In late 2021, a Bank of England working paper described the role of economics news journalists as a relatively simple piece of optimization. When reporting the actions of central bankers, the paper said that journalists needed to trade off the ease of simply paraphrasing the words of officials against the potential benefits of writing news that is more satisfying to their readers.
Having worked as an economics reporter for over twenty years, I am faced with many trade-offs and choices, but this has never been one I have encountered. While seeking an easy life has its attractions, parroting the words of central bankers does not generally bring the good times with minimal effort.
Instead, the incentives that journalists deal with every day in economics news are rather more complicated. It is trivial to say journalists would want to maximize returns from delighting readers for minimal effort, but much more important...
