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How do you feel about The Economist magazine?
12-11-2013, 02:27 PM
How do you guys feel about The Economist magazine with regards to their coverage of global news and economics? I know it's way above the caliber of Time and Newsweek, but even though it's for mainstream consumption I've found that the articles have good substance, aren't so America-centric and seem to be objective enough for my tastes. I like that they cover parts of the world that are completely ignored by U.S. press. They even use words that occasionally send me to the dictionary.
Edit --
Mods, this probably should've been in the knowledge, arts and letters forum. Feel free to move it if you want.
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12-11-2013, 02:42 PM
I work in finance and everyone I know reads the Economist as some sort of badge of intelligence. I have never made a penny investing/trading from reading any of their articles-so I don't subscribe anymore.
However, if you want to know what the global elite and decision makers are thinking about and discussing--this is your magazine.
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12-11-2013, 02:50 PM
It's overrated.
It's definitely not a bad magazine and the articles are decent but it's not nearly as insightful as some would have you believe. It's a signaling tool for the moderately intelligent.
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12-11-2013, 02:55 PM
It's a magazine by elites for elites. Not bad, but they're part of the same elite media circus that belittles the fabric that ties society together across class, Overall they're serious, so if you had to debate someone, I'd read it because it requires you hone your own opinions.
A year from now you'll wish you started today
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12-11-2013, 03:00 PM
I love The Economist, mainly because the articles are so well-written. My English professor in college put me onto it and said she liked it precisely for that reason. I agree. They do a great job in the way the writers structure their sentences. Very efficient and concise.
The Economist is also a very international publication enjoyed by people around world, especially among those who are well-educated, not necessarily elites. That's my magazine of choice when on an airplane and traveling internationally. Reading it just feels official. Widespread global coverage.
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12-11-2013, 03:15 PM
The Economist is a very efficient tool for keeping appraised of what's happening in the world. I don't read a newspaper regularly or watch TV news. I certainly don't watch cable news. A good weekly magazine is the best way for me to download the week's news. And The Economist is the only one out there now that isn't trash.
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12-11-2013, 03:42 PM
My favorite magazine when I want a deeper analysis of current events but not put to sleep.
The Economist deserves praise for raising topics that mainstream media wouldn't dare touch because it might offend some subscriber.
Been a subscriber myself for two years.
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12-11-2013, 03:45 PM
It's a good magazine to kill time with. On train journeys and so on. And the book reviews and science section are very good.
But it is pretty smug. I don't feel it really tries to challenge mainstream assumptions very much. I also think it has a better reputation outside of Britain since TIME and NEWSWEEK are such shockingly poor magazines.
I would recommend checking out The Spectator magazine here in the UK. But it may be a bit Brit-centric for foreign readers. Still - the best magazine articles I have come across in the past decade have all being in The Spectator and not The Economist.
The Economist is a good magazine. But I just feel that it is a bit flat-footed in its reporting and analysis, and as such it is slow to pick up on trends or to revise its assumptions.
Also - from what I have heard - most of the people who write for The Economist are 20-30 something PHD graduates. Which is fine - but it explains why their analysis since to be a bit bland and mainstream. And is lacking any real urgency to try and be creative, original or novel in its analysis.
And because the articles are unsigned - it gives The Economist an "ex-cathedra, this-piece-wasn't-written-by-a-named-journalist-ergo-it-must-be-more-reliable-than-a-bylined-article portentousness" (to quote the journalist James Dellingpole) reputation which is unearned.
The Economist is heavily promoting a mainstream agenda. But tries to hide that fact by pretending to be neutral. And often it struggles to find a point-of-view that it wants to express. So the more you read the magazine the more confusing its analysis can become.
It is a good magazine - but reading it can lead to a complacent worldview. Since it has a reputation which makes its articles appear more wise than they really are.
I dunno' - this is just how I feel. It seems it always takes the 'predictable' stance on every major issue and never holds it hand up when it calls it wrong.
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12-11-2013, 03:49 PM
The Economist is a socialist rag.
