6 ms·

I've always found the answer to this to be - thinly, superficially, and with poor dead prose. I've never understood how they managed to cultivate the image the

by ojbyrne 10y ago

I've always found the answer to this to be - thinly, superficially, and with poor dead prose. I've never understood how they managed to cultivate the image they seem to have created.

coldtea 10y ago
It's simple: their audience is not the most sophisticated in international affairs, just a step up from the average newspaper or TV coverage. Now, THIS is real reporting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14153346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14153346
- nindalf 10y ago
  I've been reading the Economist for more than a decade and other publications as well in that time. They do an excellent job in my opinion of covering a variety of topics. Obviously reading specialized publications of each industry would give you a better idea, but a broad overview is great too. For example, here's an article from 2011, titled "Print me a Stradivarius" [1]. If you were already familiar with 3D printing, the article might have struck you as elementary. But the vast majority of people don't work in tech, especially not in hardware tech. Such people almost certainly would not have heard of 3D printing in 2011, and learning about this would have been very valuable. What I appreciate about the Economist is their restraint in covering current topics. A lot of their coverage is in-depth and subjects which _aren't_ topical. They aren't without flaws, but I've learnt a lot over the last decade by reading the Economist. [1] - http://www.economist.com/node/18114327 http://www.economist.com/node/18114327 Side note, the last time I criticised a pithy, poorly researched put down by you, I was told off by a moderator. I wonder if someone could defend this comment as somehow adding value to this discussion.
  - simonh 10y ago
    Their coverage in the run-up to the financial crisis was excellent. When it hit the fan I knew exactly what a credit default swap was, what subprime mortgages were and why they were both possible sources of risk in the financial system and what a liquidity crisis was because TE had been covering them for years. By no means am I saying the predicted the crisis, but their coverage of the issues enabled me to have a pretty clear picture of what was happening and why.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Side note, the last time I criticised a pithy, poorly researched put down by you, I was told off by a moderator. I wonder if someone could defend this comment as somehow adding value to this discussion. It's my opinion about the Economist, and especially about their coverage of world affairs (which I explicitly mention in my comment). And I've been quite familiar with the domain, having worked with people covering world affairs for over a decade or so (for print and radio). I don't like their neoliberal mantra of privatisation and deregulation, and I don't find their British foreign policy biases to allow for much integrity. You might not like my comment. That said, I don't see how holding grudges, and carrying older "pithy, poorly researched put downs" on your shoulders, trying to finally "get back" at another commenter is any good. I don't even remember our discussion. Perhaps you could have just stated your opinion on the subject, instead of your opinion on fellow HNers? The "pithy, poorly researched put down" could just as well have been just a true (or reasonable), but unpopular opinion. As a European, I don't have the most favorable views, nor share many viewpoints with the American HN audience. I don't particularly care for the "free market" either or other such things many are hot for -- which is one of the reasons I find the Economist shallow.
    - matt4077 10y ago
      You didn't insult the Economist, but their audience. And your point is simply factually wrong. It's probably easy to find statistics on their readership showing they're far more educated and international than average. But I'll use a slightly more fun way to show it: it's the only medium I know that regularly has classifieds in the back selling whole airports in Gambia, refineries in Vietnam, or inviting applications to be the UN's High Commissioner for Complicated Negotiations regarding Time Zones in littoral Antarctica.
      - coldtea 10y ago
        >It's probably easy to find statistics on their readership showing they're far more educated and international than average. That doesn't say much -- in fact the idea that these university degrees say anything of importance about the readership is totally contrary to how I view this, which would be much closer to the concept of the "intellectual yet idiot" (IYE) as proposed by Nassim Taleb (and similar ideas, put forward many more prominent thinkers through the last few centuries, e.g. the idea of the Philistine, or Flaubert's mockery of the educated middle class' "received ideas"). >But I'll use a slightly more fun way to show it: it's the only medium I know that regularly has classifieds in the back selling whole airports in Gambia, refineries in Vietnam, or inviting applications to be the UN's High Commissioner for Complicated Negotiations regarding Time Zones in littoral Antarctica. Kind of makes my point. The ruling elites where never known for their intelligence -- but it's even less so in the 21st century (Trump anyone? Bush? Even Obama and Clinton are more mass media darlings than men of state the way someone like Churchill or De Gaulle was, with a knowledge of the world's intricacies and world history). As I said, I'm not very much for received ideas and preconceived notions of what's worthy and what's intelligent. And degrees really don't tell me anything for this. Any idiot can have one (I should know, for I have one). Even more so, any idiot can have the money to buy a "refinery in Vietnam". It might take business savvy (if the money weren't inherited in the first place, or stolen from the public, e.g. by some corrupt public official), but that's not the same thing as someone understanding foreign affairs.

