Until Doghouse Riley reminded me, I'd forgotten all about The Old Grey Lady's latterday Jove, little Danny Okrent, and his spat with America's Shrillest Nobel Laureate. Via the incomparable Howler:

In Daniel Okrent's parting shot as public editor of The New York Times, he levied a harsh charge against me: he said that I have "a disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults."

He offered no examples of my "disturbing habit," and maybe I should stop there: surely it's inappropriate for the public editor to attack the ethics of one of the paper's writers without providing any supporting evidence. He responded to my request for examples with criticisms of specific columns. Those criticisms were simply wrong: in each of those columns I played entirely fair with my readers, using the standard data in the standard way.

That should be the end of the story.

I want to go back to doing what I have been doing all along: using economic data to inform my readers.

PAUL KRUGMAN
Princeton, N.J., May 24, 2005

I guess the Nobel Commitee didn't consult Danny when shaping its views?

Or, who knows, perhaps they did -- and considered the source.