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12-11-2013, 04:03 PM
Quote: (12-11-2013 03:45 PM)cardguy Wrote:
But it is pretty smug. I don't feel it really tries to challenge mainstream assumptions very much. I also think it has a better reputation outside of Britain since TIME and NEWSWEEK are such shockingly poor magazines.
The Economist is a good magazine. But I just feel that it is a bit flat-footed in its reporting and analysis, and as such it is slow to pick up on trends or to revise its assumptions.
Also - from what I have heard - most of the people who write for The Economist are 20-30 something PHD graduates. Which is fine - but it explains why their analysis since to be a bit bland and mainstream. And is lacking any real urgency to try and be creative, original or novel in its analysis.
The Economist is heavily promoting a mainstream agenda. But tries to hide that fact by pretending to be neutral. And often it struggles to find a point-of-view that it wants to express. So the more you read the magazine the more confusing its analysis can become.
I like your post. I think TE is considered high brow in the US (though it's really not) due to the mediocrity of our domestic weekly news magazines.
The editorial stance is indeed smug and reflects a conservative (establishment) bent, but on certain issues they have been original for a long time. TE was in support of liberalizing drug laws, free immigration, and trade well before they become popular topics.
One other thing I like about TE is the illustrative images they attach to a story. They are usually witty.
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12-11-2013, 04:05 PM
It is famous for its obituaries as well. They are always very good - and often pick out people who have been overlooked that week. It is some of the best writing in the magazine.
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12-11-2013, 04:54 PM
Yes. The economist is mainstream. It is a very old publication, run by professional journalists with expertise in the subject on which the write. I'm not sure how this is a bad thing.
The best way to understand how the world works is to learn the orthodox mainstream version and then round that out with alternative sources. If you totally ignore a publication like The Economist and get all of your news from partisan ideological sites then you're being fed a bunch of nonsense.
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12-11-2013, 04:58 PM
It is a dry magazine. I don't mind that now because you get used to it after awhile.
But the problem with it being dry is that too many people confuse being dry with being intelligent.
So it becomes a bit of a stylistic crutch for psuedo-intellectuals.
Cardguy
PS - yes I always misspell pseudo! ;-)
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12-11-2013, 06:08 PM
Certainly a quality magazine.
I'm not sure I agree with those who say the editors' stance is unclear or neutral, at least when it comes to international policy. They clearly view Western intervention as the solution to most international crises. Take their original stance on Syria for example.
Though I often disagree with their gung-ho interventionist stance, the fact that they are honest about it and don't pretend to be 'neutral' like our MSM is one of the reasons I enjoy the magazine.
One of the few news publications that will not decrease your intelligence.
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12-11-2013, 06:18 PM
One of the best international publications along with the Financial Times.
The Economist is hated by nationalists on both sides of the pond because it's very pro capitalist, and takes a no holds barred approach in its recommendations to increasing profits and economic growth.
Capitalism in its more purer form mixes with nationalism like oil and water.
Socialists don't like the Economist due to the same reasons outlined above, but from the other side of the spectrum.
In my university days, I had access to an archive of the Economist's articles spanning over 100 years in the past. They were just as objective then, as they are now. Reading an article from 1864, you'd feel like it's the same journalist writing.
One article that struck me and made me appreciate the publication more was written right at the conclusion of the US civil war. The Economist was anti-slavery, pro union. Not because they were fans of Africans in America, although in typical Economist fashion they condemned slavery. But because they considered slavery to be depressing wages in the south, stifling innovation and industrialization, and creating an imbalanced labour pool. The war ending and the emancipation that followed was of great joy to the editor, concluding that there was now a bigger poor of labour to dip in, and that meant greater profits, and better standards of living for all. Typical Economist.
They had great objective articles during World War 2. They were exposing Hitler for his phoney economic policies and how Germany didn't have the capital to out produce the Allies, even if they had a better army.
Today the economist remains just as unflinching in its coverage of major global events.
Sometimes they'll even drop an investigative journalist article that blows the lid on something you think you knew, the sort of article that leaves you saying "shit..."
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12-11-2013, 11:08 PM
Quote: (12-11-2013 06:18 PM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:
outlined above, but from the other side of the spectrum.