by ojbyrne 10y ago

I've always found the answer to this to be - thinly, superficially, and with poor dead prose. I've never understood how they managed to cultivate the image they seem to have created.

coldtea 10y ago

It's simple: their audience is not the most sophisticated in international affairs, just a step up from the average newspaper or TV coverage. Now, THIS is real reporting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14153346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14153346

nindalf 10y ago
I've been reading the Economist for more than a decade and other publications as well in that time. They do an excellent job in my opinion of covering a variety of topics. Obviously reading specialized publications of each industry would give you a better idea, but a broad overview is great too. For example, here's an article from 2011, titled "Print me a Stradivarius" [1]. If you were already familiar with 3D printing, the article might have struck you as elementary. But the vast majority of people don't work in tech, especially not in hardware tech. Such people almost certainly would not have heard of 3D printing in 2011, and learning about this would have been very valuable. What I appreciate about the Economist is their restraint in covering current topics. A lot of their coverage is in-depth and subjects which _aren't_ topical. They aren't without flaws, but I've learnt a lot over the last decade by reading the Economist. [1] - http://www.economist.com/node/18114327 http://www.economist.com/node/18114327 Side note, the last time I criticised a pithy, poorly researched put down by you, I was told off by a moderator. I wonder if someone could defend this comment as somehow adding value to this discussion.
- simonh 10y ago
  Their coverage in the run-up to the financial crisis was excellent. When it hit the fan I knew exactly what a credit default swap was, what subprime mortgages were and why they were both possible sources of risk in the financial system and what a liquidity crisis was because TE had been covering them for years. By no means am I saying the predicted the crisis, but their coverage of the issues enabled me to have a pretty clear picture of what was happening and why.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Side note, the last time I criticised a pithy, poorly researched put down by you, I was told off by a moderator. I wonder if someone could defend this comment as somehow adding value to this discussion. It's my opinion about the Economist, and especially about their coverage of world affairs (which I explicitly mention in my comment). And I've been quite familiar with the domain, having worked with people covering world affairs for over a decade or so (for print and radio). I don't like their neoliberal mantra of privatisation and deregulation, and I don't find their British foreign policy biases to allow for much integrity. You might not like my comment. That said, I don't see how holding grudges, and carrying older "pithy, poorly researched put downs" on your shoulders, trying to finally "get back" at another commenter is any good. I don't even remember our discussion. Perhaps you could have just stated your opinion on the subject, instead of your opinion on fellow HNers? The "pithy, poorly researched put down" could just as well have been just a true (or reasonable), but unpopular opinion. As a European, I don't have the most favorable views, nor share many viewpoints with the American HN audience. I don't particularly care for the "free market" either or other such things many are hot for -- which is one of the reasons I find the Economist shallow.
  - matt4077 10y ago
    You didn't insult the Economist, but their audience. And your point is simply factually wrong. It's probably easy to find statistics on their readership showing they're far more educated and international than average. But I'll use a slightly more fun way to show it: it's the only medium I know that regularly has classifieds in the back selling whole airports in Gambia, refineries in Vietnam, or inviting applications to be the UN's High Commissioner for Complicated Negotiations regarding Time Zones in littoral Antarctica.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >It's probably easy to find statistics on their readership showing they're far more educated and international than average. That doesn't say much -- in fact the idea that these university degrees say anything of importance about the readership is totally contrary to how I view this, which would be much closer to the concept of the "intellectual yet idiot" (IYE) as proposed by Nassim Taleb (and similar ideas, put forward many more prominent thinkers through the last few centuries, e.g. the idea of the Philistine, or Flaubert's mockery of the educated middle class' "received ideas"). >But I'll use a slightly more fun way to show it: it's the only medium I know that regularly has classifieds in the back selling whole airports in Gambia, refineries in Vietnam, or inviting applications to be the UN's High Commissioner for Complicated Negotiations regarding Time Zones in littoral Antarctica. Kind of makes my point. The ruling elites where never known for their intelligence -- but it's even less so in the 21st century (Trump anyone? Bush? Even Obama and Clinton are more mass media darlings than men of state the way someone like Churchill or De Gaulle was, with a knowledge of the world's intricacies and world history). As I said, I'm not very much for received ideas and preconceived notions of what's worthy and what's intelligent. And degrees really don't tell me anything for this. Any idiot can have one (I should know, for I have one). Even more so, any idiot can have the money to buy a "refinery in Vietnam". It might take business savvy (if the money weren't inherited in the first place, or stolen from the public, e.g. by some corrupt public official), but that's not the same thing as someone understanding foreign affairs.