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I was a subscriber for 4 years and I can confirm that the Economist is crap. It looks good compared to other choices like 'Times' or 'Newsweek' which are totall

by atmosx 11y ago

I was a subscriber for 4 years and I can confirm that the Economist is crap. It looks good compared to other choices like 'Times' or 'Newsweek' which are totally unreadable. * It has totally absurd double-standards: Russia, Iran, China and their puppets (e.g. Syria and so forth) are 'bad' and 'evil'. US, EU and the UK stand for 'justice and peace in the world'. If your world-view is so naive, then you deserve the economist. * You never know the author. You never know the actual author's background so reading between the lines is (in the beginning at least) hard * It has it's own view of economics, which most of the times is miles apart from the academia: If I had to choose between 'Buttonwood'[1] and Paul Krugman, I'd go with Krugman any day of the week. Having different opinion is one thing, diverting from mainstream academia views CONSTANTLY on 101 macro-economics is another. * The Economist is extremely PRO-WAR. There is NOT ONE instance that I recall the economist NOT backing a war: Afghanistan, Iraq... Latest one was Syria. The magazine's editor, openly called for the USA to attack Syria. The article (main article btw) was awful and brutal. Are there any good articles in there? Of course. There are many good articles featuring in the Economist. But overall it's not nearly as good and fair as most people think it is. I don't know if the editor changed after 2004, but me and many other readers have the feeling that after 2004-5 the quality dropped incrementally. Generally speaking I found "The New Yorker" to be the best[2] magazine so far. I think part of the reason is that it's not on the spotlight so much, as the 'Economist' and the authors receive less pressure to push a specific agenda. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttonwood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttonwood [2] When I say 'best' in this context I mean avoiding 'double standards' giving everyone a voice and so on. For example check out the articles on Wikileaks, Assange, Snowden or any controversial figure in the Economist vs New Yorker. The New Yorker features interviews, articles and views from both parties, not only from the US gov. The Economist on the other hand even when it tries to be fair to someone, uses diminutive terms like "unorthodox", "unconventional", "self-proclaimed", etc. That's not journalism, that's manipulation. The worst form of manipulation.

Kutta 11y ago
Well, the Economist is a newspaper with an officially non-neutral stance. I can hardly view it "the worst form of manipulation" when it's not different from every blog and personal column ever in this sense. As to the Iraq war, it might have been the case that they supported the invasion right at the beginning (someone could point me to links), but since the casus belli turned out to be bogus I can't remember reading anything but denunciation of the war from the Economist.
- jbooth 11y ago
  Yeah, but since the casus belli was ALWAYS OBVIOUSLY bogus, that's on them. Saddam held the world dicatatorship record for "number of times deterred as a rational actor after a little brinksmanship". He could have had the keys to the Russian arsenal and still not nuked anybody. Someone can say, with integrity, that they thought Iraq was a good strategic decision aside from the WMD nonsense, and can even say with integrity that they still think it was. Saying "Oh, I believed the intelligence and thought he was an imminent threat" is admitting up front that you can't read past the first 5 words of a headline.
gcv 11y ago
Your comment simply says that your politics don't align with The Economist's. I personally find the "he said, she said" style of reporting that purports to give a fair account of all sides intolerable and hypocritical. It often allows complete idiots to air their opinions in the name of presenting a "different" view. This lets the reporter subtly influence the reader while preserving the illusion of impartiality. The Economist is a highly biased newspaper. Unlike nearly all other publications aspiring to high-brow status, it displays its biases openly.
- atmosx 11y ago
  > It often allows complete idiots to air their opinions in the name of presenting a "different" view. There, you just described the economist. Okay, jokes apart... My 'problem' is that most mainstream media, doesn't consider the economist biased. I didn't consider the economist biased in the past. When I did, I stopped my subscription because it had nothing to offer: I knew beforehand what am I going to read on (almost) any given situation.
- Marazan 11y ago
  My main complaint with the Economist (as a subscriber) is that it doesn't display it's biases openly - it often presents controversial economic or social positions as settled fact in a neutral style. If you didn't know the subject it was writing on you would think they were presenting the orthodox position.
  - gcv 11y ago
    If you didn't catch The Economist's biases on a cursory reading of one issue, that's on you. Simply skimming one of the leader opinion pieces and comparing it to, e.g., a Krugman column, should tell you that the authors would come to blows. Besides, what is an "orthodox" position? Whose?
    - Marazan 11y ago
      I'm not talking about their overall world view I'm talking about their "Coffee growing in Guatamala" or "Cement production in the far east" articles - the ones where they are providing information on a relatively obscure subject. The articles present very matter of fact tones when in reality they are often reporting on one side of genuinely contraversial issues.
amirmc 11y ago
> "I don't know if the editor changed after 2004, but me and many other readers have the feeling that after 2004-5 the quality dropped incrementally." I'd concur with this. Even though I disagreed with some of the articles I found them to be well written/edited and I'd learn about different viewpoints (so I subscribed). They even published a style guide. I don't recall when but I started to feel that they (ironically) stopped following their own style guide and around the same time the quality began to drop.
Pinatubo 11y ago
> I don't know if the editor changed after 2004, but me and many other readers have the feeling that after 2004-5 the quality dropped incrementally. Bill Emmott resigned as editor in February 2006.
setpatchaddress 11y ago
I recall it being far more balanced prior to the Bush administration. They had a viewpoint: pro-free trade, and generally pro-civil-rights. You could reasonably disagree with the pro-free trade stance. Then, in the mid-naughts, I recall begin shocked as they started to run epic essays begging Karl Rove to attempt to rise above politics as usual, and about how Texas represented the future of the world. Completely off the rails.