In my university days, I had access to an archive of the Economist's articles spanning over 100 years in the past. They were just as objective then, as they are now. Reading an article from 1864, you'd feel like it's the same journalist writing.
One article that struck me and made me appreciate the publication more was written right at the conclusion of the US civil war. The Economist was anti-slavery, pro union. Not because they were fans of Africans in America, although in typical Economist fashion they condemned slavery. But because they considered slavery to be depressing wages in the south, stifling innovation and industrialization, and creating an imbalanced labour pool. The war ending and the emancipation that followed was of great joy to the editor, concluding that there was now a bigger poor of labour to dip in, and that meant greater profits, and better standards of living for all. Typical Economist.
Very good post. I was going to mention their abolitionist stance in my earlier post. That wasn't surprising to me for the reasons you mentioned, but also because by the time the US Civil War began, England had began industrializing and had outlawed slavery long before.
I'm also a subscriber like Vicious, but only because I had airline mileage points that I was able to trade in for free periodical subscriptions, so I chose Time, Wall Street Journal (online version), and The Economist. The Economist now offers all of their articles for free (I follow them on Twitter where they post them) and they were late to the game on that trend.
Btw, not sure how many of you guys know this trick (or if it's even necessary anymore) but one thing I've been doing for years to read unlimited articles from the NYT and The Economist is copy the headline and paste it to my address bar to run a search and then click on the link to it in the search results (usually is the first link). This is how you can bypass those "20 free articles a month" subscription for the NYT or any article where they try to get you to be a paid subscriber. Not sure why that works but I've been doing it for several years now. Each time you click on the link after doing that the full article appears.
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12-12-2013, 12:44 AM
Quote: (12-12-2013 12:35 AM)speakeasy Wrote:
Quote: (12-11-2013 11:08 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:
Btw, not sure how many of you guys know this trick (or if it's even necessary anymore) but one thing I've been doing for years to read unlimited articles from the NYT and The Economist is copy the headline and paste it to my address bar to run a search and then click on the link to it in the search results (usually is the first link). This is how you can bypass those "20 free articles a month" subscription for the NYT or any article where they try to get you to be a paid subscriber. Not sure why that works but I've been doing it for several years now. Each time you click on the link after doing that the full article appears.
What about just blocking cookies issued by the nytimes site? I take it that's what they are using to track how many articles you have read.
Yeah. That probably works.
This article lists a few ways to get around those paywalls.
http://betabeat.com/2013/02/5-ways-you-c...s-paywall/
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12-12-2013, 02:46 AM
I wouldn't say The Economist is mainstream at all, they are pro drug legalization among other things.
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12-14-2013, 01:02 AM
I recently got a few free magazine subscriptions as part of a frequent flyer miles program. The Economist was one of the magazines I picked, but the other options weren't that great.
Overall, it's about as good as a news magazine can be expected to be, but I find it off-putting overall.
For one thing, the overuse of snark in captions and titles. Everything is a pun, everything is a play on words. A little too cute for its own good.
Then there's the pro-establishment tone of everything. Which is fine, as far as it goes, but I don't necessarily want to hear about how some CEO in Singapore has a vision to change the world. Get fucked, pal, and don't forget to close the door on your way out.
The only magazine I'll pay to subscribe to, and that's been worth it to me, is The New Yorker. Good cultural articles, great sense of humor, great writing.
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12-14-2013, 01:22 AM
Ignore the parts about America, the UK, and "Science". Sadly, after Bill Emmott got fired, they just regurgitate NPR, The Guardian, and The Warmer crowd for those parts. The rest of the magazine is still quite good, but not what it used to be.
I remember quite clearly reading an article that said the Roman emperor Hadrian built the Parthenon. ... Um .. Don't you mean rebuilt the Pantheon? (apparently he built a small arch in Athens, but you expect them to do better).
If they can't get that right, why should I believe what they have to say about complex mathematical finance and international diplomacy.
The world has moved on from central news gathering organizations. If it is not true business data, or a local tv or newspaper, it's better to just look at blogs for your news.
