I can't pass for disinterested, but the major statistics have a de facto system of checks and balances. The Federal Reserve is never shy about calling, and their calls are answered. The private analysts who consume the data--who build their careers upon the data--are neither passive consumers nor without an audience for their challenges to the official stats. The policy factories such as Brookings can act in a similar way. Major academics, such as Robert Gordon of _After the New Economy_ fame, have seats on the advisory committees. Believe it or not, there is a fair amount of accountability.
None of which will compel the numbers to "speak for themselves." They can't, and they won't. The disputes over their significance owes more to the interests at stake than to perfidious geeks. That the map is not the territory doesn't make a liar of the cartographer.