by atmosx 11y ago

Kutta 11y ago

Well, the Economist is a newspaper with an officially non-neutral stance. I can hardly view it "the worst form of manipulation" when it's not different from every blog and personal column ever in this sense. As to the Iraq war, it might have been the case that they supported the invasion right at the beginning (someone could point me to links), but since the casus belli turned out to be bogus I can't remember reading anything but denunciation of the war from the Economist.

jbooth 11y ago
Yeah, but since the casus belli was ALWAYS OBVIOUSLY bogus, that's on them. Saddam held the world dicatatorship record for "number of times deterred as a rational actor after a little brinksmanship". He could have had the keys to the Russian arsenal and still not nuked anybody. Someone can say, with integrity, that they thought Iraq was a good strategic decision aside from the WMD nonsense, and can even say with integrity that they still think it was. Saying "Oh, I believed the intelligence and thought he was an imminent threat" is admitting up front that you can't read past the first 5 words of a headline.

gcv 11y ago

Your comment simply says that your politics don't align with The Economist's. I personally find the "he said, she said" style of reporting that purports to give a fair account of all sides intolerable and hypocritical. It often allows complete idiots to air their opinions in the name of presenting a "different" view. This lets the reporter subtly influence the reader while preserving the illusion of impartiality. The Economist is a highly biased newspaper. Unlike nearly all other publications aspiring to high-brow status, it displays its biases openly.

atmosx 11y ago
> It often allows complete idiots to air their opinions in the name of presenting a "different" view. There, you just described the economist. Okay, jokes apart... My 'problem' is that most mainstream media, doesn't consider the economist biased. I didn't consider the economist biased in the past. When I did, I stopped my subscription because it had nothing to offer: I knew beforehand what am I going to read on (almost) any given situation.
Marazan 11y ago
My main complaint with the Economist (as a subscriber) is that it doesn't display it's biases openly - it often presents controversial economic or social positions as settled fact in a neutral style. If you didn't know the subject it was writing on you would think they were presenting the orthodox position.
- gcv 11y ago
  If you didn't catch The Economist's biases on a cursory reading of one issue, that's on you. Simply skimming one of the leader opinion pieces and comparing it to, e.g., a Krugman column, should tell you that the authors would come to blows. Besides, what is an "orthodox" position? Whose?
  - Marazan 11y ago
    I'm not talking about their overall world view I'm talking about their "Coffee growing in Guatamala" or "Cement production in the far east" articles - the ones where they are providing information on a relatively obscure subject. The articles present very matter of fact tones when in reality they are often reporting on one side of genuinely contraversial issues.

amirmc 11y ago

> "I don't know if the editor changed after 2004, but me and many other readers have the feeling that after 2004-5 the quality dropped incrementally." I'd concur with this. Even though I disagreed with some of the articles I found them to be well written/edited and I'd learn about different viewpoints (so I subscribed). They even published a style guide. I don't recall when but I started to feel that they (ironically) stopped following their own style guide and around the same time the quality began to drop.

Pinatubo 11y ago

> I don't know if the editor changed after 2004, but me and many other readers have the feeling that after 2004-5 the quality dropped incrementally. Bill Emmott resigned as editor in February 2006.

setpatchaddress 11y ago

I recall it being far more balanced prior to the Bush administration. They had a viewpoint: pro-free trade, and generally pro-civil-rights. You could reasonably disagree with the pro-free trade stance. Then, in the mid-naughts, I recall begin shocked as they started to run epic essays begging Karl Rove to attempt to rise above politics as usual, and about how Texas represented the future of the world. Completely off the rails.