That's not a joke. The Post identified the person who wrote an article on the progress of a new farm bill as " contract writer for the newspaper and a fellow with the German Marshall Fund, a nonpartisan public policy institution that promotes understanding between the United States and Europe." This raises a whole set of questions that I will leave others to consider (e.g. is the German Marshall Fund paying this person's salary? If so, can other institutions pay to get someone on the staff of the Post, such as the Heritage Foundation or the American Petroleum Institute?). I will try to be positive on this one. Let's hope that our German Marshall Fund fellow is genuinely committed to being a good reporter. In that case, they will try to write their articles in ways that conveys information to readers. This means that they will express budget numbers in ways that are meaningful to readers. For example, the $1.8 billion in subsidies to fruit and vegetable growers over the next five years (which means the same to most readers as $18 billion or $180 million -- it's a big number), could be expressed as 0.012 percent of projected spending or approximately $1.20 per person per year. Most people have no idea where their tax dollars go and the budget reporters deserve most of the blame. They write their stories in ways that provides no context to readers. It is easy to do better.
--Dean Baker
