What's of interest to me is that this kind of scattershot critique of standard economic theory -- in which a whole bunch of disparate, even contradictory critiques are lumped together -- seems to be a common trope among journalists. My question is, why?

There's a Freakonomics-style question to be asked here -- are journalists who wash out of Ph.D. programs more or less likely to do this? What about journalists with overt ideological biases? And why the hell hasn't The New Republic written its standard, contrarian, "the neoclassical model does better than you think" kind of piece?

If you think I have an answer for this, guess again. Though for part of it the answer has to be how one writes articles. 'Balance' -- the bitch-goddess of journalism -- requires you to find two economists on, say, foreign trade sanctions who disagree on whether sanctions are good or bad, and report them. Now there's a whole lot of economists who are moderate Democrats who are against sanctions. But to get that person against the economist who might favor sanctions doesn't give you enough balance or contrast. So you pose them against a conservative economist.