Bill Bennett, apparently. Or was it Good Morning America? Or World News Tonight? Or an ad in USA Today? Causality is not always easy to identify. The following chart, kindly supplied by Bill Tancer from www.hitwise.com, documents Freakonomics’ share of the web traffic from the millions of internet users that Hitwise tracks (and for fun, Bill Bennett’s too): Last week . . .
Tonight (Oct. 7), there is another segment of “Freakonomics Friday” on ABC’s World News Tonight. Last week’s segment was an introduction to Freakonomics that also focused on the book’s cheating-teacher chapter. (It was incredibly well produced: smart and thoughtful and nuanced, which isn’t easy in 2.5 minutes; TV and ideas don’t always mix well but the ABC folks know seem . . .
On Friday, Sept. 30, ABC’s “World News Tonight” (6:30 p.m. Eastern) will feature a segment on Freakonomics, the first of what may be several such segments. The ABC website goes so far as to declare today “Freakonomics Friday.” Linda Jines, who is Steve Levitt’s sister and who came up with the title Freakonomics, should feel especially proud of herself today.