typist.
The report on 9 to Noon was in response to the government putting KiwiRail on notice, giving it two years to identify savings and reduce Crown funding required or risk the possibility of closure. Since KiwiRail was acquired in 2008 for $665 million as a commercial investment, Crown investments (taxpayers bailout) totalled $3.4 billion – see Figure 1.
Figure 1: State-owned enterprise welfare, Vote Transport and Vote Finance (KiwiRail), Budgets 08/09 to 15/16
Source: New Zealand budget papers, various years.
Table 1 shows that the KiwiRail Turnaround plan of $1.272 billion since the 2009-10 Budget is only a small part of the bailout of KiwiRail. 9 to Noon simply ignored the $210 million in the 2015 budget for KiwiRail for no explicable reason and instead talked about a $1 billion Turnaround plan rather than the $1.272 billion Turnaround plan.
Table 1: State-Owned Enterprise welfare, Vote Transport and Vote Finance (KiwiRail), Budgets 2008/09 to 2015/16, $million
| 08/09 |
09/10 |
10/11 |
11/12 |
12/13 |
13/14 |
14/15 |
15/16 |
|
|
New Zealand Railways Corporation Loans |
405 |
55 |
250 |
108 |
11 |
|||
|
KiwiRail Turnaround Plan |
20 |
250 |
250 |
250 |
94 |
198 |
210 |
|
|
KiwiRail Equity Injection |
323 |
25 |
29 |
|||||
|
Rail Network and Rolling Stock Upgrade |
105 |
71 |
10 |
|||||
|
New Zealand Railways Corporation Loans |
55 |
|||||||
|
New Zealand Railways Corporation Increase in Capital for the Purchase of Crown Rail |
376 |
|||||||
|
Crown Rail Operator Loans |
140 |
|||||||
|
Crown Rail Operator Equity Injection |
7 |
|||||||
|
Total |
578 |
530 |
376 |
510 |
680 |
119 |
209 |
239 |
Source: New Zealand budget papers, various years.
Other parts of the bailout of KiwiRail include $405 million in loans to the New Zealand Railways Corporation in the 2009-10 budge – see table 1. There was a $323 million equity injection in the 2012-13 Budget – see table 1. KiwiRail has also caused write-downs in the Crown balance sheet of an incredible $9.8 billion since it was repurchased in 2008.
9 to Noon ignored at least two thirds of the cost to the taxpayer of bailing out KiwiRail by only limiting its reporting to part of the KiwiRail Turnaround Plan. It ignored the contribution in the most recent budget to that plan. That does not meet broadcasting standards of accuracy or professional responsibility.
Any reasonable listener will infer, as I did when listening, that the entire cost of the bailout of KiwiRail is represented by the Turnaround Plan of about $1 billion. If listeners were left with that impression, they were misled by 9 to Noon and Radio New Zealand.
The political bias of psychologists
05 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, economics of education, economics of media and culture, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: academic bias, bureaucratic bias, expressive voting, Leftover Left, media bias, occupational choice, political bias, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, social psychology, Twitter left
Why is it that the economics profession is the only profession questioned on the grounds of its political diversity?
1) Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years;
2) This lack of political diversity can undermine the validity of social psychological science via mechanisms such as the embedding of liberal values into research questions and methods, steering researchers away from important but politically unpalatable research topics, and producing conclusions that mischaracterize liberals and conservatives alike;
3) Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias mechanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority’s thinking; and
4) The underrepresentation of non-liberals in social psychology is most likely due to a combination of self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination.
via Psychology’s Political Diversity Problem | Psychology Today.
The media history of climate change scares
03 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, energy economics, entrepreneurship, environmental economics, global warming, industrial organisation, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: climate alarmism, global cooling, global warming, media bias
The academic bias that dare not speak its name
23 Jun 2015 2 Comments
Academic libs in soc sci and humanities, cons in business and nursing, moderates in engineering and computer sci http://t.co/ixwbWb5M6X—
Whyvert (@whyvert) May 23, 2015
Creative destruction in content control
01 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, survivor principle Tags: consumer sovereignty, creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness, media bias
Media bias is not new
09 May 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of information, economics of media and culture, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: media bias
The Sun adds colour to every British election
07 May 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture Tags: British general election, media bias
The essence of media bias in America
02 May 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, politics - USA Tags: media bias
The wage stagnation that dare not speak its name
30 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, labour economics, occupational choice Tags: gender analysis, gender wage gap, media bias, reversing gender gap, wage stagnation
Who trusts which news source?
03 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, industrial organisation, survivor principle Tags: media bias, voter demographics
@47Patriots @GaltsGirl @corrcomm @lyndseyfifield @CathyYoung63
whoever u r, u r more trustworthy than @BuzzFeed http://t.co/sv4snHyMF2—
SonOfPatriarchy (@sports2inflatio) April 02, 2015
People have no illusions when they read the tabloids
26 Mar 2015 Leave a comment
Possibly more concerning: the 'trust gap' between upmarket (e.g. Telegraph) and tabloid papers is down from 51 to 30 http://t.co/q9VurKexys—
William Jordan (@williamjordann) February 18, 2015
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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